THE first result of young love was a sudden aversion to the well-known but freckled features of Skippy Bedelle. The examination in the looking-glass had left him in a condition of abject despair. Only a man, full-fledged and resplendent, could hope to hold the affections of the dazzling Mimi Lafontaine, and what a tousled, scrubby little urchin he was! That night he spent one dollar and twenty cents, out of a slender reserve, for toilette accessories, and began the long fight for a part in the middle of his reckless, foaming hair.
The next day marked a milestone in the sentimental progression of Mr. John C. Bedelle. For the first time in his life, his astonished eyes encountered a little blue envelope inscribed to his name in a large, dashing, unmistakably feminine hand. Neither mother nor sister, aunt or cousin had ever addressed that letter. He picked it up and then set it down with a sudden swimming feeling. It was postmarked "Farmington."
"My Lord, if it should be from her," he said.
There was, of course, one sure way to solve the difficulty, but Skippy was too overcome by his emotion to imagine it. Instead, he sat downand contemplated it with a mystical veneration.
"It can't be. No, no, it can't be from Mimi! Good Lord, no. A girl doesn't write to a man first," he said, shaking his head. "It's from Sis. It's a joke, and she's got some one else to address it. That's it."
He opened the letter, which read as follows:
Dear Jack,I'm writing you for Clara, who is, as you know, a dreadfully lazy person. School is over and I shall bring Clara back to Trenton with me day after to-morrow. Are you so bored with my dreadful sex or have you made a little exception? Any way, this is to warn you that you may have to be my cavalier once more if we decide to go again to Princeton.Faithfully yours,Mimi.I saw Cora Lantier in New York. She is going up to the Williams Commencement with avery dearfriend. Don't tell this to Mr. Sidell.
I'm writing you for Clara, who is, as you know, a dreadfully lazy person. School is over and I shall bring Clara back to Trenton with me day after to-morrow. Are you so bored with my dreadful sex or have you made a little exception? Any way, this is to warn you that you may have to be my cavalier once more if we decide to go again to Princeton.
Faithfully yours,Mimi.
I saw Cora Lantier in New York. She is going up to the Williams Commencement with avery dearfriend. Don't tell this to Mr. Sidell.
There are, of course, three ways of contemplating a letter written by a young lady, according to whether the recipient be a friend, is in love, or being in love, loves without hope. Skippy used all three methods. That night he placed four pairs of trousers to press under his mattress, discarded the dicky (a labor saving device formed by the junction of two cuffs and a collar which snapped into place and fulfilled the requirements of table etiquette), and painted the ends of his fingers with iodine to break himself of the habit of living on his nails.
On the following Saturday, Mr. Sidell being still, as it were, under absent treatment, Mr. Turkey Reiter making the fourth, Skippy experiencedthe terrifying joy of sitting in the back seat next to Miss Mimi Lafontaine.
"You bad boy, why didn't you answer my letter?" said that young lady, after a careful inspection of the embarrassed Skippy had resulted in much increased satisfaction.
"I wrote you three times," he said, staring at his shoes.
"Three—then they must have gone to the school."
"I tore them up," he said, under his voice.
Between a feminine nineteen and a masculine fifteen, much is permissible. Miss Mimi, under protection of the rug, slid her little hand into his painfully-scrubbed one.
"Poor fellow!" she said softly.
"Gee!"
It was not exactly the last word in romance, but it came from the heart, a sort of final gasp as Skippy felt the waters closing above him. With her hand in his, something rose in his throat and he had to fight back the dimming of his eyes. By the time they rolled into Princeton there was no longer need of explanation. He felt that she knew beyond the shadow of a mistake, just what he felt for her, he, Skippy, who had never loved before. Of course she was not pledged. That he comprehended. She was yet to be won. The years between them were nothing. Josephine Beauharnais was older than Napoleon. By the time they returned tothe school, he had opened his heart impulsively and spread before the astonished ideal of his affections the treasures of his inventive imagination. Miss Lafontaine had been sympathetic. She had understood at once. She had rather lightly passed over the Bedelle Improved Bathtub. The subject, of course, was a delicate one; but the idea of mosquito-proof stockings had captured her imagination. With her faith acquired he could wait for years the coming opportunity.
"Why, Jack, I never heard of such an imagination," she said, converting an explosive laugh into a sneeze in the nick of time.
"Oh, that's just a beginning," he said confidently. "I've got bigger things than that stored away."
"Why, you'll be richer than Rockefeller!"
"That's only a small part of it," he said carelessly. What of course he had wished her to know, and he flattered himself that he had done it with great delicacy, was that he was a prize worth waiting for.
"You didn't tell Mr. Sidell about Cora, did you?" said Mimi irrelevantly, as they arrived at the school and she began anxiously to scan the passing groups.
"You bet I didn't, good Lord, no, Mimi."
"I was sure I could trust you," said Miss Lafontaine,—who of course had hoped for quite a different issue.
"Gee! this has been one day," he said, half smothered with emotion.
"Has it really?" said the young lady, giving his arm a little squeeze.
"I shall never, never forget."
"Jack, that's what they all say."
Her skepticism pained him. He wanted to do something, something heroic to show her the manly quality of his devotion.
"I don't suppose there's any chance of your getting permission to come back with us for dinner," said Clara Bedelle to Turkey.
"About as much chance as my passing a Bible exam," said Turkey cheerfully.
A great idea smote down on Skippy,—he would accomplish the impossible!
"Swear to keep a secret, Mimi?" he said in a whisper.
"I swear."
"I shall call on you at exactly nine thirty to-night."
"Good gracious, but we're ages away."
"What difference does that make? There is something I've just got to say to you."
"But if they catch you!"
"They won't."
"But, Jack, how will you get there?"
"I'll come on the run," said Skippy gorgeously; which proved that if his experience was limited he had certain intuitions to build upon.
When Skippy directly after supper bolted to his room and began to scrub for the superlative toilette, after collecting a pair of kid gloves from Butcher Stevens and a purple tie from Dennis de Brian de Boru, Snorky Green was finally convinced that matters had reached a serious pass.
"I thought you were in New York," he said, remembering Skippy's previous declaration.
"What? Oh yes!" Skippy, whose mind was not on consistency, hastily caught himself. "Oh, Tina! She came down to meet me."
"What in the mischief are you up to now?"
"For the love of Pete don't bother me," said Skippy. "Tell you later. Honest, Snorky, it's serious, and I'm in a devil of a hurry."
He struggled into his best pair of low blacks, and suddenly a new perplexity arose. What would they look like after five miles tramp through the fields and the dust? Yet if he openly pocketed a shoebrush and cloth, how explain this to the ever-incredulous Snorky? The window was open. He simulated a final polish and profiting by a favorable moment tossed the brush and cloth out into the dark. Then he stationed himself before the mirror for the final struggle to achieve a part.
"Looks like last year's toothbrush," said Dennis de Brian de Boru, via the transom, his usual defensive position.
"Looks like the home rooster when the imported bantam has left," said Snorky.
"Looks like a cat that's walked in the mucilage."
"That'll be quite enough," said Skippy, whose patience was evaporating.
"Vaseline'll do the trick," said Dennis softly.
Vaseline! Skippy seized upon the idea in desperation. But to his horror, once the part was achieved, the slippery and sticky effect of the flattened hair was horrifying.
"Where in Moses is that Irishman!" he cried, slamming open the door.
"Face powder will take the shine off," said Snorky, after an immersion of the head in the washbasin had aggravated the catastrophe.
"My Lord, I've got to do something," said Skippy, almost in tears. Snorky came to his rescue and between a vigorous rubbing with a bath towel and a liberal sprinkling of talcum powder, an effect was finally produced which at least was not shiny. Skippy, who had been glancing at his watch every three minutes, ended his toilette in a whirl.
"How much money have you got?"
Snorky produced three quarters.
"I'll send it back to you if I don't return."
A light burst over Snorky, confirming his worst suspicions.
"Skippy," he said, seizing his arm, "you're running away! You're going on the stage!"
He had not thought of this, but he appropriated the suggestion at once by avoiding a denial.
"Snorky, old pal," he said solemnly, "stand by me now. When it's all over I'll write you."
"But, good Lord, Skippy—"
"Don't try to stop me. My mind's made up."
"But I say—"
"I've given myword," said Skippy tragically. "If I'm not back by eight o'clock to-morrow morning, mail this letter to my mother and give this to the Doctor. Good-bye. God bless you—and I'll pay you back the first money I earn."
HE recovered the shoebrush from under the window of Tabby, the young assistant house-master, and tucking it into his pocket, skirted the outer limits of the school, dodged behind a fence, and creeping on all-fours, made a wide detour via the pond and rejoined the high road to Trenton which lay five dusty miles away. Luckily the evening was overclouded and the shadows protecting. His problem was not simply to arrive at the Lafontaines' at exactly the hour but to arrive there with a cool and dignified appearance. It was hot, and the derby hat pressed down on the vaselined hair was hotter than anything about him, hotter even than the parched fields and the steaming asphalt which yielded to his feet.
"Gosh, I oughter have brought a towel," he said, when at the end of twenty minutes he stopped to remove his hat and allow the hot vapors to escape. He sat down and fanned himself vigorously. Then he took off his necktie and collar and placed them in his pocket, and finally shed his coat under favor of the night. He could scarcely distinguish the road beneath him, and several times only saved himself from sprawling on his nose by a convulsive graspingat a nearby fence. But what did the toil, the heat, or the terrors of the night matter? He was going to see her again. Not only that but he would come to her surrounded by the romance of a great danger run, just to sit in her presence, to hear her voice, to see in her eyes some tender recognition of what he had dared for her. This was romance indeed!
A dog came savagely out of the night. How was he to know that a fence intervened? He ran a quarter of a mile and again sat down. It grew hotter; he was dripping from head to foot. A wagon or two went by, but he did not dare to ask for a ride, for fear of encountering some agent of the Doctor's secret police. For, perhaps, his absence was already discovered and the alarm had gone out.
The heat and the discomfort somewhat interfered with the free play of his imagination, but the quality of romance still kept with him.
"When I'm twenty-one," he said to himself again and again, in a vague defiance of all the hostile powers of Society. Only five years and six weeks intervened before the glowing horizon of liberty. Did she care? Even that did not matter. She knew what the future held for him. The main thing, the thing to cling to, was that her heart was kind. Of that there could be no question. How gentle and how understanding she had been! He could come to her and tell her anything—absolutely anything!
"Good Lord, what a difference it makes to have some one you can trust," he said solemnly to the night. "Some one to work for!"
At nine o'clock he reached the outskirts of Trenton, and having cooled off, put on his collar and necktie. Then he stopped at a stationer's to ask his way. A large florid young woman, chewing gum, was behind the counter, patting down her oily chestnut curls.
"Say, can you tell me where the Lafontaines live?" he said with an extra polite bow.
Fortunately she knew and directed him.
"You're one of them Lawrenceville boys, ain't you?" she said, eyeing with curiosity the oozy ruffle of his hair.
Skippy was shocked at this easy discovery of his youth.
"Come off. I'm a member of the Princeton faculty," he said loftily.
"Well, I think you're one of them Lawrenceville boys," she said, following him to the door.
He waved back gaily and went skipping up the street. He arrived before the Lafontaine mansion with exactly five minutes to spare. The old Colonial house was set back in a wide plot and masked by convenient foliage. Skippy, passing down the side wall, sheltered himself behind a bush, his heart pumping with excitement, and drew on the gloves which he had borrowed from Butcher Stevens. Then extracting the shoebrush and cloth from his pocket,he busied himself hurriedly with removing from his trousers and shoes all traces of the dusty way he had come. This done, he hid the brush and cloth under the bush and straightened up. Unfortunately either the last preparations or the terrific sentimental strain of facing his first call upon a member of the opposite sex had so increased his temperature that his forehead was again covered with perspiration.
"Great Willies! I can't go in like this—if I only had a handkerchief—what am I to do?"
But just at the moment when he had improvised into a towel the most available part of his shirt, his heart stood still at hearing above him the following conversation:
"Mimi, you're a witch," said the voice of his sister, "I never would have believed it."
"Well, my dear, you wanted me to wake him up. I've done it. Goodness, I never saw any one go down so quickly. I really believe he's going to propose! If you could have seen his funny eyes when he told me that there was something he justhadto say to me."
"For heaven's sake keep it up. It's better than soap, Mimi. One look at his hands and I knew he was in love."
"My dear, what do you think—he's had my photograph for weeks—the one I gave you, of course. Now if that isn't a real romance. . . ."
"He ought to be spanked, that boy—stealing away from school!"
"My dear, he's told me all about his life's ambitions."
"What's that?"
"It's something about a bathtub—some sort of an invention that's going to revolutionize the bathtub industry."
"Then it must be the outside of a bathtub," said Clara with a sisterly laugh. "Mimi, I just must hear his proposal."
"You'll laugh and spoil it all."
"On my honor!"
Ten minutes later, Miss Mimi Lafontaine put on her kindliest smile as ushered in by the maid Mr. John C. Bedelle came magnificently into the room, spick and span, cool as the cucumber is credited to be at any temperature; an immaculate purple tie blooming under an unsullied collar, with only a slight pollen on the carefully-divided hair. How was she to know that, in five minutes, under the sting of betrayed confidence and broken illusions, a complete moral transformation had made of the urchin a man in the embryo, fired by the burning impulses of the deadliest hatred?
He did not stumble or wind himself up in the curtain or upset the bowl of goldfish on the slight étagère by the sofa. He came in with a manner that was so completely nonchalant that Miss Mimi was manifestly impressed.
"Really, Jack, I'm beginning to suspect you're an old hand." Page 140"Really, Jack, I'm beginning to suspect you're an old hand." Page 140
"Why, Jack, you don't look as though you hadrunat all," she said encouragingly.
"Oh, I picked up a buggy and took it easy," he said, seating himself and arranging the trouser crease with nicety. Then having perceived under the sofa the telltale slippers of Miss Clara Bedelle, he added, "I say, how did you ever keep it from Sis?"
"Oh, she thinks it's another caller," said Mimi, staring a little. "Really, Jack, I'm beginning to suspect you're an old hand."
"Well, of course this isn't the first time," he said, leaning back and sinking his fists in his trousers pockets.
Miss Mimi gave a gasp of astonishment.
"Well, I never, and all you said to me too about the photograph and the letters you tore up."
"Did you really believe all that?" said Skippy with a smile that seemed to cut across his face. His heart was bursting; yet the task of revenge was sweet. "You know Sidell and I are old hunting partners."
Miss Lafontaine sat upright, forgetting everybody in the dismay of her discovery.
"Jack Bedelle, do you mean to say that it was all fixed up between you two?"
Again Mr. John C. Bedelle smiled.
"Oh, we know a trick or two, even if we're still in school."
Miss Mimi's look was not such as is generallyascribed to the gentler sex. She bit her lip and said furiously:
"You just tell Mr. Sidell—" and then, quite suffocated with rage, she stopped and flung a little fan, furiously, across the room.
"Now I see her as she is," thought Skippy with a healing delight. Aloud he added: "Oh, if you really want to know the truth about Sidell, just ask Sis. She probably put him up to the whole game."
Now this was rather crude, and at another time Miss Lafontaine would have detected the artifice and consequently divined the whole fabrication, but at present she was quite too angry, particularly when she realized that her best friend was a witness to her discomfiture.
"Just what do you mean by that?" she said angrily.
"Why, they've been sweet on each other for a couple of years," he said, with malice aforethought. "Guess you're not on to Sis. She'd steal anything with pants on that came within a mile of her. Ask her sometime about the mash notes the plumber's boy used to shoot up to her window, or perhaps you'd better not, it gets her too hot. But anyway I advise you to keep your eyes open." He rose, for the sudden shifting of the slippers back of the sofa warned him it was time to depart.
"Good-bye, Mimi," he said carelessly. "Two can play the same game, remember that."
Then, calculating the moment, he bumped into the étagère, upsetting the goldfish, and as the dripping figure of Miss Clara Bedelle emerged with a scream, Mr. Skippy Bedelle, Chesterfieldian to the last, departed saying:
"He laughs best who laughs last."
He arrived at the little stationery shop without having seen where he had been going, his eyes blinded with rage, his mind filled with bitter imprecations. Of his night's infatuation not a vestige remained except the weakness of disillusionment and the suffering of a proud nature.
"Well, Professor, how was your girl?"
He looked up to see the dark-complexioned lady still methodically chewing away.
"She's like all the rest," he thought darkly, "fooling some man, I bet."
Then his eyes fell on a group of photographs in the shape of postal cards; a wonderful assortment of fleshlings, of young ladies who dazzle and display abundant charms before the footlights. He remembered that an explanation was due to Snorky, and that the explanation would have to be very convincing. One photograph fascinated him; it was so like the way Tina would look, if there were a Tina!
The young lady in graceful tights, legs crossed in a figure four, elbow resting on a marble column, her chin supported by the indexfinger, was smiling out at him with a full dental smile.
"Say, do a fellow a favor?" he said.
"Sure for a nice boy like you I will," she said, encouragingly.
"Just sign across here—it's a joke."
"Oh, it's a joke?"
"Yes, of course. Sign 'Faithfully yours,'—no—'Fondly yours.'"
"Fondly yours," said the gum chewer, writing with a flourish.
"Tina."
"T—I—N—A."
"Turner."
"Indeed, I'll not!" said the girl with sudden indignation. "Turner's my name, and I can't have any such picture—"
"All right, all right, make it 'Tanner' then."
With the photograph as evidence safely bestowed in an inner pocket, he set out on the long homeward trudge. The weakness was gone, his imagination was now all on the story he would have to tell Snorky. Heavens, what had been crowded into one short hour;—love, treachery, revenge and triumph! Once a sudden rush of tears caught him, but he fought down the mood. The test had been soul-trying, but the victory was his. So he marched along, blowing out his courage as he chanted a defiant marching song and if Providence had but endowed him with a tail, he would have carried itproudly like a banner as he stalked across the campus and found his way into the Kennedy.
"Who is it?" said a startled voice.
"Hush, it's Skippy."
"Thank God."
Snorky jumped up and caught him in his arms with such genuine emotion that Skippy was profoundly touched, so touched that he almost made a clean breast of this affair—almost but not quite.
"What happened? You look all shot to pieces," said Snorky, holding up a candle and gazing at him in awe.
"It's all over," said Skippy stonily.
"Over."
"She'd have had to give up her career and—and I'm too young yet to support her."
"Honest, Skippy?" said Snorky, with a lingering doubt.
"Here's all that's left to me now," said Skippy, and he brought forth the photograph.
WHEN Skippy Bedelle (rage and disillusionment in his heart) had tramped five weary miles back from the city which sheltered that angel of perfidy, Miss Mimi Lafontaine, he said to himself on waking the next morning:
"Well, by the Great Horned Spoon, that's one thing I won't bite at again." And examining himself in the glass with a new respect—for after all he had handled the situation with magnificent impertinence and if the story was to be retailed in the home circles it would never be introduced by Miss Clara Bedelle—examining himself, then, with a certain pride and satisfaction he said vaingloriously, "Hurray, I'm vaccinated!"
"How d'ye mean vaccinated?" said Snorky whose head emerged via the morning jersey.
"Did I say vaccinated?" said Skippy surprised and cautious.
"You certainly did," said his chum, who observing the rapidity of his contact with the washbasin, the reappearance of the dicky and the two strokes of the brush which completed his toilette, added with a sigh of relief, "I say, old horse, you look more natural."
Skippy immediately returned to the convenientTina Tanner. He picked up the statuesquely posed photograph, contemplated it and returned it to its place with the air of a man on whom a great passion has burned itself out.
"She was an awfully decent little sort," he said meditatively, "but it would have been an awful mess if I'd done it."
"Done what?"
"Followed her on the stage."
"Say, whatever made you think you'd succeed on the stage, you chump?" said Snorky, who always retained a lingering doubt when Skippy grew confidential.
"Oh, I don't know."
"Well, the way you got off 'Horatius at the Bridge'—"
Skippy stretched his arms and yawned deliciously.
"Gee, but a fellow can make an awful fool of himself," he said, thinking now not of the fictitious Tina but of the explanations which must have taken place between his sister and Miss Lafontaine.
"A nice wreck you'd have made of your life, you big boob," said Snorky taking up the photograph and smelling it curiously to see what perfume an actress employed. "So her name's Tanner, eh?"
"Her stage name."
"You couldn't have married a woman like that."
"Not a word against her."
"Well, anyhow are you vaccinated?"
"Bitten, vaccinated and cured!"
Now when Skippy spoke thus from his heart it was in absolute faith, without the slightest suspicion of the natural course which a habit inevitably must take. A habit is after all but an acquired appetite, and what appetite was ever begun with instant enjoyment! No inveterate smoker ever appreciated his first cigar and the most persistent of tipplers choked once over the first distasteful introduction to the demon rum.
So be it recorded in this history of the sentimental progress of Skippy Bedelle. The impulse which sends the boy back to a second trial of the cigar that stretched him pale and nauseated on the ground, or leads him to a new attempt at the alcoholic mixture which scorched his throat, alone may explain how it came to pass that Skippy, after the first disillusioning contact with the opposite sex in the person of Miss Mimi Lafontaine, should in the first week of his summer vacation have fallen under the despotism of Miss Dolly Travers.
There were, as will be seen, extenuating circumstances and perhaps likewise much may be explained by the instinctive belief which is implanted in mankind, that woman is twofold, and that the brunettes of the species are less deadlythan the blondes, or vice versa, according to the first contact.
When Skippy Bedelle arrived for the long summer vacation at the family home at Gates Harbor, he arrived with a fixed program which is here detailed in the order of its importance.
1. To grow at least two inches and to acquire an added ten pounds in weight.
2. To achieve this necessary progression towards his athletic ambitions, to sleep at least fourteen hours of the day and to eat steadily and consistently during the remaining ten.
3. To impress the governor with the necessity of increasing his allowance.
4. To conceal from his mother the devastation of that portion of his wardrobe which is not a matter of public display.
5. To reduce sisters No. 1 and No. 2 to an attitude of proper respect, consistent with the approaching dignity of his sixteen years.
6. To thrash Puffy Ellis for the third consecutive summer.
7. To obtain permission for a two weeks' visit to the home of his chum, Snorky Green.
In all of which, be it observed that the feminine portion of society occupied not the slightest place.
On a radiant afternoon in mid-June, Skippy, having finished the last bar of peanut brittle and made sure that no vestige remained of thebox of assorted chocolates which had preceded it down the Great Hungry Way, assembled three comic weeklies and four magazines, gave the porter a quarter for his ostentatious devotions and descended at the station, with exactly seven cents in his pocket, having calculated his budget to a nicety.
His patent leathers were in a decidedly shabby condition and cracked over the instep, but his brown and green check suit, the yellow tie and the new panama with the purple and white band were irreproachablybon ton. He stood a moment supporting himself on a light bamboo cane, contemplating his dress suit-case, which he acknowledged was not up to form. Not only had the straps rotted away, but there were strange depressions and bulges in it due to the Waladoo Bird's two hundred and twenty pounds having fallen upon it. Furthermore, it was stained with the marks of a root beer orgy and Snorky Green's mistaken efforts to remove the same stains with a pumice stone.
Skippy after a moment's deliberation, decided not to insult the hackman with an offer of seven cents and having consigned the unspeakable bag to the truckman proceeded on foot twirling his cane and trying to appear unaware of the admiration of the villagers who were particularly impressed by his perfect pants.
The Bedelle homestead was a large ornamental,turreted and bastioned mansion, consonant with Mr. Bedelle's increasing prosperity and Mrs. Bedelle's social importance.
"Gee, the Governor certainly ought to stand for a raise," said Skippy to himself, with a proper appreciation of the velvety lawns, the flower gardens and the green and white stables. Then he remembered the none too brilliant record of the scholastic year which was sure to come up for discussion and fell into a sudden despondency.
AS he turned up the walk, sister No. 2, aged fourteen and a half, came romping off the porch and the following conversation took place.
"Hello, Jack."
"Hello, Tootsie."
"You idiotic boy, why didn't you telegraph?"
"What's the use? I'm here," said Skippy to whom a quarter of a dollar was an object of reverence.
"Aren't you going to kiss me?"
Skippy glanced around.
"Oh, I suppose so."
"Good gracious, he's got a cane!"
"Say, who let you put your hair up anyhow!"
"I'm fifteen."
"Come off."
"I say, Jack, awful glad to see you, honest, and let's stop fighting this summer. You help me and I'll help you."
Skippy looked at her suspiciously.
"Getting on society airs," he thought, but out loud he announced: "All right, Tootsie, but see you don't begin. And if you want to helpout, tell the Governor to make my birthday present in cash. I'm awfully strapped."
"Now for old Clara," he said to himself and remembering the last encounter when he had upset the gold fish over her, he braced himself for the shock. But to his profound amazement Miss Bedelle was honey itself.
"Good gracious, Jack, how big you've grown," she said after he had submitted to the second sisterly embrace, "and such style, too! What a fascinating tie! Dad and mother are out but Sam's just home. Come on up and see how nicely I've arranged your room. How are you anyhow?"
"Hard up," said Skippy instantly.
"Would this help any?" said Miss Clara extracting a ten dollar bill from a well-filled purse.
Skippy gulped in astonishment.
"What's the matter?"
"How do you mean?"
"Gee, sis, are you going to be married?"
"The idea, you funny boy!" said his sister, blushing violently. "Run on now and see Sam."
"What's the matter with everyone anyhow?" said Skippy to himself. "There's a reason. There certainly is a dark reason."
Still pondering over the motives for this unaccountable reception he proceeded along the hall, to the room of his heart's idol, his brotherSam, senior at Yale and star of the nine, Sambones Bedelle, known at school as Skippy the first, about whose athletic prowesses the tradition still remained.
"Who's that?" said the great man at the sound of his knock. "Skippy? Come in and let's look you over."
"Hello, Sambo," said the young idol-worshipper, sidling in.
The older brother caught his hand, slapped him on the back and held him off for inspection.
"By Jove, you young rascal, you're sprouting up fast. Whew, what a suit! Pretty strong, bub—pretty strong."
"I say, do you think—"
"Never mind. I've worn worse. Paid for?"
"No-o—not yet."
"Anything left of the allowance?"
"Sure."
"Not possible!"
"Seven cents."
"Could you use a five spot?"
"Gee, Sam!"
"All right, all right. Pick it out over there on the bureau. How's your conduct?"
"Pretty good."
Skippy, perched on the window-seat, watched with an approving eye the splendors that a college education had bestowed. Sam's hair parted without a rebellious ripple and lay down in perfect discipline. There never were suchimmaculate white flannel trousers, such faultless buckskin shoes and tie, while the socks and the touch of handkerchief which bloomed from the breastpocket were a perfect electric blue.
"Well, Skippy, I'll have to look you over," said Sam carelessly. "Time you had a few pointers. What did you do at school?"
"Substitute on the eleven and left field on the house nine," said Skippy, who understood at once the meaning of such an inquiry.
"First rate. Haven't started on the demon cigarette yet?"
Skippy hesitated.
"Let's see your fingers," said the mentor, who perceiving no telltales traces of nicotine grunted a qualified approval. "Well, how much?"
"Oh, just a few whiffs now and then up the ventilator. You know how it is, Sambo!"
"Cut it out this summer. Your business is to grow. Savvy? If ever I catch you, you young whipper-snapper—"
"All right, Sam."
Skippy the first held him a moment with a stern and disciplinary eye and then relaxing, said as he contemplated the hang of his trousers before the mirror, "I hear you've started in to be a fusser."
"Who told you that?" said Skippy with the rising inflection.
"I ran in on Turkey Reiter."
"Oh," said Skippy relaxing. "With Miss Lafontaine? That was all a put-up game!"
Sam considered him and noting the fatuous smile shook his head and said:
"Well, bub, you're at the age when they fall fast and easy. Now listen to a few pearls of wisdom. Got your ears open?"
"Fire away, Sambo!"
"If you'vegotto fall and you will—sure you will, don't shake your head—if you've got to fall, don't trail around on an old woman's skirts and get treated like a dog—fetch and carry stuff. Look the field over and pick out something young and grateful. Something easy. Something that'll look up to you. Let her love you. Be a hero. Savvy?"
"Huh! Girls give me a swift pain," said Skippy with a curl of his upper lip.
"Wait and count the pains," said Sam with a grin. "You're at a bad age. Well, I have spoken. What's the use of having an older brother if he can't do you some good?"
It being only four o'clock, Skippy decided to look up the Gutter Pup, who with the Egghead, represented the school contingent at Gates Harbor. Lazelle, more familiarly known as the Gutter Pup, Gazelle, Razzle-dazzle and the White Mountain Canary according to the fighting weight of the addressee, lived just across lots.
With three months' respite ahead from thetyranny of the chapel bell, three months of home cooking, fifteen dollars in his pocket and nothing to do but to romp like a colt over pastures of his own choosing, Skippy went hilariously over the lawns, hurdled a hedge and hallooed from below the well-known window.
"Hi there, old Razzle-Dazzle, stick your head out!"
A second and a third peremptory summons bringing no response, he went cautiously around the porch.
"Why it's Jack Bedelle," said the Gutter Pup's sister from a hammock. "Gracious, I never should have known you!"
"Hello yourself," said Skippy, acknowledging with a start the difference a year had brought to the tomboy he had known. "Say, you've done some growing up yourself."
He ended in a long drawn out whistle which Miss Lazelle smilingly accepted as a tribute.
"I say, Bess, where's the old Gazelle?"
"Charlie? Why he's gone out canoeing with Kitty Rogers."
"What!"
Miss Lazelle repeated the information. Skippy was too astounded to remember his manners. He clapped his hat on his head, sunk his fists in his pockets and went out the gate. The Gutter Pup spending his time like that! He made his way to the club where more shocks awaited him. On the porch was the Eggheadfeeding ice cream to Mimi Lafontaine. On the tennis courts Puffy Ellis and Tacks Brooker were playing mixed doubles! Skippy could not believe his eyes. What sort of an epidemic was this anyhow? He went inside and immediately a victrola started up a two-step and lo and behold, there before him whirling ecstatically about the floor, held in feminine embraces, were Happy Mather and Joe Crocker, the irreconcilables of the old gang!
"Hello, Skippy, shake a foot," said Happy Mather encouragingly. "Want to be introduced?"
"Excuse me," said Skippy loftily. "What's happened to the crowd? Can't you think of anything better than wasting your time like this?"
"Wake up!" said Happy, making a dive for a partner. "You're walking in your sleep."
Skippy went sadly out and down to the bridge where he perched on a pile and contemplated the swirling currents with melancholy. What had happened? After an hour of bitter rumination he rose heavily and engrossed in his own thoughts passed two ice-cream parlors, utterly forgetful of the sudden wealth in his pockets. On the way home he perceived something white and pink moving lightly in airy freedom, while at her side laden to the shoulder with sweaters, rugs, a camp stool and a beach umbrella was Sam. He camerebelliously to the home porch and then hastily ducked around to the side entrance, for the porch was in full possession of Clara who was entertaining a group of men. He sought to gain his room noiselessly via the back parlor and came full upon Tootsie who was showing a book of photographs to a pudgy, red-haired boy, who blushed violently at his intrusion and stood up, until he had acknowledged the embarrassed introduction and escaped.
"What in thunder's gotten into everybody anyhow?" he said to himself disconsolately. "Girls, girls everywhere. The place is full of them and everybody twosing, twosing! What in Sam Hill is a regular fellow to do! Gee, but it's going to be a rotten summer!"
So in this melancholy seclusion, gazing out of his window, at the green landscape vexed by the omnipresent flash of white skirts, uneasily conscious that a crisis had arrived in his social progress that would have to be met, Skippy began to commune with himself and likewise to ruminate. His first contact with female perfidy had destroyed half his faith in woman; never again could he trust a brunette. Some day he might permit himself to be appreciated by a blonde, but it would take a lot of convincing. But it is one thing to have fixed principles and another to resist the contagions of a whole society. Virtue is one thing but loneliness is another.
"What the deuce is a regular fellow going to do?" he said. But already his resentment had given way to a brooding anxiety. All at once, he remembered that he too had loved. Something that had been dormant awoke, as the touch of spring awoke the great outdoors.