HICKEY, be it remembered, had just severed his connections with the Lawrenceville school after a display of pedagogical despotism which had no parallel except in the case of the celebrated Captain Dreyfus. Just because certain disturbing incidents had occurred in close succession, beginning with the theft of the clapper; the disappearance of Tabby's bed, when that inexperienced young master had dashed two miles down the Trenton road in search of fictitious burglars; the famous Fed and anti-Fed riots when a misdirected effort to inculcate the love of politics had almost resulted in a recourse to the financial institution which insures the school against destruction by fire or otherwise—the head master, without an iota of evidence (he acknowledged it frankly), had requested the Hon. Hickey Hicks to seek a wider field for the admittedly fertile powers which were peculiarly his.
When Hickey with his resplendent social manner cast the eye of favor on Dolly Travers, after having remarked her unquestioned superiority with the light fantastic toe, Skippy felt exactly the way the Vicomte de Bragelonne did when royalty appeared to claim the hand ofLouise de la Vallière. Hickey was in the heavy middleweight class while he was still a bantam. Hickey was one of the princely figures of school tradition. He came, he saw, he conquered. He was an athlete, whose arrival was disputed by the three leading colleges. Sambones Bedelle himself, captain of next year's Yale varsity nine, allowed himself to be seen publicly with his arm resting affectionately over Hickey's shoulders. With such a halo it was no wonder that Dolly in her early teens should have yielded to the flattery of his preference. Skippy acknowledged so much to himself as he stood on the fringe of the spectators and watched Dolly with rapturous upturned face whirling about the room in the arms of the great man.
"What ye doin' to-morrow afternoon, Skippy?" said Puffy Ellis, who enjoyed the reversal of rôles.
"I'm cleaning up the mitts. Want to come around?" said Skippy, with what is commonly described as a steely look.
Puffy did not pursue the subject and the chip on Skippy's shoulder remained unchallenged.
How Hickey danced! The days had not arrived when acrobatic feats had invaded the decorum of the ballroom, and such simple departures from the routine as dos-à-dos and single hand were enough to provoke envy and astonishment.
Skippy forgot his irritation as he watchedthe graceful guiding of his rival. Hickey certainly could dance! He admitted it. Never with or without the assistance of a dressmaker's manikin could he ever hope to rival him in this accomplishment. He went dutifully to claim his turn with the faithless one. His heart was acutely torn and he knew the peculiar delight he was affording his numerous friends, but he forced a smile of indifference. Besides, in his fertile imagination he had the glimmerings of a stratagem.
"I've saved the fifth two-step and the seventh waltz for you," said Dolly, squeezing his arm ever so lightly, "though you haven't asked me yet."
The summer was long and she was quite aware that in another ten days the resplendent Mr. Hicks would pass as Shelley had passed. Besides she secretly admired Skippy's sporting manner in adversity.
"Awfully good of you," he said lightly, "but see here, Dolly, don't bother about me. Hickey's got us all skinned hollow when it comes to this game. Go ahead, keep on dancing with him. Go as far as you like."
"My, but he waltzes divinely!" said Dolly, relieved.
"He's a wonder, all right, and a cracker-jack at anything he touches! Sambones says he'll make the varsity, certain next year."
"What happened about his leaving school?"
"That—that was an outrage," said Skippy, who would have scorned to attack a rival meanly. "I'll tell you all about that."
"You're sure you don't mind my dancing so much with him?" said Dolly, who had allowed Hickey to cut in six dances running.
"I? Bless you, no!"
"It's just his wonderful dancing," said Dolly, looking down.
"Don't blame you. He is A No. 1 with his feet all right," said Skippy, and he added carelessly, "wonderful how he manages it, too, with his infirmity."
"His infirmity?" said Dolly, startled.
"Did I say infirmity?" said Skippy, pretending surprise. "For heaven's sake, don't tell any one. Gee, I shouldn't have said that."
"Yes, but what infirmity?" said Dolly, now in a high state of excitement.
Skippy compressed his lips to show that they were forever sealed, and moved away. But he noted with satisfaction that the next time Miss Dolly Travers passed whirling about the great man, instead of the rapturous upturned gaze, was one of alarmed curiosity.
The next day at the beach Dolly opened up at once the question of infirmities.
"Dolly," said Skippy firmly, "I'm not going to say any more, so it's no use trying to pump me. I'm ashamed to have said what I did. A feller can't help what he's got, or what hehasn't got, can he? And it's only a foolish prejudice after all."
"But Jack—"
"There was another fellow at school," said Skippy, without attention, "who had a glass eye, but he was a positive nuisance. He used to take it out and leave it around. No one could stand roomin' with him. It certainly gave you the creeps to be lookin' on the table for a collar button or a pen and find—"
But here Dolly gave a shriek and fled with her hands over her ears.
Now Skippy had made no direct insinuation (he always had the greatest respect for the letter of the truth), but it is a fact that when forty-eight hours later the Mathers gave a dance, Hickey became suddenly aware of a complete change of attitude among the feminine portion of his admirers.
"What the deuce is wrong with me, anyhow?" he said after the second dance. He went outside and scrupulously examined himself in the mirror. Then he went back and tried another partner. Again the strange feeling stole over him. Every time he brought the battery of his blue eyes to bear upon his partner her eyes turned uneasily away and the moment his own glance was averted, back hers came, in an uncanny fixed interrogation. The night was a triumph for Skippy, who danced eight times with Miss Dolly Travers and had the furthersatisfaction of observing her in a state of nerves after each of the two which she begrudged to Mr. Hicks.
But alas for Skippy and his short moment of triumph! Within twenty-four hours the mystified Hickey had discovered the truth and Hickey was one that was never lightly challenged.
SKIPPY, fatuously unconscious of any overtaking fate, escorted Dolly to the next Saturday night hop. On Monday Mr. Hickey Hicks would be on his way to new pastures and life would return to simpler terms. Dolly, however, was in no amiable frame of mind.
"You said he had a glass eye. You know you did," she said for the tenth time.
"Now that's just like a woman," thought Skippy, justly offended, and out loud he said, with some asperity, "Yousaid so. I never did."
"I?"
"Sure, you did! Why you said it was the left one."
"Well, you let me think so anyway."
"How was I to know?" said Skippy, illogically. "Perhaps he has a glass eye. Have you asked him?"
They reached the club house and as the orchestra was already industriously at work, Skippy said playfully,
"All's fair in love and war anyhow! S'pose we dance."
"You don't deserve it," said Dolly, hesitating.She glanced around and as no one else was an immediate prospect, she accorded him her arm. Skippy began to perceive that the burden of conversation would lie with him.
The next dance was a waltz and they waited, the one expectantly, the other in resignation for the usual rush of the stags which invariably accompanied Miss Dolly's conquering arrival. As she was endowed with a lively sense of humor, her irritation had quite departed and Skippy was as blissfully happy in his restoration to favor as the four-footed puppy when reconciliation with the master has followed chastisement. To keep fidelity with human nature, it must likewise be recorded that the practical sense was likewise strong in the young lady, who was fully aware of the value of a bird in the hand to one about to fly the bush. Hickey appeared and came directly towards them. Skippy fell back.
"Hello, Skippy, old top," said Hickey, with accented cordiality. He shook hands with Miss Dolly, who greeted him with the most encouraging of smiles. He complimented her on the bewitching gown which made her prettier than ever, wondered where she had been all this time, shook hands effusively—and passed on. Miss Dolly bit her lip and took hasty survey of the room. The old reliables were all actively engaged, spinning about the room with other partners.
"Oh, I adore this tune," she said suddenly. "Come on, let's waltz."
Then, just to show her independence, she suggested that the next dance, a polka, was a dreadful bore and Skippy, still unsuspicious, bore her away in great delight to the shadowy intimacies of the veranda. Miss Dolly was a little quicker in her perceptions. She saw what was up, and being of high spirit, decided to answer in kind. She returned to the floor and danced a third time with Skippy, who was too fatuously pleased with his good fortune to notice the suppressed hilarity in the room.
"Let's sit here," said Dolly, selecting the most public spot. When Happy Mather and Crocker and Lazelle and the superior Mr. Hicks did arrive, she would have her revenge. She would refuse flatly. She would dance with Skippy openly and defiantly the whole evening. The only drawback was that no one came.
They sat out two dances and then a feeling of panic descended upon them. They were horribly, glaringly conspicuous. Every eye was on them. Every one was whispering at their expense. Dolly had never known the sensation of being a wallflower, and for the first time her natural wit deserted her. At first she had deployed all the instinctive arts of her challenged coquetry. She had openly flaunted her affection for Skippy, smiling into his fascinated eyes, laughing uproariously at the inanitieshe had to offer. Then her spirits suddenly evaporated and she listened with a cold creepy feeling in her back, while Skippy, in desperation for a topic of conversation, began to explain the intricacies of Mosquito-Proof Socks, to perfecting which his life henceforth would be devoted.
"Let's dance."
Skippy, halfway in his exposition of the commercial value of an invention which would appeal to twice ninety million legs at six pair of socks a year, flushed and rose heavily. The light had dawned upon him at last. They were being put in coventry and the diabolical mind that was thus taking its fiendish revenge could be none other than the man he had wronged—Hickey Hicks.
From now on it was torture, pure, unadulterated, exquisite torture, such as only the self-conscious stripling of the first sixteen awkward years can experience. To save his life he could not think of a thing to say, while in his arms Dolly grew heavier and heavier. His arm ached, his feet began to stumble, he bumped into other couples.
After he had sat out the eighth dance in fitful silence, he began to experience the strangest antipathy for Miss Dolly Travers, who but an hour before had been the rapturous ending of all his day dreams. Let no cynic here exclaim, with facile wit, that romance endsthus in the compulsory quality of marriage. We make no such allusions. We only state that Skippy, in his inexperience, began morally to disintegrate. The more he was forced to sit, chained by convention, the object of public hilarity, the more he wondered at his former infatuation. Dolly disputed by every male was a figment of the imagination—how different was the reality! Mimi Lafontaine was a hundred times more desirable and at least hadsomethingto say! The situation was hideous, but how escape? If only he could get to Hickey and buy him off! But he couldn't get to his tormentor, that was the trouble! Then suddenly an idea came to him. In his pocket was the roll of bills that comprised the sinking fund for his dress suit. Carefully and unnoticed by Dolly, he extracted a two dollar bill. When next he danced, he danced with the bill openly flaunted behind the all-unconscious Dolly, openly offering it to whoever would come to his rescue. Still the banded traitors smirked and remained loyal to their leader—they, too, had scores to settle!
"Get me a glass of lemonade, won't you, Jack, like a dear?" said Dolly, who had thought of a possible opening.
Skippy went and took a full five minutes until he had made quite sure the next dance was under way. To his horror Dolly was where he had left her—sitting alone.
When the tenth dance had begun, he hesitated no longer. He replaced the two dollar bill by one of the next denomination, and with the V carefully exposed, he managed to bump into Hickey and draw his attention to the price of his liberty. Hickey appeared interested but only half convinced. Skippy held out another dance and then, groaning inwardly, increased the bait to ten.
Whereupon Hickey condescended. The signal was given and Skippy, standing aloof and humble in the shadows of the veranda, perceived through the window Miss Dolly Travers, as the stags swarmed down, resume her sway as the queen of the ball.
On Monday Hickey departed in a burst of glory. With him something else departed—a great romance. Illusions are fragile things and when they are shattered the pieces are too small to be reassembled.Sic transitDolly Travers!
AT the end of August, Mr. Skippy Bedelle met Mr. Snorky Green on the Fall River Boat, each being in complete agreement as to the economic superiority of the water route to the great metropolis, when the end in view was the acquisition of that radiant apotheosis of perfect manhood, the first dress suit.
"Gee Whilikins, Skippy, you're enormous," said Snorky, measuring him with his eye. "How did you do it? I've only gained half an inch."
"I'm twelve pounds heavier," said Skippy proudly. "Feel that."
"Hard as nails!" said Snorky, pinching the proffered biceps. "You do look different, too."
Skippy, thinking on Dolly Travers, blushed.
"Got to shave every other day now," he said hastily, to cover his confusion.
"Have a coffin nail?" said Snorky, feeling that a bold stroke was necessary to restore the balance.
"Dyin' for one," said Skippy, who disliked the practice cordially. He selected a cigarette, tapped it on his hand and rolled the rim on the tip of his tongue. "Not bad."
"Nice bouquet, eh?" said Snorky, who had listened in.
"What? You betcha! What's the monogram?"
"Uncle Ben. I swiped them," said Snorky, who was returning from a family visit. "Suppose we give the old tub the once over and see if there's anything worth looking at on board."
Skippy allowed the cigarette to hang pendant from his lower lip, tilted his Panama with the purple and white band, sank his hands in his pockets and imitated carefully the dead game sporting slouch of his companion as they proceeded on their critical inspection of the feminine offering on the decks.
"Rum bunch," said Snorky, who was putting it on for Skippy. "Little girl over there got nice eyes."
"Piano legs."
"What?"
"Piano legs. Big as a porpoise in five years," said Skippy, putting it on for Snorky.
"I daresay," said Snorky, who continued his efforts to impress his chum by staring down a large buxom lady who happened to glance their way. "Rather good-looking, the old fighting brunette over there."
"Seemed interested in you."
"Yes, rather," said Snorky, turning for a fatuous backward glance.
"What's this?" said Skippy, suddenly interested.
Ahead by the rail two young girls were watching curiously the vanishing outlines of the harbor.
"That's class," said Snorky instantly.
"You betcha!" said Skippy, noting the large leghorn hats dripping with rosebuds, the trim ruffled organdie dresses and the twin parasols, pink and mauve. The young ladies looked up curiously at their swaggering approach and then away. Skippy in his assiduous pursuit of fiction of the romantic tinge had often read of "velvety" eyes and pondered incredulously. For the first time in his life, suddenly, in the hazards of a crowded steamer, a young girl of irreproachable manners had looked at him and the eyes were undeniably "velvety." It troubled him. Not that he was susceptible to such a point, but it stirred memories of ancient readings into the night on soft window seats, or under green trees in the troubling warmth of spring days.
"The blonde for mine," said Snorky pompously.
"I didn't see her," said Skippy dreamily.
They linked arms and passed in the rakish, indolent manner of thorough men of the world who know that but to be seen is to conquer. To their discomfiture the young ladies failed to notice the extreme distinction of their manlyappearance and shortly afterward left the deck.
"We failed to impress," said Skippy disconsolately.
"A lot you know about women."
"They never saw us."
"Huh! Betcha they were sneaking looks at us every time we passed. Just you wait. They'll be out in a jiffy."
"What'll we do?"
"Pretend we're not interested."
They stalked the deck ten times with a nonchalant, bored air, but slightly roving eyes.
"They're waiting inside," said Snorky obstinately.
"Well, you go and scout. I'll wait here," said Skippy, whose interest was only a determination not to be outshone by his chum of chums.
In ten minutes Snorky was back, all excitement.
"Just as I told you. They're in the front saloon playing cards. Come on."
"What are you going to do?" said Skippy, hesitating.
Snorky thought a moment.
"We've got to put over something big."
"Well, what?"
Snorky thought again.
"We must make 'em think we're high rollers;—yachts, race horses, and all that."
"Well, how?"
Snorky thought a third time.
"How much money have you got?" said Skippy suddenly.
"In cash?"
"Sure. On you."
"About forty-three dollars," said Snorky, who from time to time had been feeling with his fingers to assure himself that no pickpocket had outwitted him.
"Fork it out. I've got an idea."
"Is it all right?" said Snorky, who had reason to dread the Skippy imagination.
"Fine and dandy. Don't worry. Trust me. Show 'em up."
Snorky produced a twenty, two tens and three common-a-garden ones.
"You keep a twenty and you stick it on top. Then you change the two tens into ones and that makes some whopping wad, doesn't it?"
"Say, I don't get—"
"Leave it to me," said Skippy, who led the way to the cigar counter.
Ten minutes later Mr. Skippy Bedelle and Mr. Snorky Green, with large banded cigars, entered the ladies' saloon and carelessly installed themselves at a table next but one to that occupied by the young girls.
"Well, old sport," said Snorky, twirling the mercifully unsmoked cigar in his fingers. "Suppose we go over our accounts?"
"Always be businesslike," said Skippy, poisinga pencil over a sheet of paper with plutocratic nonchalance.
"Owe you thirty-five plunks for last night's poker game," said Snorky, raising his voice sufficiently.
"That's right, and I owe—"
"Hold on, me first."
Snorky dug into his trousers and came up with a roll of greenbacks that made the colored porter who happened to be passing stumble in his step.
"Twenty and ten and five, makes thirty-five," he said, peeling them off with a nimble exhibition of legerdemain which kept the lower bills well concealed.
"Keerect," said Skippy, sweeping them towards him with a languidly indifferent air.
"Then I borrowed a ten spot to tip the head waiter. Remember?"
"I do remember."
"Five and five. Correct?"
"Keerect."
"How do we stand on the ponies?"
"Only fair," said Skippy. "We lost two and won one. I couldn't get our money up on the others."
"Let's see. It was twenty-five bones each, wasn't it?" said Snorky, jogging his elbow, to notify him that the impression they were making was simply stupendous.
"Right again."
"That sets me back fifty plunks. That's easy. Here you are, one, two, three, four, five tens. Correct?"
"Keerect," said Skippy, brushing in the greenbacks, with the same casual motion of his hand.
"That squares me."
"It does."
"Now what's coming back?"
Skippy in turn, after certain struggles with his trousers pocket, brought forth a bundle which could have done credit to a cattle king and said, as he slipped the elastic,
"Twenty-five at five to one is just about one hundred and twenty-five."
"That's all right, but how about the tip to Spike Murphy?"
"Spike Murphy?" said Skippy, looking at him hard.
"The fellow who put us wise."
"Oh, that's all right," said Skippy, recovering a proper sporting manner. "Forget that. I cleaned up enough to handle a little thing like that."
"Lucky dog!"
"One hundred and twenty-five," said Skippy, going through the proper motions. "Twenty once, twice, three times, four and five. One hundred, and ten and twenty and twenty—"
But at this moment, whether by chance, by intent or by the emotion caused by the displayof such wealth, there was a crash from the nearby table and two magazines fell to the floor. Snorky, ever alert, sprang to his feet, retrieved the magazines and offered them to the blondest of the two with punctilious courtesy.
"Allow me. I believe these belong to you?"
"Oh thank you," said the young lady, looking quite distressed.
"Awfully warm night, isn't it?" said Snorky, whose heart was pumping at his own unexampled audacity.
"Sir, I do not think I have been introduced to you," said the young lady, stiffening and looking what to Snorky, at least, were daggers.
He uttered several unintelligible sounds, flushed a fiery red and backed away.
"Right where the chicken met the axe," said Skippy, who began to whistle a melancholy tune as he gathered up the scattered greenbacks. "Here comes mother."
"Let's beat it," said Snorky, who felt a sudden need for a purer atmosphere.
"You know women better than I do," said Skippy, who though a chum was human.
"Damn them all," said Snorky, peering over the railing into the night and exposing his forehead to the cooling breeze. "But why the devil did she lead me on?"
WHEN they descended at the Southampton station the family coach was in waiting. They surrendered their valises to the footman while each clung tightly to a large square paper box, carefully protected and corded.
"Gee, it'll just about knock the wind out of old Caroline," said Snorky in a whisper.
"Don't they suspect?" said Skippy nervously.
"Not for a minute. Say, I'd never have the nerve to sport it alone."
"Have you got the box with the shirt studs in?" said Skippy fidgeting.
"Why I handed it—"
"That's so. They're here," said Skippy, after a dip into four pockets.
At the thought that at last after sixteen long and eventful years the supreme moment had come when he would step out of the shell of adolescence and greet the waiting world in his first forty-dollar,custom-made dress suit, in high collar, white stiff bosom, two tails pendant, Skippy shivered slightly and drew a deep, delightfully terrified breath.
"We'll put it over all right," he said loudly, and he began to whistle as is the instinct of boyhood, whether facing the possibility of aparental caning; screwing up courage to ring her doorbell; or turning a gloomy corner in the moonlight where something horrid and shapeless may be lurking.
Twenty minutes later, as he was solicitously examining the crease in the soft lovely black trousers, after hanging the swallow-tailed coat over a padded hanger, Snorky came in with a face of thunder.
"Well, whatdoyou think?" he said nervously.
"They forgot to put in the pants," said Skippy, leaping to the worst.
"Shucks, no. There's a party on to-night."
"A party?"
"There'll be millions of people to dinner and a dance after."
"What of it?" said Skippy loudly, though the chill began to ascend from his feet.
"My Lord—"
"Say, you're not losing your nerve, you chicken-hearted rabbit, are you?" said Skippy, who was now absolutely terrified.
"You mean you're game?"
"Snorky! I wouldn't have believed it of you!"
"Say, it isn't your family or your sister," said Snorky angrily. "My aunt's cat's pants, how they'll howl!"
Skippy prepared for the great event by what would have sufficed for a European semi-annual immersion and, emerging spotless and stainlessfrom the bath, with his derby closely pressed over the niceties of his parted hair, perceived that he had still forty-two minutes left of the hour and a half he had allotted to this supreme toilette.
"My Lord, I hope I've got everything," he said, standing in diaphanous contemplation. The one thing that worried him a little was the studs. They had looked over twenty different varieties, flat ones and solid gold ones, spirals, encrusted studs, and studs that anchored with a queer twist. Finally they had allowed themselves to be persuaded by a flashy clerk and settled on a patent imitation pearl stud that pushed in and stuck, simplest thing in the world, like the click of a spring lock; that would leave the beautiful creamy white expanse of shirt absolutely unruffled by any preliminary struggle.
"Shall I try 'em on first?" he thought, glancing down at the immaculate bosom. But at this moment a voice behind him cried pompously.
"Old top. Cast your eye on this."
Skippy gazed and his courage rose. His private opinion was that Snorky looked like a French butcher going to a morning wedding in hired regalia.
"The suit's a lalapazooza!" he said carefully.
"It'll kill old Carrots," said Snorky, who thus referred to his sister. "She's over the age limit now but when I pull this she'll looka grandmother! Say, look me over. Make sure there are no tags or price marks. All right?"
"Jim dandy."
He went two steps to the door and turned.
"Say, remember one thing. Keep your fists out of your trousers pockets, Bo. That's important."
"Why so?"
"Ignoramus," said Skippy, reproachfully. "That'll give the whole game away. You never stick your hands in your trousers pockets unless you're a greenhorn."
"How do the shirt studs work?" said Skippy, nervously.
"Simplest things in the world."
"Say, Snorky?"
"Well?"
"These coat tails have got pockets in them."
"Sure they have, you chump! They're to hide your mawlers in."
"Don't be so bright," said Skippy indignantly. "But whatdowe put into them, then?"
"Handkerchief."
"Rats. I know better than that. You stick a handkerchief up in front and pull out just the tip of it."
"Perhaps it's for a toothbrush if you're staying over night."
"No, but honest, what do you put in them?" said Skippy, who did not wish to miss a trick.
They thought this over a long moment, andthen gave it up as greater intelligences, pondering on the mysteries of existence, have given it up.
"Well, ta-ta. See you below."
"Where you goin'?"
"I'm going to break in the family one by one," said Snorky, wagging his head. "Lettin' 'em get over the shock. I'm taking no chances."
Left to himself, Skippy hastened to his own preparations. At the risk of being acclaimed a traitor to the sex, we must record here the truth, that with five mirrors surrounding him and one in the bathroom, it took Skippy exactly forty-five minutes to perfect his toilette from every angle of observation. First he burrowed into his shirt which deranged the part in his hair and necessitated another period of readjustment. Then he put on his trousers and adjusted the suspenders until each trouser leg hung with the crease untroubled and just clear of the boot. But having done this he discovered, as others have discovered, that patent shirt-studs sported in an unaccustomed place, require the fullest play of the arms. The placing of the studs was of itself the most delicate of operations and twice he went down on his knees and halfway under the bed to retrieve the upper one which popped out just as he thought he had it securely imprisoned. Once more he adjusted the suspenders, and beganwork on the stiff collar which caught his throat and forced up his chin. After five minutes' struggle he succeeded in fastening this with the aid of a buttonhook, and suddenly the thing he had feared was upon him. He had forgotten, completely forgotten, the white tie!
What was he to do? Snorky was beyond the reach of assistance. Twice he had heard shouts of uproarious delight down the hall marking his chum's progress in breaking in the family. The house was huge and Snorky by this time was down on the second floor or even practicing in the parlor. He went through the motions of searching through his valise but he knew all the while that it was futile. He had forgotten the final touch, thesine qua nonof fashion!
He found a wrapper in the hall closet and opening the door cautiously peered into the hall. An uncle and an older brother of Snorky's were on the same floor, but he had not been introduced and his courage failed him. He returned to his room and contemplated the white bed spread, the pillow slips and the muslin curtains in a wild hope that something might lend itself to an improvisation. Then he shook his head mournfully. There was only one way out. To appear properly dressed in this, a strange house, before strangers, he would have to commit a crime! The only way to get a white tie was to steal one. At this moment while his whole moral future turned onan impulse, a door down the hall opened and Skippy, peering forth, beheld an elderly gentleman, immaculately dressed, descend the stairs. For a short moment he hesitated but atavism and necessity were against him. He stole out into the hall and made his way on tiptoe. All at once he heard a step ascending the stairs. A bathroom door was open. He sprang into it with a thumping heart and waited breathlessly, leaning limply against the wall. All at once his eye fell on the clothes basket. From the top a crumpled white tie was hanging. He was saved!
He seized the tie and head erect, honor intact, walked fearlessly back to his room. But there, a new dilemma! The tie was indeed of whitest lawn but, alas! across one end was a smudge which defied the most persistent rubbing. Skippy, as has been observed, was at the period when the imagination is not confined by tradition. In desperation he resorted to the washbasin and with the aid of a brush, triumphantly banished the damned spot. Then having wrung the limp mass, he spread the tie carefully against the window pane and covering it with a handkerchief, laboriously ironed it out with a shoe.
Just as the clock struck half past seven, Mr. John C. Bedelle descended the last stairs and greeted a critical world. Beads of perspiration stood on his forehead, his spine seemed made ofrubber, his knees shook and his restless, chilly hands loomed before him, homeless and lost; but he was safe at last in all the intricacies of a dress suit—a man of fashion among men of the world!
Snorky was standing miserably by the fireplace, his large peppermint ears flanking a heated face, as he defiantly faced the family hilarity. Then Skippy's superb aplomb failed him. Just beyond the smirking family, among the early guests, was Miss Jennie Tupper, the girl with the velvety eyes, and at her side, as icily correct as when the night before she had crushed Snorky's floundering attempt at lady-killing, her sister Margarita.
AFTER the room had returned to place Skippy rallied, took the introductions with preternatural stiffness, and gravitated to Snorky. The white shirt front in the most unaccountable manner had swollen to alarming dimensions, the coat tails must be dragging on the floor. His collar cut under his imprisoned neck and his large white hands, longing for sheltering pockets, seemed to float before him like inflated balloons. If his were complete manhood,—oh for a soft shirt and a turned down collar!
"Kill it," said Snorky under his breath.
"What's wrong?"
"Kill that flag of liberty, you chump!" said Snorky, glowering at the flaming edge of the silk bandana handkerchief which Skippy was sporting at his breast pocket.
"What's wrong with that? Every one does it."
"Wrong! Look around you."
Skippy did so and surreptitiously extinguished the bandana.
"Holy Mike, we're in for it," said Snorky. "Do you know who they are?"
"The girls?"
"Daughters of the Presbyterian minister, strict as nails—Sunday school and mission stuff. Oh Lord!"
"Pretend you knew it all along."
"And that other stuff? The dead game sporting life?"
"Stick to your guns!" said Skippy desperately.
The next moment he was at table, between Miss Caroline Bedelle and the blonde Margarita, while across the table the soft velvety eyes of Jennie looked at him sadly and reproachfully.
"Good gracious, Jack," said Snorky's sister, staring at him. "I never, never would have known you. You've gained twenty pounds."
"It's the shirt," thought Skippy, glancing down at the bulging front that gave him the torso of a wrestler. Then he began to wonder which was the owner of the still slightly moist tie. But soon all discomforts, even the intricate maze of forks and knives, were forgotten before the alarming problem of the shirt front. When he sat upright, stiff as a ramrod, it was relatively quiescent, but the moment he relaxed or bent forward to eat it bulged forth as though working on a spring, until a lurking horror that it would escape altogether began to possess him. He crept forward on his chair and balanced on the edge, trying to mitigate the conspicuous rigidity of his pose by a nonchalant coquetting with the saltcellar.
"I suppose I must talk to you, for appearances' sake," said the blonde Miss Tupper.
"Why so?" said Skippy haughtily, for having just reacted from blondes, blondes did not appeal to him.
"You ask?"
"Certainly I ask, and I think an apology is due my friend and myself," said Skippy from his great fund of literary conversations.
"Well, I like that!"
"You cut us dead twice on the deck and then pretended not to know Arthur when he started to speak to you," said Skippy icily.
Miss Margarita Tupper looked at him with the intuitive suspicion of the righteous.
"I don't believe a word of it," she said.
"Thatis adding insult to injury," said Skippy, still in the best fictional manner. "Pardon me if I do not pursue this conversation any longer."
"I guess that'll hold the old girl," he said, chuckling inwardly. But alas for such vanities, or was it the unseen moral guardians which may be expected to watch over the daughters of the upright! The sudden shift of his indignant body was attended with fatal results.
There was a distinct "pop." The upper patent shirt-stud shot out, tinkled against a vase and rolled directly towards the girl with the velvety eyes.
"What's that?" said Caroline, startled.
"Some one threw a pebble against the window pane," said a voice.
"Something cracked."
They are wrong, eternally wrong, who look upon youth as a period of careless joy on the threshold of manhood's struggles and sorrows! Never in after-life would Skippy Bedelle experience such a blank, helpless horror as in that awful moment, when he sat overcome with shame and confusion, awaiting detection. What in heaven's name was he to say when the eyes of the whole company would inevitably be directed to the telltale stud, blazing now at the plate of Miss Tupper? What did any one say, anyhow, when a shirt stud popped across the table? Nothing in his experience or the experience of all the novelists in the world could supply a clue. Wave after wave of red and redder confusion rippled up from his collar and surged to the roots of his hair. Should he brazen it out? Should he make a light answer, or was it etiquette to apologize humbly to his hostess? How could he tell? If he were discovered there was only one thing to do, to run for it, to retreat to his room, lock his door, escape by the window and leave by the night train, disgraced and branded forever!
"Very funny," said Mrs. Bedelle. "Caroline, look at the Bohemian glass vase. I'm sure I heard it crack."
All glances immediately concentrated on thefatal area. Detection was now but a question of instants. Then Skippy in the throes of despair saw the plump little hand of Miss Jennie Tupper reach out and casually close over the offending pearl stud. He was saved, saved by the miracle of compassion and forgiveness that lifts women to those sublime heights where mere men cannot attain!
Tears threatened his eyes, his throat swelled up and slowly subsided. He looked over into the velvety eyes and sent a message of abject gratitude. He was her slave from now on, irrevocably bound, faithful until death!
"You didn't detherve it," said Miss Jennie an hour later when in the seclusion of the veranda she had restored to him the unspeakable stud.
"You're an angel," said Skippy hoarsely. "I'll never, never forget that. That was white of you, awfully white!"
"You didn't detherve it," repeated Miss Tupper with as much severity as can accompany the slightest of lisps and the eyes of a gazelle.
"Don't be hard on a fellow," said Skippy miserably.
"It was outwageous. You know, you didn't know us."
How was he to lie to his saviour and benefactor and yet how betray a chum?
"It did look bad," he said, momentarily at loss, "but honest, now, Snorky's intentions were nothing but honorable. Honest they were."
"I with I could believe it," said Miss Jennie sadly.
"I say, you must think I'm an awful rum sort," said Skippy, on whom the velvety eyes against the distant moon ripple on the water and the nearby night fragrance of the honeysuckle was beginning to work its charm. "Well, I suppose I am—"
"Oh no."
"A rotten good-for-nothing lot," said Skippy gloomily, falling easily into the new part and surprised to find what peculiar pleasure could be extracted from the rôle of the wayward.
"No, no, you're not that bad," said Miss Jennie earnestly, "but I do think—well you've not been under the withest of influenthes, have you?"
"I haven't had a chance," said Skippy desperately. "Everything has been against me. Guess no one cares what becomes of me."
"I know," said the gentle voice. "It ith hard."
"Look here, Miss Tupper," said Skippy, beginning to be convinced of his own predestination for the gallows, as he instinctively felt the sentimental value of the rôle. "Men like myself don't get a chance to know women like you.I wish to heaven—" He stopped, a lump in his throat, and gazed into the sentimental night. Great heavens, what a depraved character he really was! For the first time he saw himself in the enormity of his sinning. It was not only the cigarettes and the one black cigar, purloined from his father, but the orgies at penny-ante, the occasional game of craps back of Mather's barn. Then he remembered other damning episodes in his black record—the time he had gone into a mathematics exam and read the formulas from Buster Bean's collar; the night he had helped Sport McGinnis smuggle a bottle of beer in for a welsh rabbit and swallowed a full third of the rank stuff. Then there was an appalling record of evasions, turnings and twistings of the exact and literal truth—
"You can't be altogether bad if you're so honeth," said Miss Jennie, in whom the instinct was lively to bring the sinner home.
"I am. I am," said Skippy lugubriously.
"Can't I help—juth a little?"
"Would you, would you really?" he said eagerly.
"Let me—pleath."
The plump little fingers came forth and met the rough hand of the sinner. Skippy squeezed them convulsively, not daring to trust his voice, nodded twice and smiled bravely back in the moonlight to show that the leaven of higher things was already beginning to work.
"How'd you get on with Margarita?" he asked Snorky when they retired for the night.
"Margarita's a pippin!" said Snorky.
"I squared you all right."
"You bet you did! She came right up and fed out of my hand. But, say, they swallowed it all right."
"What?"
"The dead game sporting life stuff."
"Yes, I know. Got a cig?"
"What? Oh yes. Get you one in a jiffy. But say. Go easy. The governor and all that sort of thing, you know."
"Nerves sort of jumpy to-night," said Skippy languidly. "Need a few whiffs to quiet 'em down."
It was something new in his life, a good influence. All his better nature rose up in response. So summoning up his courage, he lit a cigarette and tried to inhale—a desperate character, worthy to be saved, certainly ought to inhale! It was nauseating. It stung his lungs and set his head to reeling. He left the window and crawled over to the bed where he lay weak but unconquered.
"By jinks, I will inhale, I'll inhale to-morrow!" he said, seeing always the uplifting smile and the pure velvety eyes of Miss Jennie as the room waltzed around him. "It's going to be awfully hard living up to her, but I'll do it if it kills me!"