Skippy Bedelle Part 45

"Queerer and queerier," said Snorky, considering the bosom of last night's dress s.h.i.+rt with a view to future service.

"They get you before you know it and as soon as they get you they worry the life out of you. One way or the other they start to making you miserable just as soon as you show them you've fallen for them. Now why?"

"Woman has no sense of grat.i.tude," said Snorky, who had heard the phrase from a brother who had suffered.

"And you can't be friends with them--well you know, just friends."

"I know," said Snorky heavily.

"What gets me," said Skippy, "is why we fall and fall and fall."

"Habit."

"Well, perhaps."

"Sure, habit, that's all."

"But this is the queerest of all," said Skippy, yawning and stretching his arms deliciously. "How darned fine you feel when it's all over. You go to bed thinking the bottom's been kicked out of things and you wake up feeling so Jim dandy rip-roarin' chuck full of happiness that you wonder what's happened, and then you remember that you're cured! Your time's your own. You can wear, do and say what you like, spend your money on yourself. You're free! Now it is queer, isn't it?"

"Like having a tooth out?" said Snorky.

"Exactly."

"Say, what story did you cook up about me to Margarita Tupper?" said Skippy, tying the white cravat for the sixth time.

"Bygones is bygones," said Snorky evasively.

"You must have had me robbin' a coach or skinning a cat," said Skippy encouragingly.

"You were throwing yourself away there, old top," said Snorky, avoiding the direct answer. "Why in another week you'd a been reading little Rollo and taking to crocheting--a girl who lisps like that, too!

Whatever was eating you, anyhow?"

"She talked like a shower bath," said Skippy unfeelingly, "but her eyes were lovely. Well, that's over."

"What's the use? You'll fall again."

"Never," said Skippy firmly. Then he qualified it. "That is, not in the same way."

"There ain't no two ways."

"Sure there is. It's like swimming. You can dive in or you can sit on the bank and splash with your toes--Savvy?"

"Ha! ha!"

"Wait and see. I know a thing or two."

Twenty minutes later, having a.s.sumed the full glories of evening dress (with studs of the good old-fas.h.i.+oned style that remained anch.o.r.ed), they departed for dinner at the Balous across the way.

"Say, put me on," said Skippy, who like all artists of the imagination was seized with an uncontrollable nervousness before facing an audience.

"Who's in the party?"

"Only Charlie and Vivi."

"Vivi?"

"Real name's Violet but she's dressed it up."

"What's she like? What's her line?"

"Stiff as a ramrod--prim as an old maid, conversation strictly educational."

"Well, what does she look like?"

"Flabby as a cart-horse."

"Say, what the devil--"

"Grub's o.k. and there'll be fun after," said Snorky by way of justification.

"How's the old folks?"

"Mr. Balou? He's a terror, gives you the w.i.l.l.i.e.s. If he doesn't freeze you the old girl will."

Skippy's traditional scepticism of any statement with the Snorky stamp would have warned him at any other time. But this being in a way a new experience in strange waters, his nervousness got the better of him.

Halfway up the driveway he plucked Snorky's sleeve.

"Listen."

"Let go me arm you chump."

"What do you say to them?"

"Say to whom?"

"Mr. and Mrs."

"Talk about the weather, you ignoramus."

"Sure I know that, but afterwards, at dinner, what do you talk about there?"

"Don't worry, that's what girls are for."

Despite which advice, Skippy nervously ran over his conversational ammunition. There was of course Maude Adams to begin with. He tried hard to think of some book he had read--some work of sufficient dullness to serve up to this blue stocking atmosphere.

"Stop shootin' your cuff," said Snorky, applying his finger to the bell.

"Don't you know anything about society?"

"Who's nervous?" said Skippy indignantly.