Skippy Bedelle Part 54

Hippo's mouth started to swallow his ears, then returned to rest at signs of a hostile atmosphere. He swung from foot to foot, looked sheepish, looked terrified and finally blurted out:

"I beg pardon, sir."

"It is a wicked habit, Hippo, but we are here to help you. It is very lucky for you that you have come to the right school, where you will meet boys of fine manly standards. Kneel down, Hippo."

"What, sir?"

"Go over to the bed and kneel down," said Skippy in a voice of great sadness. "Don't hesitate, Hippo. That's better. Now, Hippo, I want you to reflect upon what a wicked, wicked thing profanity is and I want you to ask G.o.d to forgive you and help you. Silently, Hippo."

Hippo, who was green and fresh but not at all green and gullible, went through the prescribed program with the utmost gravity.

"Do you feel better now, Hippo?" said Snorky solemnly.

"Yes, sir, but I'd like a little more time, sir."

"Stand up," said Skippy frowning.

Hippo, unchastened, bounded to his feet and saluted.

"And, Hippo, I'm afraid," said Skippy relentlessly, "that you don't appreciate what a mother's love means. Think how your mother has watched over you all these years, think how she has scrubbed behind your ears, think of the hundreds and hundreds of toothbrushes--"

But at this, as Snorky gulped and barely converted a laugh into a sneeze with a hurried dive into the closet, Skippy abandoning his pedagogical air said in a more natural tone:

"Well, Hippo, I shall want to talk with you very seriously on this some other time. Your manners are shocking and your morals worse, but I am here. Don't worry. Meanwhile, ahem, you can bring your family in to tea."

"Thank you, kind sir."

"Hippo, you are fresh."

"But you _are_ kind, aren't you, sir?" said Hippo with a.s.sumed innocence.

"Get your hat and wait downstairs," said Skippy deciding to abandon the lighter tone.

"Yes, sir."

"Hippo?"

"What, sir?"

"Don't forget."

"What, sir?"

"The curtsey, you know."

A quarter of an hour later Skippy and Snorky with Hippo in tow started across the campus to show their protege the historic spots, beginning with Laloo's where the merry hot dogs whistled to one another in steaming cans, by way of Bill Appleby's where ginger-pop and root-beer waited, to the Jigger Shop where the Jigger cooled and Conover's where the pancake sizzled.

Opposite the Jigger Shop the celebrated Doc Macnooder, resplendent in a varsity sweater, was surveying the hungry Jigger-fed crowd and debating whether to go right up and pay for his sustenance or wait a little longer and see what might turn up.

"Well, Skippy, been inventing anything new?" said Macnooder pleasantly after the introductions.

"I say, Doc, I want to put it up to you," said Skippy hastily, for he feared any reference to bathtubs or mosquitoes might detract from the respect which was essential in Hippo. "I'm out for the scrub, you know, and what I wanted to ask you was do you think training ought to start now or wait until school opens."

Macnooder's mind scorned subtleties. It moved by the shortest cuts to the practical issue.

"Has he got the price?" he said looking at Hippo.

"He has."

"Let's eat."

Macnooder looked appraisingly at Hippo, whom Nature had destined to play at center rush, to be mauled and cuffed and suffocated under scores of scuffing, struggling bodies. A flicker of sympathy should have stirred, but it didn't.

"You'll need quite a lot of stuff," he said pensively.

"Nothing doing, Doc," said Skippy, winking hard at his protege. "Hippo's fitted out."

"How about fountain-pens or crockery sets, or patent nail clippers?"

"I dote on fountain-pens," began Hippo.

"Hippo's under my protection," said Skippy militantly. "We're sort of related."

"Oh well, let's eat then," said Macnooder with a reluctant look.

"Don't take anything from that fellow even if he gives it to you," said Skippy in a whisper to Hippo. "Elucidations later."

Al had two att.i.tudes of welcome, according to the record of the books, one in which the hand advanced impulsively and a smile broke from under the s.h.a.ggy yellow bang and another where the hand remained in a stationary receptive cup, or sometimes caressed the limp ends of the mustache in a way most discouraging and disheartening to the delinquent debtor. When Doc Macnooder arrived, however, he paid him the further honor to carefully close the gla.s.s cases where eclair and fruit cake were waiting the call to service, and braced himself against the counter.

"h.e.l.lo, Al," said Skippy affably, "here we are again. Set 'em up four times."

"I see you and I see that there Doc Macnooder," said Al in an unconvinced sort of way.

"Set 'em up," said Macnooder in an encouraging tone.

"_Who's_ settin' 'em up?" said Al, resorting to his toothpick.

Macnooder looked at Skippy, Skippy looked at Snorky, then all three looked at Hippo.

"The pleasure is mine," said Hippo and with a purse-proud gesture he flicked on the counter a twenty dollar bill.

Al was not easily shocked but for once his perfect manner left him. He glanced at Hippo and then enviously at Macnooder.

"I didn't know they picked them as early as that," he said enigmatically. "Doc, you'll be buying this place in a week."

"I could buy it now," said Macnooder frowning, "and Al, step to the back and have a little business talk with me."