Skippy Bedelle Part 57

"Snorky?"

"What is it, old boy?"

"Ever go fis.h.i.+ng?"

"You betcha."

"Do you know the feeling after you've been dabbling with six-inch and five-inch and four-inch trout all day,--and something about three feet long weighing ten or twelve pounds grabs your hook? Do you get me?"

"Sure, I get you," said Snorky gazing heavily out at the stars, "but oh gee, Skippy, why does she have to be Nuisance's sister?"

Snorky's worst forebodings were realized. Nuisance earned his t.i.tle a hundredfold within the week. Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan had been fresh, was fresh and would freshen more, but Dennis was amusing and added to the gayety of nations. Nuisance was what his name implied, simply intolerable. You stumbled over him and you b.u.mped into him. When state secrets were being discussed in whispers, Nuisance was always within earshot. He was the extra, the intruder, the tail to the kite. He did not actively offend against the traditions which govern freshmen in the incubator period. He was too clever for that. He had submitted to the mild hazing with a cheerfulness which robbed it of all its sting. He had climbed water towers and sung appropriate hymns. He had sat in washbasins and gravely pulled imaginary miles against the toothpicks furnished him as oars. He had submitted to the pi's as they came with a full recognition that the second and third men in the mounting heap were extremely more uncomfortable than himself with a mattress for a vis-a-vis. He was not insubordinate--he was just a nuisance.

But if he kept skilfully within the letter of the law so far as the rest of the house was concerned he was irrepressible once in the company of Skippy. Nothing that Skippy could do could chill his affection or bring him to a proper realization of the deference which should mark the manner of a freshman towards one of the lords of the earth.

"Nuisance is like a wet muddy Newfoundland pup that wants to live in your lap," said Snorky at the end of the second week.

"Some day," said Skippy shaking his head, "my worse nature is going to rise up and get the better of me."

"I hope I see it!" said Snorky enthusiastically.

"Of course I'll have to hold in until after Thanksgiving," said Skippy disconsolately.

"What? Oh, naturally."

CHAPTER XL

REALITY MINUS HIPPO

THANKSGIVING over, Snorky confidently waited the explosion.

"Skippy's going to the bad," he said to Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan. "He's nervous, he's fidgety, he talks in his sleep. There's no living with him."

"Some day it'll come," said Dennis cheerfully. "Some day there'll be a bang-up, two by two procession, slow music, flowers omitted; and right on a nice green shutter will be stretched our Sister's darling boy."

"Well, I'm getting tired of waiting."

"Keep hoping," said Dennis wisely. "Human nature is human nature. Say, look at that!"

Across the campus came Skippy, fists sunk in his pockets, hat-brim down, stalking rapidly, and at his heels the irrepressible Nuisance.

"It's shocking," said Snorky, "poor old Skippy!"

"That's what love means," said Finnegan contemptuously. "Do you know what he reminds me of? A poor lonely cur going down the road with a tin can tied to his tail."

"h.e.l.lo, Skippy," said Snorky sadly.

Skippy looked at them and grunted.

At this moment Nuisance caught him by the arm.

"Say, old chap, what are you going to do now?"

"Going to bed, d.a.m.n it!" said Skippy and bolted within.

How could Snorky and Dennis that unworldly fledgling know what Skippy suffered? The forty-eight hours of the Thanksgiving vacation had been like a narcotic dream. He had been under the same roof with her, sat by her side in the darkened theatre and thrilled at the low sobby music that sent his imagination helter-skelter into dangerous pastures; received her confidences, gravely discussed with her the character and eligibility of older men, confided in turn his life's project to launch mosquito-proof socks on a world scale; received the full force of her lovely radiant gentlest of smiles; danced with her alone a whole hour in the Potterman ballroom, suffocated with happiness; and for all of which had promised what? To wear Nuisance about his neck like a millstone, to protect, cherish and guide him through the perils and temptations of boarding-school as though--as though he were his own brother. And Nuisance knew! That was the worst of it,--Nuisance knew the thin tyrant skein by which he held him irrevocably linked! Christmas was yet to come and for what Christmas might hold Skippy possessed his soul in patience.

Then the blow fell. A week later as Snorky Green was returning from the village he perceived Dennis de Brian de Boru in a state of excitement waving a newspaper at him from the porch.

"There must be another birth in the faculty," thought Snorky, puzzled to ascribe an adequate reason. Such events, be it mentioned, were usually attended by cuts and in the higher spheres with even a half holiday.

Finnegan rushed forward, dove at his knees and spilled him on the ground joyously.

"d.a.m.n you, you mad Irishman," said Snorky picking himself up and disentangling himself from the newspaper. "What's. .h.i.t you anyway?"

"It's come, hooray!"

"What's come?"

"Skippy's free!"

Snorky, further mystified, seized Finnegan and having sufficiently shaken him demanded an explanation.

"Eighth page, first column, ouch!" said Finnegan.

Snorky opened it and read:

MISS POTTERMAN TO MARRY HAROLD B. DRINKWATER

At this moment the door opened and Skippy came heavily out.

"Have you seen it?" said Dennis breathlessly.

"Seen what?"

"The paper!"

"What's in the paper?"

Dennis glanced at Snorky and solemnly handed over the fatal announcement. All levity had disappeared. A man's sorrow after all must be sacred.