Skippy Bedelle Part 15

"That is the field of investigation," said Skippy in a melancholy voice.

"But you said Mosquito-Proof Socks!"

"I did. Suppose a harsh sound annoys a mosquito; all you've got to do is to suspend a tiny rusty bell--"

"I don't like that," said Snorky instantly.

"Why not?"

"It doesn't sound modest--"

"That is probably not the way," said Skippy, dismissing this objection with a wave of his hand. "I'm thorough, that's all. Supposing there are certain colors that scare him or make him seasick--red and purple or yellow and violet."

"By jingo! Now you're talking."

"Suppose the mosquito has some deadly enemy. Then all you've got to do is to work his picture into the design of the socks."

"Holy cats!"

"Supposin' it's just the sense of smell you get him by--"

"Citronella!" fairly shouted Snorky.

"Hus.h.!.+" said Skippy, alarmed at the outbreak.

"Citronella!" said Snorky in a whisper.

"You see? Mosquito-Proof Socks is the idea--and there must be fifty ways of working it out."

"Cheese it!" said Snorky, dousing the light at a sound in the hall.

At a point somewhere between the witching hour and the dawn Snorky said in a tentative whisper:

"Hey there, Skippy! Are you awake?"

"What is it?"

"Gos.h.!.+ Skippy, I can't sleep. It's just steaming around in my brain!"

"M. P. S.?"

"You bet. I can't see anything but them, millions of them!"

"Mosquitoes?"

"No--legs! Holy Jemima! Skippy, have you thought how many legs there are in the world? Why, in the United States alone twice ninety-two million.

Think of it! And what'll they average in socks and stockings? I've been trying to work it out all night. Gee! My head's just cracking. If you multiply twice ninety-two million by seven pair of socks or even six--"

"Don't!" said Skippy angrily, and he thought to himself, "Thinking of money, thinking of money! How mercenary he is!"

"Standard Oil is nowhere," said Snorky feverishly.

"Don't I know it!"

"Oil'll run out but there'll always be mosquitoes and legs!"

"Darn you, Snorky! Shut up and let me sleep!"

But how was he to sleep with the vision that Snorky's avaricious imagination held out to him? All night long he tossed about restlessly, wandering in a forest of legs; white ones and red ones, black ones and yellow ones, tall ones and short ones, fat, thin, bow-legged and crooked, all the legs in the world waiting for him to rise up and protect them!

The next morning it was worse. All his imagination, suddenly diverted from the exact scientific contemplation, was halted before the stupendous contemplation of future profits.

"Snorky Green is a bad influence," he said moodily as he trudged out heavy-headed from morning chapel. Do what he might, the contamination spread. With all the long fatigue of patient investigation he knew was ahead, his mind leaped over the present and galloped into the future.

"Multiply twice ninety-two million legs by six pair of socks," he found himself repeating. "Oil may run out, but you bet there'll always be mosquitoes and legs."

Yes, it was greater than Standard Oil. It was fabulous to conceive of the wealth that would be his. All at once the John C. Bedelle Gymnasium seemed ludicrously inadequate. He would double the present equipment!

There would be a second campus--Bedelle Circle! The school lacked water; he would create a lake for it and the John C. Bedelle Boathouse. . . .

"Bedelle, kindly s.h.i.+ne for us. You may translate, John, but be cautious and not too free."

The Roman's mocking voice brought him precipitately to his feet. He opened his book but the pa.s.sage had escaped him and though he dug Shrimp Bedient savagely in the back, no signal returned.

"Excellent so far, quite exceptionally excellent; nothing to criticize,"

said the Roman's rising and falling inflection. "Go on."

"Please, sir, I didn't do the advance."

The cla.s.s roared and the Roman said:

"Too bad, John, too bad! No luck in guessing this morning. We're in the review, John. Too bad! Dreaming again, John? Don't do it, don't do it!

The country will take care of itself, without you. Times are hard, John.

Another year in the Second Form is a dreadful drain on Father's pocket-book. Sit down, John, and don't dream--don't do it."

Skippy sat down and glared at the Roman.

Some day, some day he would even inst.i.tute a fund for superannuated teachers, he would! He would come back some day to the school he had made the greatest in the country; he would come as the BENEFACTOR and then the Roman, old, and decrepit in a wheeled chair, would be brought to him, to him, John C. Bedelle, whom as a boy he had held up to the ridicule of the cla.s.s! What a revenge that would be, the proud and haughty Roman, the greatest flunker of them all, the Roman of the caustic tongue and the all-seeing eye, actually clinging to his hand, stammering out his thanks . . . the Roman whose mocking voice still echoed in his memory, "Don't dream, John, don't do it!"

CHAPTER XV