Skippy Bedelle Part 49

"I say, how about reading my character now?"

"No, not now, sometime later, perhaps."

"Perhaps?"

"Well I don't know if I'd dare. What are you doing to-morrow?"

"Nothing particular."

"Suppose we get up a hay ride and a picnic. The moon will be glorious."

"Bacon and roast corn? Hurray!" said Skippy, most unromantically.

Vivi got up suddenly.

"Let's go back."

"All right, but it's awfully dark."

"Follow me."

Skippy walked purposely into the first flower bed.

"Help, I'm lost!"

Vivi stood considering.

"Are you sorry?"

"Dreadfully. Ouch, I'm in a rose bus.h.!.+"

"And you promise not to be cynical and aloof?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die," said Skippy, very well pleased with himself.

Immediately the hand was offered and retained. To be magnanimous he gave it a little extra squeeze.

"That's not fair," said Vivi.

"All's fair in love and war," said Skippy who, under the influence of outward conditions, momentarily forgot his role.

"My aunt's cat's pants," said Snorky enviously, when they had departed.

"You're getting to be a rapid worker, old top, you certainly are!"

"Oh I've learned a thing or two," said Skippy pompously.

"Splash with your toes, old horse," said Snorky, shaking his head. "Look out, Vivi's an old stager. She collects them."

"What?"

"Scalps," said Snorky with a significant gesture.

"Just watch me."

"You don't say so."

"I've got her feeding out of my hand, gentle as a lamb," said Skippy, remembering with a pleasant tickling sensation the mystified fascination of her way of looking at him.

"Cheese it," said Snorky shaking his head.

"This is different."

"Whoa, old horse, whoa!"

"Snorky, old gal," said Skippy, who had now settled down into the predatory vision Miss Vivi had artfully evoked, "it's easy when you know the game."

"And what's the game?"

"Don't get tagged."

"Elucidate."

"Keep 'em running after you. It's the first one who runs away who wins every time."

"Oh, simple as that?"

"Sure, that's all there is to it."

"Let 'em love you, eh?"

"Oh well," said Skippy modestly, but as he sought his bed he stole a satisfied glance into the mirror.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

SPLAs.h.i.+NG WITH YOUR TOES

FOR the next six days Skippy was a very busy young man. He had a reputation to sustain. The reputation was quite unjustified but that did not alter matters. Miss Balou had given it to him and Miss Balou must not be disappointed. In the s.h.i.+fting comedy of life, Skippy was now cast for the part of the Demon Rusher. In those early ambling days before the automobile and the aeroplane had brought their escape valves for human energy, the steam pressure of youth sometimes found expression in what was known as the rush. As the name implies the object of the male partic.i.p.ant was to carry all before him in cyclonic style, to dazzle and overwhelm the breathless and bewildered lady by the blinding rapidity of his showered attentions. By mutual consent nothing binding was ever implied in this form of acrobatic sentiment and the knell was sounded when either party paused for breath. When a rush began all bystanders withdrew as a matter of etiquette and waited for the dust to subside, much as, in the Simian days of the race, the lesser monkeys sat on a branch and hugged themselves when the big monk came courting.

Skippy borrowed a bicycle and departed from the home of his chum directly after breakfast, having likewise borrowed various brilliant bits of manly luxury which flashed from his ankles, his neck and his breast pocket. At exactly nine o'clock as though by accident Miss Vivi's trim figure daintily balanced on the smartest of "Safety" bicycles appeared from the Balou driveway and the following brilliant opening occurred.

"Why, Jack. What are you doing up so early?"