Skippy Bedelle Part 11

All kindly feelings vanished.

"What's the good of calling yourself names?" said Skippy crushingly. He picked up the photograph and smiled at it. "Mimi is a flirt, but she has her good points."

"Look here!" said Snorky, rising in sudden fury. "There's one question has got to be answered right now."

"And pray what is that?" said Skippy, resting one elbow on the top of the bed and crossing his legs to show his perfect calm.

Snorky planted himself before the bureau and extended his hand in a furious gesture towards the lace bed cap that now adorned the top.

"Does or does not _that_ belong to Miss Lafontaine?"

"Any one who would lower himself to ask such a question," said Skippy, still in a stage att.i.tude, "does not deserve my sympathy. I would have given her up. Now I shall keep her."

"Oh, you think she cares for you, you chump?"

"I do not discuss women."

The gauntlet had been thrown down and the demon of jealousy took up his abode with the _menage_ Bedelle and Green. For a week the comedy continued, while conversation was reduced to a minimum and transmitted in writing along the lines of Skippy's imagining. Each watched the other's correspondence with a jealous eye. Whenever Skippy received a letter from home, he ostensibly hugged it to his shirt-front and, repairing to a corner, read it furtively with the pink morocco case before him. Afterward he would execute a double shuffle across the room, whistle a hilarious strain, and give every facial contortion which could express a lover's joy, while Snorky squirmed and scowled and pretended not to notice. Snorky in turn retaliated by writing long letters after hours by the light of a single candle, ruffling up his hair and breathing audibly. In the morning Skippy, pa.s.sing towards the washstand, would see on the table a swollen envelope, addressed:

Miss Mimi Lafontaine, Farmington, Conn.

These letters troubled him. When a fellow could write over four pages it certainly must be serious, and these looked as though they held forty.

The trouble was that Skippy had begun to believe in his own pa.s.sion. The little j.a.panese brunette had become a reality to him. He had talked with her, walked with her, received the avowal of her own uncontrollable impulse towards him. In fact, at times he almost believed that he had actually held her in his arms and whirled in the dizzy intoxication of the waltzes he had announced. He even was able to feel a real pang of jealousy, a fierce and contending antagonism against Snorky, who actually knew her. Such a situation was of course fraught with too many explosive possibilities to long endure. Fortunately Fate stepped in and preserved the friendship.

CHAPTER XII

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

A WEEK after these events, returning on a Sat.u.r.day morning from the last vexations of the curriculum with the expectant thrill of the opening of the baseball season, Skippy was amazed to receive, by the hands of Klondike, the colored sweep, a scribbled note in the familiar handwriting of his sister:

DEAR JACK:

Miss Green and I and a party of girls are down for the game. We're at the Lodge. Come right over and bring Arthur.

SIS.

His first emotion was one of horror; had they been up to the room, and was his duplicity forever at the mercy of a sister's gibes? Klondike rea.s.sured him. He bounded upstairs, made a hasty survey, found everything in order, and hastily departed for the Lodge, after a quick plunge into the glorious buckskin vest, a struggle into a clean collar and a hurried dusting off of his shoes against the window seat. He reached the parlors of the Lodge on the heels of Snorky Green, who, being as thoroughly bored by the prospect as he, forgot the week's feud in a common misery.

"Gee! Aren't sisters the limit?"

"Well, we're in for it."

"Let's hope they clear out before dinner."

The next moment Skippy was perfunctorily pecking at the cheek of Miss Clara Bedelle and pretending to be overjoyed at the prospect of parading before the a.s.sembled school with six young ladies in tow. Then he looked up and something like a cataleptic fit went through his body.

Directly in front of him, evidently waiting for the introduction, was unmistakably Miss Mimi Lafontaine! He looked at Snorky and saw the same expression of horror over his pudgy features, as he came up, knees shaking, to be introduced in turn.

Then to Snorky's distressed soul came the welcome sound:

"Jack, dear, I want you to meet Mimi--Miss Lafontaine."

To the amazement of sisters and friends, said Snorky, advancing with outstretched hand:

"h.e.l.lo, you old Skippy!"

Skippy clung to it as to a spar in midstream.

"Snorky, old dear--it's all right."

"It is?"

"You bet it is!"

"What are you idiotic boys doing?" said Sister Green.

"Shall we tell?" asked Snorky roguishly.

"Women have no sense of humor," said Skippy, grinning with a great eas.e.m.e.nt of the soul.

At this moment they rose above the vexations of the female intrusion.

They looked at each other and each comprehended the other. They were equals, equal in imagination, in audacity and expedient. This mutual revelation cleared away all past misunderstanding and jealousies. The sense of humor was triumphant. They loved each other.

A half-hour later, having, to the utter amazement of sister No. 1 and sister No. 2, rolled hilariously, arms locked, across the campus, they lay on opposite beds, struggling weakly to master the pangs of laughter which smote them like the colic.

"Are we going to tell our real names?" said Skippy at last.

"Let's."

"You know, Bo, you certainly had me going--you certainly did. And all these months, too! Snorky, I bow before you."

"Allow me," said Snorky admiringly.

"Say! You're all right, but honest now," said Skippy, pointing to Snorky's bureau and the feminine galaxy, "honest, who are they?"

"Well, of course one's my sister," said Snorky, grinning. "I swiped these three and I bought the other with the frame. Say, I'm not worried about how you got yours, but what I'd like to know is, who in tarnation belongs to that boudoir cap?"

"My grandmother, and she's a corker, too!"

They clasped hands and Snorky announced solemnly:

"Skippy, old fellow, let 'em have all their old skirts; there's nothing like the real thing, the man-to-man stuff, is there?"

"You bet there isn't."