Skippy Bedelle Part 33

"That's what you've said every time," said Miss Dolly, shrugging her shoulders.

Skippy bided his opportunity until the third two-step had begun and the claimants for the favorite's hand were congregating.

"I'm sitting this out with Jack," said Dolly, with a sigh.

"Say, a fossil who can't dance oughtn't to have any rights around here, nohow," said Happy Mather. "You're only a clothes horse anyway, Skippy."

Dolly burst out laughing at this, which pained Skippy exceedingly.

"Oh, any chump can dance if he wants to."

"You think so?"

"Sure. Easiest thing in the world if I wanted to."

"Easy?"

"Sure. Just keeping in time, that's all."

"Here's a dollar you can't get three times around the room."

Skippy pretended to hesitate.

"I'll pay another dollar any day to see a circus," said Joe Crocker, beginning to smirk.

"Dolly, hold the money," said Skippy.

Miss Dolly looked up in some consternation for the group now numbered a half a dozen and the floor was vast and bare.

"Don't you want to wait a little?" she said with a glance at Crocker, who was nudging his neighbor.

"What's the use?" said Skippy. "Now tell me again what I do."

"Two steps with the left forward and then two steps with the right. Hold my arm so," said Dolly a little breathlessly.

"Hold on tight, Skippy," said Happy Mather.

"Step on your own feet."

"Balance on your heels."

"Don't let them rattle you, Jack."

"They can't. Which foot do I start on?"

"The left."

"Shall we give him a push, Dolly?" said Lazelle sympathetically, while his companions, linking arms, were beaming with antic.i.p.ated delight.

Skippy, having properly worked up his audience, nodded to his partner and floated off in a perfect dancing style.

"Jack, you wretch, you've danced for years!" said Dolly after the first surprise had pa.s.sed. "You've just been making fun of me all this time."

"Never been on a ballroom floor before in my life," said Skippy, keeping within the letter of the truth.

"Why you're wonderful, Jack! But then how could you--"

"It's mental, everything is mental," said Skippy conceitedly. "I just watched till I got it in my mind and the rest was easy. Thanks for the long green. h.e.l.lo, what's become of our little gallery of nuts?"

Whether or not Dolly was entirely convinced by this casual explanation, the immediate return to Skippy was enormous. Not only were the claimants to her affections completely distanced, but Miss Dolly, for a time, adopted an att.i.tude of respect and deference towards him, which had formerly been totally lacking.

Skippy was tremendously in love. There was no doubt about that. You could see it in the dishpan glow of his scrubbed forehead, in the spotless flannels and the lily white hands. There was something secure and permanent in the attachment. Dolly was not sentimental and only distantly affectionate, but she was absorbing. There was no question of an eight-hour day in his case. From nine A.M. until Mr. Travers ostentatiously began to bar the library windows for the night, Mr.

Skippy Bedelle was at one end of a wire with Miss Dolly Travers at the other, pushing the b.u.t.ton.

That practical young lady, realizing that Skippy's earning capacity was still woefully limited, permitted no allusions to the distant holy bonds of matrimony, but she did allow him to mortgage his future to the extent of the promenade and dances which would decorate his scholastic and collegiate journey, as well as attendance at all athletic contests of any nature whatsoever. On his birthday (when the sinking fund toward the first dress suit rose to the colossal sum of fifty dollars) they solemnly exchanged pins, Dolly openly sporting the red and black of Lawrenceville, while Skippy concealed in the secret recesses of his tie a little gold wishbone which would lead him to the higher prizes in life, add three inches to his stature and the additional twenty pounds necessary to qualify for the varsity.

His fall from grace was of course the subject of great merriment among his companions, particularly Happy Mather and Joe Crocker in whom memory still rankled. A direct insult was of course dangerous, but there were other subtler ways. At least half a dozen times a day some one was sure to ask him,

"I say, Skippy, what's doing to-night?"

"Got anything on this afternoon?"

But Skippy brushed aside their crude attempts at persiflage with indifference. He had won out. The courted prize was his. For two weeks not a cloud obtruded on the clear sky of his content. Dolly bullied and bossed him. He did her errands. He fetched and carried. He served her and no other G.o.ddess. And then tragedy arrived with the arrival of the celebrated Hickey Hicks, who came down to spend a fortnight with the Triumphant Egghead.

CHAPTER XXVII

HICKEY IN A DEADLY RoLE

HICKEY, be it remembered, had just severed his connections with the Lawrenceville school after a display of pedagogical despotism which had no parallel except in the case of the celebrated Captain Dreyfus. Just because certain disturbing incidents had occurred in close succession, beginning with the theft of the clapper; the disappearance of Tabby's bed, when that inexperienced young master had dashed two miles down the Trenton road in search of fict.i.tious burglars; the famous Fed and anti-Fed riots when a misdirected effort to inculcate the love of politics had almost resulted in a recourse to the financial inst.i.tution which insures the school against destruction by fire or otherwise--the head master, without an iota of evidence (he acknowledged it frankly), had requested the Hon. Hickey Hicks to seek a wider field for the admittedly fertile powers which were peculiarly his.

When Hickey with his resplendent social manner cast the eye of favor on Dolly Travers, after having remarked her unquestioned superiority with the light fantastic toe, Skippy felt exactly the way the Vicomte de Bragelonne did when royalty appeared to claim the hand of Louise de la Valliere. Hickey was in the heavy middleweight cla.s.s while he was still a bantam. Hickey was one of the princely figures of school tradition. He came, he saw, he conquered. He was an athlete, whose arrival was disputed by the three leading colleges. Sambones Bedelle himself, captain of next year's Yale varsity nine, allowed himself to be seen publicly with his arm resting affectionately over Hickey's shoulders.

With such a halo it was no wonder that Dolly in her early teens should have yielded to the flattery of his preference. Skippy acknowledged so much to himself as he stood on the fringe of the spectators and watched Dolly with rapturous upturned face whirling about the room in the arms of the great man.

"What ye doin' to-morrow afternoon, Skippy?" said Puffy Ellis, who enjoyed the reversal of roles.

"I'm cleaning up the mitts. Want to come around?" said Skippy, with what is commonly described as a steely look.

Puffy did not pursue the subject and the chip on Skippy's shoulder remained unchallenged.

How Hickey danced! The days had not arrived when acrobatic feats had invaded the decorum of the ballroom, and such simple departures from the routine as dos-a-dos and single hand were enough to provoke envy and astonishment.

Skippy forgot his irritation as he watched the graceful guiding of his rival. Hickey certainly could dance! He admitted it. Never with or without the a.s.sistance of a dressmaker's manikin could he ever hope to rival him in this accomplishment. He went dutifully to claim his turn with the faithless one. His heart was acutely torn and he knew the peculiar delight he was affording his numerous friends, but he forced a smile of indifference. Besides, in his fertile imagination he had the glimmerings of a stratagem.

"I've saved the fifth two-step and the seventh waltz for you," said Dolly, squeezing his arm ever so lightly, "though you haven't asked me yet."