Skippy Bedelle Part 53

"Well, it took you some time to find it out."

"Keerect, but now I'm wise. Woman is like a harp in the desert, played upon by every pa.s.sing wind."

"Where'd ye read that?"

"If you're going in for that sort of thing get promiscuous. The only cure for one woman is another."

"You ought to know."

"Are you corresponding with Margarita?" said Skippy suddenly.

"And if I am?"

Skippy shook his head sadly.

"Woman--" he began sententiously and just then fate knocked at the door.

"Come in if you're good-looking," said Snorky, glad of the interruption.

The door opened and discovered a short bulbous freshman, just a whit embarra.s.sed as freshmen should be in the presence of royalty.

"Oh well, come in any way," said Skippy. "What's your name, freshman!"

"Potterman," said the rotund youngster squeezing in.

"Sir."

"Sir."

"What's the rest of it--the handle, the nickname."

"Are we telling our real names?" said the new arrival, c.o.c.king his derby.

"Green, get out the bamboo cane," said Skippy solemnly.

"Oh well, they call me Hippo--sir," said Potterman hastily.

"Ah yes, Hippo Potterman. Of course. That's good, but we'll try to do better by you. Where did they find you?"

"Philamedelphia, sir."

"What's that you've got there?" said Snorky just about to fall upon him bodily.

"Please, sir, it's a letter from Mrs. Bedelle, your aunt."

"Oh, I see," said Skippy with a feeling of disappointment. "You know my aunt? Well, freshman, you may give it to me. I permit you. Advance.

That's it. Curtsey. A little lower. Better."

DEAR JACK,

My very dear friend Susan Potterman is sending her son Cornelius--

Skippy frowned and looked up incredulously.

"Is your name really Cornelius?"

Potterman flushed like the rose and said with a gulp:

"Yes, sir, it is."

"Too bad, too bad."

son Cornelius to Lawrenceville. Please do everything you can to make him at home and see that he meets the _best_ boys. His mother and sister will go on with him and I want you _particularly_ to be _very_ nice to them.

Affectionately, AUNT CARRIE.

Skippy having read this twice, looked in the envelope to make sure that a five dollar bill was not enclosed, as all aunts should remember to do, and transferred his gaze to the fidgeting Hippo.

"H'm, first time at boarding school?"

"Yes, sir."

"Governesses before?"

Hippo, who had been recovering from his first feeling of awe, roared loudly at this.

Skippy looked indignantly at this breach of etiquette and reached thoughtfully for a tennis racket.

"Please, sir," said Hippo hastily, "High school."

Skippy considered him thoughtfully and something told him that in the right-hand lower vest pocket there was undoubtedly a certain amount of round hard silver bodies and moreover that this condition was not simply episodic but chronic.

"That coot may be fresh but he is going to do a lot of heavy spending,"

he said to himself with conviction.

How he knew is immaterial. There is an instinct that guides--some have it, some haven't it. You can't explain it. Doc Macnooder for instance could diagnose a pocket-book as keenly as a surgeon. It's a gift, that's all. Skippy possessed this gift.

"Mother just brought you in?"

Hippo acknowledged this with a look of the greatest distress.

"Sister too?"

"d.a.m.n it, yes!"

Skippy looked at Snorky and shook his head.

"Don't you know that profanity is a wicked, wicked habit, Hippo?"