Skippy Bedelle Part 8

When Skippy during the relaxation of the morning recitations considered the Souvenir Toothbrush he was not so favorably impressed. Snorky's suggestion somehow threw a touch of ridicule over the whole proposition and Skippy, like all true imaginations, shrank from ridicule.

Undoubtedly if the Souvenir Toothbrush became a fact, mothers and governesses _would_ abuse its opportunities. Think of a parental eye gazing admonishingly at you from the back of a toothbrush every morning!

Why, the name of Bedelle might become an execration! He saw himself pilloried among the oppressors of boykind, as unpopular as the compiler of a Latin grammar or the accursed Euclid! No, the idea was unthinkable!

Skippy did not reject the Souvenir Toothbrush _in toto_. He bought a blank book on which he inscribed:

INVENTIONS JOHN C. BEDELLE 1896

On the first page under the day of the month he wrote a full description, adding:

FIELD LIMITED

_Suggestion--Hold until later date and patent anonymously._

Skippy then reluctantly admitted the destructive force of Snorky Green's criticism of the Souvenir Toothbrush; he admitted it, but he could not forgive him for being right. There are certain things which one does not forgive a brother, a sister, or the chum of chums.

After all, was Snorky Green worthy of that privileged and exalted position? A disturbing doubt began to creep into Skippy's imagination.

He pa.s.sed over the treachery in the matter of the now defunct Bedelle Foot Regulator; that might conceivably have been the fault of an inferior temperament. It was the spirit of negative criticism, the settled habit of turning into raillery the fragile first impulses of his inventive imagination, that was alarming.

"Gee! If every time I get a big idea, he's going to knock it in the head, what's the use of having an imagination?" he said gloomily.

After all, could a creative temperament yoke itself to a destructive criticism without self-immolation? Immersed in these brooding forebodings, he came heavily up the d.i.c.kinson stairs to the communal room. Suddenly he stopped, amazed.

"What the deuce!"

On his bureau a flaming bit of color greeted him from the somber ma.s.s of his pendent neckties. He advanced and recognized Snorky Green's red choker tie, which was particularly dear to his young sartorial fancy. On the pin cushion lay the agate cuff b.u.t.tons and the silver-rimmed fountain pen. He opened the top drawer and beheld three pair of open-work socks, red, orange and glowing green.

"Gee, how crude!" he said indignantly.

At another moment and in another mood his heart might have softened at this evident peace-offering; but this afternoon, with the new child of his imagination slain by Snorky Green's brutal wit, the whole proceeding was undeniably crude, a bribe too openly offered. He would have to return them; that was inevitable and that was of course the last thing he wished to do. He sat down at his desk, scowling horribly, and then, moved by a fitting inspiration, he seized his pen and dashed off the most frigid and properly insulting of notes.

To Arthur E. Green. Goods Returned.

1 Fountain Pen.

1 Pair of Agate Cuff b.u.t.tons.

1 Choker Tie (red).

3 Pair of Socks.

Kindly acknowledge receipt, Bedelle.

The last he considered such a master stroke that, his good humor restored by the antic.i.p.ation of the infuriating effect on his beloved friend, he began to whistle a triumphant strain. He made a neat package, pinned the ultimatum on it, and proceeded to the opposite bureau.

"Well, I'll be teetotally jiggswiggered," he said, astounded.

In the oval of the gla.s.s, a new photograph had appeared in the company of the three other smiling feminine beauties which Snorky Green, as a man of the world, displayed by implied right of conquest. Skippy set down his package and craned forward for a closer examination.

"Huh! Old enough to be his grandmother," he said contemptuously, staring at the new victim of Snorky Green's charms.

But at this moment, hearing a familiar step in the hall, he bounded back in time to a.s.sume a nonchalant, bored att.i.tude as Snorky came joyfully in, exclaiming:

"h.e.l.lo, old sporting life! What do you know to-day?"

"Green," said Skippy, drawing himself up and extending an elocutionary finger towards the bureau, "you will find something to interest you there."

He waited a moment outside in the hall until Snorky's bursting imprecation brought the needed consolation, and then tripped down the steps, seeking a calming jigger.

CHAPTER IX

SNORKY AS A LADY-KILLER

"_L'AMOUR a des raisons que la raison connait pas_," say the French, who ought to know, and the first expansive sentimental affection of a boy for a chum has also its illogical quality. Now, Skippy adored Snorky and the affection was returned. He felt that Snorky would die for him, as of course he would lay down his own life for his friend, if they should ever hunt together in African jungles. He was willing to share Snorky's last dime, keep his confidences, and fight shoulder to shoulder. He admired, he respected, he loved Snorky, but for the life of him he could not see wherein Snorky Green's peculiar brand of beauty should appeal to the young feminine eye any more than his own lank frame and sharpened features. Why should Snorky's gla.s.s present four lovely and adoring feminine faces, while his own should give back only a pointed nose around which the orange freckles swarmed like flies? True, the lady-killer's wardrobe was of a magnificence which outshone his, but then socks and neckties and cuff-b.u.t.ton jewelry are communal possessions.

Why should Snorky Green then inspire such pa.s.sions while he pa.s.sed lonely and unloved? No, certainly Snorky was not beautiful. He had a smudgy, stubby little nose. He was lop-eared and the dank yellow hair fell about his puffy eyes in straight, unrippling shocks. Yet four women (three blondes and a brunette) watched with affectionate glances the progress of his casual morning toilette. Why?

The next morning, as Skippy reluctantly rose and gazed upon the feminine galaxy waiting at the bureau that was not his, the sense of his own inferiority again smote him. Envy is the corrupting cancer of friendship. He did like Snorky. He yearned for the life-and-death devotion of a chum of chums; a sort of Damon and Pythias, D'Artagnan and Athos affair--but, while this sense of inferiority continued, the shadow was over the fair sunlit landscape of impulsive friendship. It was so, and the feeling would not down.

That evening, being alone, he stood again contemplating the evidence of Snorky Green's predatory progress among the ladies. He examined the four photographs carefully.

"They can't all be sisters," he said gloomily; besides, he knew that his roommate, more fortunate than he, had to bear but one such cross.

"Danged if I can see what gets them. If that fellow's a lady charmer, I'll hire out for a matinee idol!"

On the pin cushion was a pin in the shape of an arrow (an arrow of course suggested a transpierced heart), which Snorky wore for important ceremonies, when he donned a perpendicular collar and a white coaching tie. On the wall was a Farmington banner and on the sofa five pillows worked by loving feminine hands.

"Sisters never go to that trouble," said Skippy, secure in his knowledge of sister nature. "By the great horned spoon this can't go on. I've either got to lick the stuffin's out of him or--"

Without finishing his phrase, he went to the table, drew forth Caesar's "Gallic Wars," and a copy of "Lorna Doone" and immediately began to concentrate. A moment later Snorky Green arrived chuckling from a foray down the hall where he had just deposited a moth ball in the lamp chimney of Beckstein, the Midnight Poler. He came in rollicking and triumphant, slamming and locking the door against a sudden reprisal.

Then, seeing Skippy, he stiffened, scowled, and a.s.sumed an air of frigid dignity. Skippy, with his eye on a convenient mirror, followed his movements expectantly.

Snorky, having glared sufficiently at the unresponsive back of his roommate, planted himself in front of him and said angrily:

"Say, what in tarnation is biting you, anyhow?"

Part of the pleasure which Skippy derived from his periodic application of ostracism was in the immediate success it achieved on his roommate's impressionable temperament. At present, being in an exceedingly grouchy mood, he drew forth a pad and pencil and tendered them with a plain intimation that only thus would he receive any communications.

"What are you sore about?" said Snorky, flaring up at once. "Just because I took a crack at your old Souvenir Toothbrush? Is that it?"

Skippy drew forth a handy literal translation and ostensibly began to apply it to the baffling text.

"My lord, you act like a sick girl! You're a pleasant roommate, you are!

How long are you going to sulk like this?"

Skippy began to whistle softly to himself:

"You can't play in my backyard; I don't love you any more."