The Trimming of Goosie

BY JAMES HOPPER
Author of Caybigan, 9009, etc.
NEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 1909
Copyright, 1909, by CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
Copyright, 1909, by MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
Published, September, 1909
THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS RAHWAY, N.J.

Why, Goosie, what are you doing?
Goosie, otherwise Mr. Charles-Norton Sims, dropped his arms hastily down his sides and stood very still, caged in the narrow space between porcelain tub and gleaming towel-rack. The mirror before which he had been performing his morning calisthenics faced him uncompromisingly; it showed him that he was blushing. The sight increased his embarrassment. For a moment panic went bounding and rebounding swiftly in painted contagion from Goosie to the mirror, from the mirror to Goosie; the blush, at first faint on Charles-Norton's brow, flamed, spread over his face, down his neck, fell in cascade along his broad shoulders, and then rippled down his satiny skin clear to the barrier of the swimming trunks tight about his waist. It was some time before he mustered the courage to turn his foolish face toward the door through which had sounded the cooing cry of his little wife.
The door was but a few inches a-jar; it let pass only the round little nose of the round little wife, between two wide-open blue-flowers of eyes. What are you doing, Goosie? she repeated in a tone slightly amused but rich with a large tolerance; what are you doing, Goosie, eh?
Nothing, Dolly, he answered, his straight, athletic body a bit gawky with embarrassment; nothing.