“And I didn’t dream you would cut up so among the girls. Of course, I’ll keep still about it, and Brad will never say a word, but still it may leak out. It may get into the newspapers. You know there are representatives of the yellow journals of America in London. They may hear of it. It will make a breezy bit of scandal—a juicy morsel—for them. How would this sound in one of their papers: ‘Professor Gunn Gets Gay With the Girls. Giddy Old Chap, Traveling in England, Tickles the Chambermaids——’”
With a genuine shriek of horror, Professor Gunn dropped on a chair.
“Stop! stop!” he yelled. “You’ll drive me to suicide!”
“But you know it may get into the papers,” Dick went on. “As I said, neither Brad nor myself will say anything about it.”
“Then how can it get out?”
“Why, the girl you tried to kiss may——”
“Never tried it—never!”
“Well, the girl who says you tried to kiss her——”
“Who says you did kiss her—by accident,” put in the boy from Texas.
“I stand corrected, and I accept the correction.” said Dick. “The girl who says you did kiss her by accident may happen to speak of it to other tourists. She may mention your name. It’s not unlikely some of those tourists may be newspaper men. If they are not, they may be friends of newspaper men. They may see an opportunity of making a good, spicy item out of it. Oh, there are ways enough for it to get into the American papers.”