“If that’s the way you wake up, hadn’t you better go to sleep again?” she said.
“I don’t think so, for that is the realization of my dreams, June.”
They both tingled with an unspeakable, undefinable pleasure that was wholly innocent and harmless. Tommy Tucker, with a tall, dark-haired girl, peered in upon them.
“Peekaboo!” cried Tommy. “Caught you. Say, Dick, what makes you monopolize the only secluded retreat there is in this room? Can’t you give a fellow a show?”
“Mr. Tucker!” exclaimed the tall brunette reprovingly.
“Call me Tommy, Janette—please call me Tommy,” pleaded the little chap. “And don’t for the love of decorum hitch Mister onto my name. I have to stop and think who you mean when you do. Nobody ever calls me Mister. All my friends insult me by calling me ‘Runt’ and ‘Shaver’ and ‘Sawed-off,’ and offensive names like that. I’ve threatened vengeance on them a thousand times, but it doesn’t seem to frighten them a bit. I wish I was seven feet tall.”
“There’s a chap in Chicago, Tommy, who advertises to increase a person’s height from an inch to two inches,” said Dick.
“Well, if I can’t put on more than an inch or two,” declared Tucker, “I’ll let myself remain a sawed-off. What’s the good of stretching one’s self for a paltry inch of stature? Say, Dick, won’t you give me the signal when you decide to move? I have a secret which I wish to whisper in the shell-like ear of Janette. It can’t be told where the morbidly curious would be liable to overhear a word.”
“We’ll move at once,” laughed Dick.
“Don’t permit Mr. Tucker to disturb you,” said Janette. “I think his secret will keep a while.”