“And, I presume, she also wears stiffly-laundried shirt waists, with men’s ties, and divided skirts, and her hair is short and parted on the side, and she rides a bicycle. I know the type—the young lady who affects the masculine in her attire.”
“She has just the loveliest long hair in the world, and her skirts are not divided, and she doesn’t ride a bicycle, nor wear shirt waists, at least not horrid, starched, manny ones. She likes the soft, washable silk kind; and she is a great deal more lady-like than you are, and lovely, and just splendid; so there!”
Mr. Van Silver chuckled; he liked to tease Milly.
Adelaide remained at Mrs. Roseveldt’s for two weeks. Jim did not gain as fast as the physician had expected. The nervous shock and the great strain of the race after the accident had been more than the boy’s slight physique could well endure.
Adelaide read to him, and played endless games of halma and backgammon, and discussed plans for the summer, or told him of the people in her tenement, in whom Jim was even more interested, if that were possible, than Adelaide herself. Polo called and brought a bouquet, for which she had paid seven cents on Fourteenth Street. Jim was glad to meet Polo when he knew that she was Terwilliger’s sister, for the trainer had been especially proud of Jim, and had given him many points on bicycling.
One day when Polo was present, Jim suddenly asked Adelaide, “Say, sister, did the boys really go to your cat-combing party?”
“I don’t know,” Adelaide replied. “There were two suspicious characters there, but we never found out who they were.”
“They was boys,” Polo insisted; “and one of ’em was fat, and trod on my toe, and one of ’em was little, and smelled of cigarettes.”
“If I was only back at school,” Jim replied, a little fretfully, “I’d find out for you, fast enough, whether it was Buttertub and Ricos. But what can a fellow do penned up here?”
“Never mind, Jim,” Adelaide replied soothingly. “The truth will all come out at last.”