“I did not. Mother doesn’t allow me to read any penny-dreadful story papers, magazines or books.”
“Oh, ho! Wait!” gasped Bobby. “That’s Lil.”
“Lily Pendleton?”
“You evidently haven’t heard any of the ‘Duchess of Dusenberry’ before. That’s it!”
“Not part of her play?”
“That is one of the melodramatic bits,” said Bobby, weakly, leaning against the wall for support. “Yes, really, Jess. That is in her play. I’ve heard her recite it before.”
“My goodness me!” gasped Jess.
“It’s not all so bad, I guess. But when she gets flowery and romantic she just tears off such paragraphs as that. ‘Nor can you hide the cloven hoof beneath the edge of Virtue’s robe.’ Isn’t that a peach?”
“Bobby!” exclaimed Jess, breathless herself by now, “you use the worst slang of any girl in Central High.”
“That’s all right. But Lil’s using worse language than I ever dreamed of,” laughed Bobby. “I’ve heard her spouting that sort of stuff time and time again. When she shuts herself up, presumably to study her part in your play, half the time she is reciting her own lines. She likes the sound of ’em. And she had that Pizotti fellow backed in a corner of the front hall at the M. O. R. house the other afternoon, reciting that same sort of stuff to him.