"Coming, Freddie, coming," said Bojo with a laugh, and, plunging into a swinging entrance, he found himself in a cozy den, almost thrown off his feet by the greetings of a little fellow who dived at him with the frenzy of a faithful dog.
"Well, old fashion-plate, how are you?" Bojo said at last, flinging him across the room. "Been into any more trouble?"
"Nope. That is, not lately," said DeLancy, picking himself up. "Haven't a chance, living with two policemen. What kept you all this time? Fallen in love?"
"None of your damned business. By George, this looks homelike," said Bojo to turn the conversation. On the walls were a hundred mementoes of school and college, while a couple of lounges and several great chairs were indolently grouped about the fireplace, where a fire was laid. "I say, Roscy, has the infant really been behaving?"
"Well, we haven't bailed, him out yet," said Marsh meditatingly.
Fred DeLancy had been in trouble all his life and out of it as easily. Trouble, as he himself expressed it, woke up the moment he went out. He had been suspended and threatened with expulsion for one scrape after another more times than he could remember. But there was something that instantly disarmed anger in the odd star-pointing nose, the twinkly eyes, and the wide mouth set at a perpetual grin. One way or another he wriggled through regions where angels fear to tread, assisted by much painful effort on the part of his friends.
"I'm getting frightfully serious," he said with mock contrition. "I'm getting to be an old man; the cares of life and all that sort of stuff."
He broke off and flung himself at the piano, where he started an improvisation:
"The cares of life,
This dreadful strife,
I'll take a wife—
No, change the rhyme
I haven't time
For matrimony—O!
Leave that to handsome Bojo
Bojo's in love,
Blush like a dove—
"No, doves don't blush," he said, swinging around. "Do they or don't they? Anyhow, a dove in love might— To continue: