Skippy was shocked at this easy discovery of his youth.
"Come off. I'm a member of the Princeton faculty," he said loftily.
"Well, I think you're one of them Lawrenceville boys," she said, following him to the door.
He waved back gaily and went skipping up the street. He arrived before the Lafontaine mansion with exactly five minutes to spare. The old Colonial house was set back in a wide plot and masked by convenient foliage. Skippy, passing down the side wall, sheltered himself behind a bush, his heart pumping with excitement, and drew on the gloves which he had borrowed from Butcher Stevens. Then extracting the shoebrush and cloth from his pocket, he busied himself hurriedly with removing from his trousers and shoes all traces of the dusty way he had come. This done, he hid the brush and cloth under the bush and straightened up. Unfortunately either the last preparations or the terrific sentimental strain of facing his first call upon a member of the opposite sex had so increased his temperature that his forehead was again covered with perspiration.
"Great Willies! I can't go in like this—if I only had a handkerchief—what am I to do?"
But just at the moment when he had improvised into a towel the most available part of his shirt, his heart stood still at hearing above him the following conversation:
"Mimi, you're a witch," said the voice of his sister, "I never would have believed it."
"Well, my dear, you wanted me to wake him up. I've done it. Goodness, I never saw any one go down so quickly. I really believe he's going to propose! If you could have seen his funny eyes when he told me that there was something he just had to say to me."
"For heaven's sake keep it up. It's better than soap, Mimi. One look at his hands and I knew he was in love."
"My dear, what do you think—he's had my photograph for weeks—the one I gave you, of course. Now if that isn't a real romance. . . ."