CHAPTER XXI
Worldly Wisdom of Skippy Bedelle
WHEN Skippy Bedelle (rage and disillusionment in his heart) had tramped five weary miles back from the city which sheltered that angel of perfidy, Miss Mimi Lafontaine, he said to himself on waking the next morning:
"Well, by the Great Horned Spoon, that's one thing I won't bite at again." And examining himself in the glass with a new respect—for after all he had handled the situation with magnificent impertinence and if the story was to be retailed in the home circles it would never be introduced by Miss Clara Bedelle—examining himself, then, with a certain pride and satisfaction he said vaingloriously, "Hurray, I'm vaccinated!"
"How d'ye mean vaccinated?" said Snorky whose head emerged via the morning jersey.
"Did I say vaccinated?" said Skippy surprised and cautious.
"You certainly did," said his chum, who observing the rapidity of his contact with the washbasin, the reappearance of the dicky and the two strokes of the brush which completed his toilette, added with a sigh of relief, "I say, old horse, you look more natural."
Skippy immediately returned to the convenient Tina Tanner. He picked up the statuesquely posed photograph, contemplated it and returned it to its place with the air of a man on whom a great passion has burned itself out.