"Sure, it's only a quarter of six. We'll put this one over hard, for she certainly needs taking down."
"Who?"
"Dolly Travers. Don't know her? You will."
Miss Dolly Travers received them with the manner of a Dresden shepherdess just stepping from the mantelpiece and Skippy took the petite hand gingerly, as though afraid that anything so delicate and brittle would break at the touch. The voice of his brother's worldly wisdom seemed to sound in his ears:
"Pick out something young and grateful. Be a hero."
Miss Travers was undeniably young, if artful, and moreover she was not of the dark and deceptive class of brunettes, but a blonde, with eyes as open and guileless as the blue of the June day. She had solved the problem of the classification which as naturally marks the feminine progress as long trousers indicates the man, by bobbing her hair; and, though the subterfuge seemed to afford much amusement to certain of her sex, it immediately separated her from the pigtails.
There was something about her that appealed instantly to Skippy and inspired confidence, something cool and dainty and at ease. She did not express either surprise or excessive delight at their entrance. There was something simple and frank about everything she did. He appreciated it and fell to wishing that Tootsie would be more like her, less coquettish and more of a good comrade.
"Well, what do you know?" said Dolly, looking at the Gutter Pup.
"Nothing."
"I hope your mother and father are well," said Skippy, true to the formula.