Skippy started, shied into the bench and went over backwards while the partner of his arms, escaping, rolled over towards Tootsie, discovering under Clara's best organdie dress the net-work of wire which made up the missing dressmaker's form!
CHAPTER XXVI
Containing Some High Melodrama
THERE are great moments in life when the acquired veneer of society drops away and human beings revert to type. Tootsie lay down on her back and kicked her legs in the air, howling with glee. Skippy, disentangling himself from the bench, rose with slow deliberation. He saw that he faced a crisis. If Tootsie, now rolling before him in hysterical agony, ever was allowed to tell such a story as this, there would be no future for John C. Bedelle but to ship before the mast. Skippy thought hard and Skippy had the instincts of a diplomat. He decided to begin with a light conciliatory manner.
"Well, Tootsie, old girl, you've got the goods on me. What's your price?"
Tootsie's reply was a succession of hysterical gasps that sounded like a child with the whooping cough laughing over a comic section.
"What's your price?" Skippy repeated more firmly, but striving to maintain a sickly smile.
"OW! OW! OW!" said Tootsie, holding in her sides.