"Why you're wonderful, Jack! But then how could you—"
"It's mental, everything is mental," said Skippy conceitedly. "I just watched till I got it in my mind and the rest was easy. Thanks for the long green. Hello, what's become of our little gallery of nuts?"
Whether or not Dolly was entirely convinced by this casual explanation, the immediate return to Skippy was enormous. Not only were the claimants to her affections completely distanced, but Miss Dolly, for a time, adopted an attitude of respect and deference towards him, which had formerly been totally lacking.
Skippy was tremendously in love. There was no doubt about that. You could see it in the dishpan glow of his scrubbed forehead, in the spotless flannels and the lily white hands. There was something secure and permanent in the attachment. Dolly was not sentimental and only distantly affectionate, but she was absorbing. There was no question of an eight-hour day in his case. From nine a.m. until Mr. Travers ostentatiously began to bar the library windows for the night, Mr. Skippy Bedelle was at one end of a wire with Miss Dolly Travers at the other, pushing the button.
That practical young lady, realizing that Skippy's earning capacity was still woefully limited, permitted no allusions to the distant holy bonds of matrimony, but she did allow him to mortgage his future to the extent of the promenade and dances which would decorate his scholastic and collegiate journey, as well as attendance at all athletic contests of any nature whatsoever. On his birthday (when the sinking fund toward the first dress suit rose to the colossal sum of fifty dollars) they solemnly exchanged pins, Dolly openly sporting the red and black of Lawrenceville, while Skippy concealed in the secret recesses of his tie a little gold wishbone which would lead him to the higher prizes in life, add three inches to his stature and the additional twenty pounds necessary to qualify for the varsity.
His fall from grace was of course the subject of great merriment among his companions, particularly Happy Mather and Joe Crocker in whom memory still rankled. A direct insult was of course dangerous, but there were other subtler ways. At least half a dozen times a day some one was sure to ask him,
"I say, Skippy, what's doing to-night?"
"Got anything on this afternoon?"
But Skippy brushed aside their crude attempts at persiflage with indifference. He had won out. The courted prize was his. For two weeks not a cloud obtruded on the clear sky of his content. Dolly bullied and bossed him. He did her errands. He fetched and carried. He served her and no other goddess. And then tragedy arrived with the arrival of the celebrated Hickey Hicks, who came down to spend a fortnight with the Triumphant Egghead.