"Well, however, I say,—don't get rash."
"Keep on trusting me," said Snorky with an airy wave of his hand.
Something in the repetition struck Skippy where he was the weakest, in that wholesouled faith which should sanctify the friendship of a lifetime. The more he considered it the less he liked it.
"I have made a mistake," he said frowning. "Snorky has no sense of discretion."
CHAPTER XXXIV
The Way of the Transgressor
MISS JENNIE TUPPER at the end of a week acknowledged to herself with an uneasy sense of her own shortcomings that the task of keeping Mr. Skippy Bedelle in the straight and narrow path was one beyond her limited experience. It was not that she had lost confidence in her own efficiency, but that she anxiously asked herself if she could afford the time and the effort. Skippy was all for the better life and yielded at once to her suggestions. The trouble was in his staying put, as it is colloquially expressed. Each evening the cure was complete, but each morning the conversation had to begin all over. The hold that his past life had taken upon him was simply staggering and the hankering for the excitement of the gambling table or the struggle against the narcotic tyranny of the demon cigarette was such that at times she had to sit long moments holding his storm-racked and shaking hand while he fought bravely against the maddening appetite! And after a week of the closest personal attention he had only cut down the allowance of cigarettes to seven a day!
Now Miss Tupper was upright and God-fearing and self-respecting, and though there was a difference of three years all in her favor, she, unlike some of her sex, scorned the use of her personal attractions, simply for the sake of a personal vanity, nor was she a collector of male scalps. She was in a moral quandary of the most metaphysical complexity. What should she do: shirk her evident moral responsibility and allow a bravely battling human soul to sink into iniquity or continue and permit a most susceptible youngster to immerse himself deeper and deeper into a hopeless passion?