Despite which advice, Skippy nervously ran over his conversational ammunition. There was of course Maude Adams to begin with. He tried hard to think of some book he had read—some work of sufficient dullness to serve up to this blue stocking atmosphere.
"Stop shootin' your cuff," said Snorky, applying his finger to the bell. "Don't you know anything about society?"
"Who's nervous?" said Skippy indignantly.
His backbone stiffened to the consistency of the white manacle that imprisoned his throat, he brushed the slight powder of the dust from the shining patent leathers, which in the fashion of the day extended in long pointed toes, shot back his cuffs for the twentieth time, felt surreptitiously to assure himself that his part was functioning properly and slid behind Snorky Green as he entered the parlor.
Something that was neither prim nor stiff nor in the least resembled a cart-horse bore down on them with a swish of ruffled skirts.
"Hello, Arthur, how nice of you to come. Dad and Mumsy are out so we're all to ourselves," said Miss Vivi Balou. "Mr. Bedelle? Oh I've heard a lot about you!"
"Really now, what do you mean?" said Skippy, with a long breath of relief.
Miss Balou held his hand just an extra minute as she said this, looking up into his face with an expression of the greatest interest. She was just over five feet, of the dreaded species of brunettes, with a thin, upward pointing little nose and the brightest of eyes.
"Oh I know a terrible lot," she said, giving to her mischievous glance just the slightest, most complimentary shade of apprehension.
Mr. Skippy Bedelle grew two inches toward the ceiling and looked for a mirror.