"Let 'em love you, eh?"
"Oh well," said Skippy modestly, but as he sought his bed he stole a satisfied glance into the mirror.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Splashing With Your Toes
FOR the next six days Skippy was a very busy young man. He had a reputation to sustain. The reputation was quite unjustified but that did not alter matters. Miss Balou had given it to him and Miss Balou must not be disappointed. In the shifting comedy of life, Skippy was now cast for the part of the Demon Rusher. In those early ambling days before the automobile and the aeroplane had brought their escape valves for human energy, the steam pressure of youth sometimes found expression in what was known as the rush. As the name implies the object of the male participant was to carry all before him in cyclonic style, to dazzle and overwhelm the breathless and bewildered lady by the blinding rapidity of his showered attentions. By mutual consent nothing binding was ever implied in this form of acrobatic sentiment and the knell was sounded when either party paused for breath. When a rush began all bystanders withdrew as a matter of etiquette and waited for the dust to subside, much as, in the Simian days of the race, the lesser monkeys sat on a branch and hugged themselves when the big monk came courting.
Skippy borrowed a bicycle and departed from the home of his chum directly after breakfast, having likewise borrowed various brilliant bits of manly luxury which flashed from his ankles, his neck and his breast pocket. At exactly nine o'clock as though by accident Miss Vivi's trim figure daintily balanced on the smartest of "Safety" bicycles appeared from the Balou driveway and the following brilliant opening occurred.
"Why, Jack. What are you doing up so early?"
"Can't you guess?"