The Doctor bit hard and said:
"Then I shall overlook this. Your record is in your favor. I shall overlook this. I have your word of honor, Bedelle. Good night."
Skippy drew a long breath and went hurriedly back to the Kennedy. But there he halted. The smell was awful and the comments which reached him through the open windows were not at all reassuring.
"I think—I think perhaps it's warm enough outside," he said, heavy-hearted.
For two more years he had solemnly sworn to refrain from inventing, and Skippy was a man of his word. No matter, there was this consolation: Mosquito-Proof Socks would some day be a reality; butyl mercaptan had proved its worth at the first test. He would devote himself to a scientific preparation. He was young. With twice ninety-two million legs to be protected with six pairs of socks or stockings a year, he could afford to wait.
"Before I'm thirty, I'll be a millionaire," he said defiantly. "I'll own race horses and yachts and boxes at the opera and I'll marry—" Here he hesitated and the figure of Lillian Russell somehow became confused with a new apparition. Something that was and was not Miss Virginia Dabtree, but most certainly wore silver stockings, which it would be his duty and privilege to protect. "Well, anyhow, she'll drive a four-in-hand and wear pearls for breakfast," he concluded, and, whistling, he went down to dream out the night in the baseball cage.