The reason why George Finch—for it was he—was behaving strangely was that he was a shy young man and consequently unable to govern his movements by the light of pure reason. The ordinary tough-skinned everyday young fellow with a face of brass and the placid gall of an Army mule would, of course, if he had decided to pay a call upon a girl in order to make inquiries about her dog, have gone right ahead and done it. He would have shot his cuffs and straightened his tie, and then trotted up the steps and punched the front-door bell. Not so the diffident George.
George's methods were different. Graceful and, in their way, pretty to watch, but different. First, he stood for some moments on one foot, staring at the house. Then, as if some friendly hand had dug three inches of a meat-skewer into the flesh of his leg, he shot forward in a spasmodic bound. Checking this as he reached the steps, he retreated a pace or two and once more became immobile. A few moments later, the meat-skewer had got to work again and he had sprung up the steps, only to leap backwards once more on to the side-walk.
When Mr. Waddington first made up his mind to accost him, he had begun to walk round in little circles, mumbling to himself.
Sigsbee Waddington was in no mood for this sort of thing. It was the sort of thing, he felt bitterly, which could happen only in this degraded East. Out West, men are men and do not dance tangoes by themselves on front door-steps. Venters, the hero of "Riders of the Purple Sage," he recalled, had been described by the author as standing "tall and straight, his wide shoulders flung back, with the muscles of his arms rippling and a blue flame of defiance in his gaze." How different, felt Mr. Waddington, from this imbecile young man who seemed content to waste life's springtime playing solitary round-games in the public streets.
"Hey!" he said sharply.
The exclamation took George amidships just as he had returned to the standing-on-one-leg position. It caused him to lose his balance, and if he had not adroitly clutched Mr. Waddington by the left ear, it is probable that he would have fallen.
"Sorry," said George, having sorted himself out.
"What's the use of being sorry?" growled the injured man, tenderly feeling his ear. "And what the devil are you doing anyway?"
"Just paying a call," explained George.
"Doing a what?"