"Torchy," says Mr. Robert, "what's all this?"
"S-s-sh!" says I. "It's Old Home Day, and the lady is handin' out choc'late creams. Wait up; maybe it'll be your turn next."
"But, see here, I don't understand," says he. "Who are these persons, and why——"
"Ah, say!" says I. "Ain't you got any sportin' blood? Besides, I don't know the answer myself."
I could of kept that up just about one more round before I'd fell through a crack; but just as Mr. Robert was framin' up another conundrum Dicky turns around and spots him.
"Why, hello, Bob!" yells Dicky, as gentle as if he was hailin' someone across Broadway. "By Jove, though, I forgot all about you being in the Corrugated too! But of course you are. Sis and I just ran in a minute to look up Skid. Good old Skid! Great boy, eh, Bob?"
Mr. Robert takes a look over by the window at Mallory, who wasn't seein' a thing but Sis and wasn't hearin' anything but what she was sayin'—and she was sayin' a lot.
"Is—is that Skid?" says Mr. Robert.
"Oh, come along now, Bob," says Dicky, pokin' him in the vest playful. "You don't mean to say you don't know Skid Mallory, the Great Skid, best quarterback we ever turned out, the one that went through Harvard for forty-five yards, and that with a broken ankle? Don't know Skid? Why, say!"
"I take it all back," says Mr. Robert. "Of course I know him; but not so well as you do, Dicky. I wasn't one of the coaches, you know, and I haven't kept the run of the team for the last year or two. But I'm glad to see the Great Skid. How the deuce does he happen to be up here, though?"