SKIPPY RETIRES WITH HIS SCALP
CAME the last day. End of the summer, of summer's warmth. End of languid
siestas on drowsy beaches, end of balmy moonlight nights, moonlight
sails, moonlight picnics; end of intimate whispered half laughing, half
serious intimacies _a deux_. To-morrow separation and a man's life to
take up again! To-morrow the chill of autumn and the melancholy of
drifting leaves. The last partings to take, promises to be solemnly
exchanged--heart burnings, bottom dropped out of everything, another
milestone to be registered in the scurrying flight of Time!
Mr. Skippy Bedelle and Miss Vivi Balou separated themselves from the
unromantic middle-aged crowd around the tennis courts and made their way
up the beach to the sheltering swirls of convenient sand dunes. They
walked in silence, oppressed by the greatness of their grief, from time
to time their shoulders touched in dumb understanding.
"To-morrow!" said Skippy with a gulp in his throat.
"Don't!"
"To-morrow--gee!"
He carried a beach chair, four sofa cushions, two rugs, her work-bag, a
box of chocolates and a romance they had dipped into.
"Don't!" repeated Miss Vivi, gazing out from under her pink parasol with
stricken eyes at the unending sea.
"To-morrow afternoon at this time!"
"It's been wonderful--wonderful week."
He made a back of the chair, spread the rug and installed her
solicitously. Then he camped down not too far away, not too near, pulled
his cap over his eyes, locked his hands over his knees and stared out
toward the horizon that, somehow, attracts at such moments.
A wind that was already cold played over the frosty waves and sent
little scurries of sand twisting along the beach.
"Have a chocolate?"
"Thanks."
"Jelly or nut?"
"Nut. Thanks."
They munched in silence.
"That's the trouble with summer," said Skippy at last.
"Yes, isn't it?"
"It's rotten."
"Oh why must everything end?" said Vivi wildly.
"I can't realize that to-morrow--"
"You'll forget, men always forget."
Skippy shook his head.
"Yes. You'll write a letter or two and then heigh ho!"
"Look here, you don't mean that," said Skippy, turning on her.
Vivi's eyes dropped before his righteous indignation.
"No--no I don't mean that."
"Then don't talk that way--especially just now."
"Forgive me--Jack?"
"What?"
"You do forgive me?"
"Of course."
"You're going to do wonderful things at school," said Vivi, trying to be
brave, "and I'm going to be so proud to think I know you."
"Do you think they'll let you come down to the Andover game?"
"I don't know about the game--but the Prom!"
"Gee, you'll be a knockout there!"
They ate more chocolates, while Skippy debated how to lead the
conversation into the softer strain before bestowing on the object of
his affections (for value exchanged, of course) the sacred emblem of the
Philomathean Debating Society and bringing forth the Lawrenceville
banner which was tightly folded up in his bulging hip pocket.
"I suppose you'll go back now to Dolly Travers," said Vivi, whose
appetite for verbal expressions of sentiment was still far from being
satisfied. "And forget all about--about this wonderful week."
"Women are fickler than men," said Skippy gloomily.
"Not--not always."
"Don't believe it."
"Out of sight out of mind."
"You know better than that," said Skippy, digging into his change pocket
for the pin.
"How do I know?" said Vivi encouragingly.
"Because--" Suddenly Skippy remembered. His fingers relaxed on the pin.
He brought forth his hand. "Say, you promised to read my hand you know."
"Did I?"
"Sure you did."
Miss Vivi sat up and carefully pillowed the squat calloused hand in her
soft one. For a moment she studied it, turning it over and back again,
running her finger meditatively over the mounds and depressions.
"Well?" said Skippy anxiously.
"Shall I tell all?"
"Everything."
"You have a very strong will--very obstinate and not easily influenced.
Ambition will be your god and you will sacrifice--" Vivi hesitated.
"I say, go on."
"So far is true, isn't it?"
"Well, pretty true," said Skippy, who began to enjoy his portrait.
"You will sacrifice everything to your ambition--friends, family, the
woman who loves you."
"Oh, I say!"
"It's here in your hand," said Vivi, shocked at the discovery. "Women
will play very little part in your life. It's not that you haven't a lot
to give, you have. See this bump, that's affection. It's very
developed."
"That's where I threw my thumb out of joint," said Skippy doubtfully.
"But you've had a terrible experience in your life that has shaken your
faith and you are afraid to trust again." Skippy looked the picture of
gloom at this and thought bitterly on Mimi Lafontaine after hesitating
once or twice on the backward journey. "This has made you cynical and
cold, ready to impute the lowest motives. Women will love you--many
women, but you will give your heart only once more--and that--_that_
will be a tragedy, on account of your own lack of faith."
"Say, is all that there?" said Skippy, beginning to be alarmed.
"That and more," said Vivi, warming up. "You are very loyal, not at all
conceited, brilliant intellectual qualities and you will make a
success--" Here Vivi paused and turned his hand over, studying it
carefully. "I see railroads and banking in your hand."
"Do you think so?" said Skippy unconvinced.
"There it is. You will make loads and loads of money."
"I say, do I get married?"
"That is not quite clear," said Vivi frowning. "This looks like it--but
again this line--the cold calculating streak in your nature--"
At this moment, from down the beach, came a shrill whistle imitative of
the whip-poor-will, insistent, querulous and repeated.
Vivi dropped his hand and glanced hastily at her watch.
"Good heavens, it's four o'clock!"
"All right, I'm on. Who's the little bird?" said Skippy, who had not
heard himself described as the acme of suspicion for nothing.
"Jack!"
The whip-poor-will rose to shriller heights.
"It's Charlie Brownrigger," said Vivi, trying to appear embarrassed,
"and he's come round to say good-bye."
"Oh, indeed."
"I _had_ to let him say good-bye," said Vivi imploringly to the young
sultan. "I've treated him abominably since you came. I can't be rude to
a chap, can I? I'll be right back."
"How long's it going to take?" asked Skippy, drawing out his watch.
"Oh about twenty minutes," said Vivi.
"I'll wait exactly half an hour. Four-thirty to the minute. Not a second
more."
"I do believe you're jealous, Jack Bedelle!" said Vivi expectantly.
"Jealousy has no part in my nature," said Skippy loftily. "Besides you
can see it in my hand. Firmness, that's all!"
"Brute!" said Vivi with a killing glance.
She picked up the pink parasol and hastened down the beach. Skippy
fished out the Philomathean Debating Society pin and slowly attached it
to his vest. He switched to the vacated place with the back rest and
began to whistle to himself. At the end of a seeming hour he glanced at
his watch. Exactly seven minutes had elapsed.
"Half an hour was a mistake. Fifteen minutes is enough for a mut like
Brownrigger. I should have been firmer. When a girl gets you to waiting
for her--she has you going and coming. Firmer, I should have been much
firmer!"
He slipped off his shoes to empty them of sand, and in doing so filled
the gayly coloured work-bag that was Vivi's. His toilette finished, he
took up the bag to clean it in turn. At the first touch as fate had
decreed a book tumbled out and lay with opened pages before him. It
looked most suspiciously like a diary. He averted his eyes and then his
glance came slowly back to it.
"Here, that's not square," he said to himself angrily, torn by a mighty
temptation. He leaned over and closed the book abruptly. The next moment
he was staring at three gilded words that confronted him with the
suddenness of Belshazzar's vision:
THE CHAP RECORD
A sudden brain storm swept over the emotional nature of Mr. Skippy
Bedelle, of the sort which in modern legal etiquette is held to excuse
all crimes. He knew what a chap record was. He had found one in his
sister Clara's bureau and had been lavishly paid for his silence. He
opened it violently and this is what he read:
HARRY FELTON. June 30-Sept. 6th. Good-looking in a soapy sort of way,
but dull: Good dancer, agonizingly slow at a twosing. Takes what you
give him and is grateful. Good for last minute calls.
JOE RANDOLPH. July 2d-August 6th. Awfully lavish and liberal. Spoiled
and hard to keep in place. Useful later. Salt away for College Prom.
CHARLES BROWNRIGGER. Xmas to--. Terribly proper and easily shocked.
Every girl an angel. Seeking a good influence. Good only for concerts
and lectures.
CHARLIE DULER. Easter vacation. Professional flirt. Tried hard for him
but no go. On to all the old tricks. Too much alike.
HECTOR CHISOLM. May 3 to May 6th. Three day rush fast and furious. Nice
teeth and eyes, cold English style in daytime but wilts rapidly in the
moonlight. Dreadfully exciting. Au revoir!
* * * * *
Having thus wandered through the carnage, Skippy braced himself and
read:
* * * * *
JACK BEDELLE. August 20th--Dreadfully young and conceited, feed him on
flattery--nice eyes but funny nose--poor conversationalist but works
hard. Dreadful dancer. Pretends indifference but awfully soft in spots.
Hooked him in twenty minutes--
* * * * *
Skippy laid the book down in his lap and glanced up the beach which
showed no signs of an advancing parasol. Then he looked at his watch
which indicated exactly the half hour. He sat a long moment thinking.
Then he opened the book and at the paragraph devoted to him he added:
"_Easy to hook is hard to hold._"
But this did not satisfy him. He stood up and suddenly inspired sunk to
his knees and hurriedly gathered together the sand into a mound capable
of burying Miss Vivi's little body. Across it he laid the opened book.
At its head he placed the box of chocolates as a headstone. Then below
he wrote in the sand (symbol indeed of transient loves):
SACRED TO THE MEMORY
OF
VIOLET BALOU
SLAIN BY HER OWN HAND
August 27th, 1896.
Then as a masterly afterthought he added savagely:
GONE AND NOW FORGOTTEN
Mr. Skippy Bedelle then wriggled away through the sand dunes just as
Miss Vivi Balou with malice aforethought came up the beach accompanied
by Mr. Charles Brownrigger.