"Oh I've learned a thing or two," said Skippy pompously.
"Splash with your toes, old horse," said Snorky, shaking his head. "Look out, Vivi's an old stager. She collects them."
"Scalps," said Snorky with a significant gesture.
"I've got her feeding out of my hand, gentle as a lamb," said Skippy, remembering with a pleasant tickling sensation the mystified fascination of her way of looking at him.
"Cheese it," said Snorky shaking his head.
"Snorky, old gal," said Skippy, who had now settled down into the predatory vision Miss Vivi had artfully evoked, "it's easy when you know the game."
"Keep 'em running after you. It's the first one who runs away who wins every time."
"Oh well," said Skippy modestly, but as he sought his bed he stole a satisfied glance into the mirror.
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.