CHAPTER X Love Lightly Considered TO understand what Skippy felt one must have known the springs of boyhood's impulse towards perfect manhood.

To Skippy a man was that completed being, who wore trousers that never bagged at the knees, neckties that never slipped below the collar button, who displayed a gold watch-chain across a fancy vest, from whose lower lip a cigarette was pendent, who possessed a latchkey and the right to read far into the night, and who shaved once a day. The sentimental complications had escaped him. Whatever attracted man to the frizzled, giggling, smirking, smiling bipeds in shirts remained a mystery to Skippy.

All at once he had to face this problem. He had gone resolutely up the steps towards perfect manhood. He had learned the art of pressing trousers to a thin razor-edge from Snorky, who was a year his senior in boarding-school knowledge.

The necktie question was not yet settled, though every morning he subjected his throat to a strangle-hold.

He had bought a razor and twice a week, trembling and apprehensive, drew it across his maidenly cheek. He slashed himself fearfully but he did not mind that. He wore his scars proudly, a warning to all that adolescence was on him, as the young Heidelberg student flaunts his wounds.

The cigarette (known as the Demon Cigarette, the Filthy Weed, and the Coffin Nail) had been a dreadful struggle. But he had won out.

He loathed the Demon Cigarette as he abhorred tobacco in any form, but he had martyrized himself until he was able to puff up the cold-air flue in the stilly reaches of the night without having to grope his way back to the bed and watch the room careen about him. He did not inhale, but he had learned to imitate the process so as to defy detection, as he exclaimed:

"Gee! It's good to fill the old lungs, isn't it?"

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These things, by dint of concentration and courage, Skippy had achieved, not to stand ashamed in the eyes of his roommate. And, having with pain and perseverance traveled this far, he suddenly, this night, realized how much was still lacking.

Yes, there was certainly something lacking in his progress towards perfect manhood, something that Snorky had and he had not.

It was all very well to be a man, to smoke, to shave, and to have acquired the sartorial evidence. This was all very well—but others must perceive it, too! This was the point. As Snorky had done, he must do.

The new world to conquer was the feminine heart.

Now, Skippy had not at this moment the slightest inclination towards the lovelier sex.

He did not aspire to be a Don Juan or a Beau Brummel, but if he were to continue to room with Snorky Green he must acquire at least the appearance. He perceived this. It pained him that in the scheme of things it should be so—but a reputation he must have.

"Girls, girls! Lord, how I loathe them!" he said in a last farewell to his male independence. "What I think of a fellow who hangs around them, wears their rings and pins and carries off their handkerchiefs! But I'll be danged if I can stand any more of this conquering-hero stuff from that eyesore across the room! If it's got to be done, you bet I'll do it! I'll put it over that four-flusher, if I have to fuss every girl in Scranton!"

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