CHAPTER XXXVIII The Philosophical Attitude IT happened on the day before school opened; at that moment when Skippy returning from his first sentimental summer had no other thought than to rest up from the fatigue of the vacation and devote his activities to the serious business of life. There were the freshman (a discouraging lot) to be properly educated, taught to punctuate their sentences with a humble "sir," "if you please" and "thank you;" there was a certain score to be settled with Al at the Jigger Shop and the basis of a new credit to be argued, there was the prize room on the third floor overlooking the campus to be re-decorated with the loot of the summer, and one crucial question to be decided forthwith:

"Shall we start training now or gorge ourselves for just one more day?"

"The Jiggers are peach, soft and creamy," said Snorky with a pensive look. "But we should set an example you know, old top, and all that sort of thing."

"Keerect, we must."

"I can see the crowd up at Conover's putting away the pancakes," said Snorky insidiously.

"Be firm," said Skippy, returning to his trunk.

"It isn't only the Jiggers," said Snorky, who sometimes practised virtue but without the slightest enthusiasm, "it's—it's those Éclairs—never tasted anything like them, big, fat, luscious, oozing with cream—"

"Shut up," said Skippy indignantly. "Where's your house spirit?"

"Can't a fellow be human?" said Snorky in an aggrieved tone.

"All right, all right—but put your mind on other things," said Skippy nervously.

He disengaged an armful from the bottom of his trunk and spreading it on the window seat, contemplated the touch of many feminine hands with an expression that was as cynically blasÉ as that of the traditional predatory bachelor. Whenever Skippy found a mood too elusive to be expressed in words, his lips instinctively resorted to boyhood's musical outlet. His eyes traveled appraisingly over sofa cushions, picture frames, knitted neckties and flags that represent those select institutions where young ladies are finished off. He began to whistle,

"My, you're a cold-hearted brute," said Snorky, in whom perhaps the spirit of envy was strong.

"I am," said Skippy unctuously, "and I am going to be brutier, take a tip from yours truly, Moony."

He disposed of half a dozen cushions, draped two flags and carefully placed three photographs amid the gallery on his bureau.

"Do you think that's honorable?" said Snorky resentfully.

"Scalps, that's all!" said Skippy with a grandiloquent wave of his hand.

"I get you. Heart whole and fancy free etcetera etceteray?"

"Every time."

"Since when?" said Snorky wickedly.

Skippy allowed this to pass, but having pensively contemplated the effect produced by the addition of Miss Dolly Travers, Miss Jennie Tupper and Miss Vivi Balou to the adoring galaxy of the past, he swung a leg over the table and assuming that newly acquired manner of a man of the world, which was specially galling to his chum, announced,

"Snorky, old horse, you play it wrong."

"I do, eh?"

"You do. There's nothing in that fussing game. Women, my boy, are our inferiors."

"Well, it took you some time to find it out."

"Keerect, but now I'm wise. Woman is like a harp in the desert, played upon by every passing wind."

"Where'd ye read that?"

"If you're going in for that sort of thing get promiscuous. The only cure for one woman is another."

"You ought to know."

"Are you corresponding with Margarita?" said Skippy suddenly.

"And if I am?"

Skippy shook his head sadly.

"Woman—" he began sententiously and just then fate knocked at the door.

"Come in if you're good-looking," said Snorky, glad of the interruption.

The door opened and discovered a short bulbous freshman, just a whit embarrassed as freshmen should be in the presence of royalty.

"Oh well, come in any way," said Skippy. "What's your name, freshman!"

"Potterman," said the rotund youngster squeezing in.

"Sir."

"Sir."

"What's the rest of it—the handle, the nickname."

"Are we telling our real names?" said the new arrival, cocking his derby.

"Green, get out the bamboo cane," said Skippy solemnly.

"Oh well, they call me Hippo—sir," said Potterman hastily.

"Ah yes, Hippo Potterman. Of course. That's good, but we'll try to do better by you. Where did they find you?"

"Philamedelphia, sir."

"What's that you've got there?" said Snorky just about to fall upon him bodily.

"Please, sir, it's a letter from Mrs. Bedelle, your aunt."

"Oh, I see," said Skippy with a feeling of disappointment. "You know my aunt? Well, freshman, you may give it to me. I permit you. Advance. That's it. Curtsey. A little lower. Better."

Skippy frowned and looked up incredulously.

"Is your name really Cornelius?"

Potterman flushed like the rose and said with a gulp:

"Yes, sir, it is."

"Too bad, too bad."

Skippy having read this twice, looked in the envelope to make sure that a five dollar bill was not enclosed, as all aunts should remember to do, and transferred his gaze to the fidgeting Hippo.

"H'm, first time at boarding school?"

"Yes, sir."

"Governesses before?"

Hippo, who had been recovering from his first feeling of awe, roared loudly at this.

Skippy looked indignantly at this breach of etiquette and reached thoughtfully for a tennis racket.

"Please, sir," said Hippo hastily, "High school."

Skippy considered him thoughtfully and something told him that in the right-hand lower vest pocket there was undoubtedly a certain amount of round hard silver bodies and moreover that this condition was not simply episodic but chronic.

"That coot may be fresh but he is going to do a lot of heavy spending," he said to himself with conviction.

How he knew is immaterial. There is an instinct that guides—some have it, some haven't it. You can't explain it. Doc Macnooder for instance could diagnose a pocket-book as keenly as a surgeon. It's a gift, that's all. Skippy possessed this gift.

"Mother just brought you in?"

Hippo acknowledged this with a look of the greatest distress.

"Sister too?"

"Damn it, yes!"

Skippy looked at Snorky and shook his head.

"Don't you know that profanity is a wicked, wicked habit, Hippo?"

Hippo's mouth started to swallow his ears, then returned to rest at signs of a hostile atmosphere. He swung from foot to foot, looked sheepish, looked terrified and finally blurted out:

"I beg pardon, sir."

"It is a wicked habit, Hippo, but we are here to help you. It is very lucky for you that you have come to the right school, where you will meet boys of fine manly standards. Kneel down, Hippo."

"What, sir?"

"Go over to the bed and kneel down," said Skippy in a voice of great sadness. "Don't hesitate, Hippo. That's better. Now, Hippo, I want you to reflect upon what a wicked, wicked thing profanity is and I want you to ask God to forgive you and help you. Silently, Hippo."

Hippo, who was green and fresh but not at all green and gullible, went through the prescribed program with the utmost gravity.

"Do you feel better now, Hippo?" said Snorky solemnly.

"Yes, sir, but I'd like a little more time, sir."

"Stand up," said Skippy frowning.

Hippo, unchastened, bounded to his feet and saluted.

"And, Hippo, I'm afraid," said Skippy relentlessly, "that you don't appreciate what a mother's love means. Think how your mother has watched over you all these years, think how she has scrubbed behind your ears, think of the hundreds and hundreds of toothbrushes—"

But at this, as Snorky gulped and barely converted a laugh into a sneeze with a hurried dive into the closet, Skippy abandoning his pedagogical air said in a more natural tone:

"Well, Hippo, I shall want to talk with you very seriously on this some other time. Your manners are shocking and your morals worse, but I am here. Don't worry. Meanwhile, ahem, you can bring your family in to tea."

"Thank you, kind sir."

"Hippo, you are fresh."

"But you are kind, aren't you, sir?" said Hippo with assumed innocence.

"Get your hat and wait downstairs," said Skippy deciding to abandon the lighter tone.

"Yes, sir."

"Hippo?"

"What, sir?"

"Don't forget."

"What, sir?"

"The curtsey, you know."

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A quarter of an hour later Skippy and Snorky with Hippo in tow started across the campus to show their protÉgÉ the historic spots, beginning with Laloo's where the merry hot dogs whistled to one another in steaming cans, by way of Bill Appleby's where ginger-pop and root-beer waited, to the Jigger Shop where the Jigger cooled and Conover's where the pancake sizzled.

Opposite the Jigger Shop the celebrated Doc Macnooder, resplendent in a varsity sweater, was surveying the hungry Jigger-fed crowd and debating whether to go right up and pay for his sustenance or wait a little longer and see what might turn up.

"Well, Skippy, been inventing anything new?" said Macnooder pleasantly after the introductions.

"I say, Doc, I want to put it up to you," said Skippy hastily, for he feared any reference to bathtubs or mosquitoes might detract from the respect which was essential in Hippo. "I'm out for the scrub, you know, and what I wanted to ask you was do you think training ought to start now or wait until school opens."

Macnooder's mind scorned subtleties. It moved by the shortest cuts to the practical issue.

"Has he got the price?" he said looking at Hippo.

"He has."

"Let's eat."

Macnooder looked appraisingly at Hippo, whom Nature had destined to play at center rush, to be mauled and cuffed and suffocated under scores of scuffing, struggling bodies. A flicker of sympathy should have stirred, but it didn't.

"You'll need quite a lot of stuff," he said pensively.

"Nothing doing, Doc," said Skippy, winking hard at his protÉgÉ. "Hippo's fitted out."

"How about fountain-pens or crockery sets, or patent nail clippers?"

"I dote on fountain-pens," began Hippo.

"Hippo's under my protection," said Skippy militantly. "We're sort of related."

"Oh well, let's eat then," said Macnooder with a reluctant look.

"Don't take anything from that fellow even if he gives it to you," said Skippy in a whisper to Hippo. "Elucidations later."

Al had two attitudes of welcome, according to the record of the books, one in which the hand advanced impulsively and a smile broke from under the shaggy yellow bang and another where the hand remained in a stationary receptive cup, or sometimes caressed the limp ends of the mustache in a way most discouraging and disheartening to the delinquent debtor. When Doc Macnooder arrived, however, he paid him the further honor to carefully close the glass cases where Éclair and fruit cake were waiting the call to service, and braced himself against the counter.

"Hello, Al," said Skippy affably, "here we are again. Set 'em up four times."

"I see you and I see that there Doc Macnooder," said Al in an unconvinced sort of way.

"Set 'em up," said Macnooder in an encouraging tone.

"Who's settin' 'em up?" said Al, resorting to his toothpick.

Macnooder looked at Skippy, Skippy looked at Snorky, then all three looked at Hippo.

"The pleasure is mine," said Hippo and with a purse-proud gesture he flicked on the counter a twenty dollar bill.

Al was not easily shocked but for once his perfect manner left him. He glanced at Hippo and then enviously at Macnooder.

"I didn't know they picked them as early as that," he said enigmatically. "Doc, you'll be buying this place in a week."

"I could buy it now," said Macnooder frowning, "and Al, step to the back and have a little business talk with me."

Al, having received payment and displayed the Jiggers, left for the back of the store to that secluded nook which had heard a hundred explanations and supplications from the improvident and hungry. Skippy, who despite the new assurance of his public manner, was willing to learn at the feet of a master, Jigger in hand, moved into a position of eavesdropping.

"Nineteen dollars and seventy-two cents," said Al, coming to the point.

"Exactly what my little proposition comes to," said Macnooder affably. "Tear it up, Al, you'll do it sooner or later so why not now?"

"What's the flim-flam?" said Al, who recognized in Macnooder qualities of a superior intelligence.

"I don't like the word," said Macnooder in a pained tone. "I've got an idea and you're going to buy it. Al, the Jigger Shop has had a cinch, a monopoly, a trust. You fixed prices and you've controlled the output. Now answer me, yes or no. Have you ever paid out one cent in commissions?"

"Get to the point."

"I will. I have an idea, I might say a brilliant idea and when I say I like the idea better than any idea I can remember—you know me—I'm modest, but Al, it's a wonder. You'll like it. No, change that line, you may not like it but you'll respect it. Al, I'm going to let you in, give you the first chance. Conover would double the commission. Appleby would go wild over it. But, Al, I'm giving you the first chance."

"Nineteen dollars and seventy-two cents," said Al, making a motion to close his ears.

"Not a cent less," said Macnooder firmly, who according to his manner, having produced the proper hypnotic effect, now came to the point. "Sit down, Al, if you won't sit down—brace yourself. The idea's coming now and the idea's loaded with dynamite. Suppose, I say suppose, it was in my power to boycott you."

"God Almighty couldn't do that," said Al.

"Not as you see it—you're right there, Al, shrewd and clever! Al, there are ten freshmen in the Dickinson. Think hard now, the idea's growing. Ten freshmen. Suppose,—I only say suppose now that as a disciplinary measure we should decide that no freshman could enter the Jigger Shop say—well let's be moderate—for the space of three months. We might let them go to Conover's or Laloo's and then again—"

"Macnooder," said Al explosively, "when they lead you to the gallows I'll be sitting right up front if it cost every cent I have."

"Al, you grieve me."

"It's blackmail! It's extortion and blame it I believe you'd do it."

"No, Al, it's not blackmail, it's not extortion. If I came to you and said out and out, flat, tear up that account of mine or I'll boycott you—that, Al, that would be all you say."

"My Gawd, Doc, why do you waste your time in this little place anyhow?"

"You see, Al, it's this way," said Macnooder, smiling at the compliment, "I'm coming to you as Macnooder your attorney, that's one person, to use his influence with Macnooder the financier, that's another person—I'm a lobbyist, a paid lobbyist."

"Nineteen dollars and seventy-two cents," said Al in a fainter voice.

"Al, I'm surprised and shocked. I thought your mind leaped at things. You don't see it yet. You're thinking in terms of ten freshmen—"

"Nineteen doll..."

"But suppose the Dickinson lays down the law, suppose the Kennedy follows suit. You saw what that fellow flashed, a twenty dollar yellowback, a word to Skippy and the Kennedy would follow. Skippy, you understand, would have to be protected, you get that. Well, what would happen? Every house in the school would follow suit. What does that mean? Figure it out. It means one hundred freshmen multiplied by ninety days multiplied by at least two Jiggers a fresh—per day—you know how freshmen eat—"

But here, Skippy, terrified, tiptoed away. Macnooder aroused in him the lust for gold and he wished to retain a few simple ideals. He signaled Snorky and Hippo and escaped up the road to the home of the pancake.

"Doc Macnooder is a wonder but he's not, well he's not quite the sort of chap you want to associate with, Hippo. Understand?"

"I'm young but I'm not so green as all that," said Hippo winking wisely.

"In fact, Doc's a sponge and you made an awful break."

"I did, what's that, sir?"

"You shouldn't have shown him that twenty dollar bill. He'll never let up so long as he remembers that."

"Skippy's right, Hippo," said Snorky.

"What'll I do?"

"Leave it to us. We'll think out some way."

After a good deal of thinking, they returned from a heavy performance at Conover's, laden with a large creamcake, a half dozen Éclairs, a box of Huyler's and two pounds of Turkish paste, after placing an order for tinned meats, cheese, saltines and root-beer.

"I say, this sort of removes the lurking danger, doesn't it?" said Hippo, searching in his pocket for the last half-dollar.

"We'll store the grub in our rooms," said Snorky solemnly, "and then there won't be any danger at all."

"Oh, thank you, kind sir," said the irrepressible Hippo, and only the soothing presence of the layer cake against his breast kept Snorky from a mood of wrath.

"If you've got to mother that little squirt," said Snorky wrathfully, once they had returned to their room, "you'll have your hands full, that's all I wish to remark. A fresher, nervier little nuisance—"

"Nuisance is going to get a lot of mothering," said Skippy with a far-off look in his eyes. "But remember, old dear, that's why we're here. That's why the faculty invites us to Lawrenceville."

"Well," said Snorky as he stowed away the purchases and arranged the Éclairs on the tea-table, "if we can keep him away from Doc Macnooder, there's going to be a few compensations."

"Nuisance will neither be affectionate nor familiar by this time to-morrow," said Skippy grinding his teeth.

"Cheese it! Hide the towels—here they come!"

A knock and then the voice of Hippo in flippant familiarity:

"All right, Skippy, we're good looking. Open up."

Skippy looked at Snorky and swallowed hard while his right arm worked convulsively.

"Come in," he said with an effort.

The door opened and Miss Potterman triumphantly entered his life. Mrs. Potterman was there and Hippo with his impertinent smirk but neither Skippy nor Snorky saw anything else but that wonderful vision. Something unbelievable had suddenly stepped out of their favorite Gibson picture and was advancing in a halo. Violets and daffodils began to sprout from the carpet and birds sang in the window frames. It was instantaneous and it was terrific.

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