"Jelly fish," said Vivi throwing it away indignantly.

Skippy resented "jelly fish."

"Well you are! I never saw such a cold calculating unemotional brute.
You're nothing but a great big icy brain."

Skippy thought of the Roman and a hundred flunkings.

"Better pull in on the infant phenom--Snorky might hear of it," he
thought.

"Oh, I like it here," he said in a more romantic tone.

"Really?"

"Yep."

A long silence and Vivi inhaled another sprig of honeysuckle and
devoured the moon.

"How long you going to stay?"

"About a week."

"Oh!"

Another silence.

"You're so different."

"How?"

"Don't know but you are--quite, quite different. You seem so much older
than Arthur."

"Well that all depends," said Skippy, ready to draw on his imagination.

"You've seen a lot of life, haven't you?"

"Yes I suppose so."

"I saw that--in your hands."

"I say, how about reading my character now?"

"No, not now, sometime later, perhaps."

"Perhaps?"

"Well I don't know if I'd dare. What are you doing to-morrow?"

"Nothing particular."

"Suppose we get up a hay ride and a picnic. The moon will be glorious."

"Bacon and roast corn? Hurray!" said Skippy, most unromantically.

Vivi got up suddenly.

"Let's go back."

"All right, but it's awfully dark."

"Follow me."

Skippy walked purposely into the first flower bed.

"Help, I'm lost!"

Vivi stood considering.

"Are you sorry?"

"Dreadfully. Ouch, I'm in a rose bush!"

"And you promise not to be cynical and aloof?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die," said Skippy, very well pleased with
himself.

Immediately the hand was offered and retained. To be magnanimous he gave
it a little extra squeeze.

"That's not fair," said Vivi.

"All's fair in love and war," said Skippy who, under the influence of
outward conditions, momentarily forgot his role.

* * * * *

"My aunt's cat's pants," said Snorky enviously, when they had departed.
"You're getting to be a rapid worker, old top, you certainly are!"

"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."

"What?"

"Scalps," said Snorky with a significant gesture.

"Just watch me."

"You don't say so."

"I've got her feeding out of my hand, gentle as a lamb," said Skippy,
remembering with a pleasant tickling sensation the mystifie