“All right then.” Fred settled himself upon the window seat with a pipe, and proceeded, “There's something about her, when she stands there, she stands so straight and knows just what she's up to, and everything, why, there's something about her makes the cold chills go down your spine--I mean _my_ spine, not yours particularly! You sit down--I mean _anybody's_ spine, doggone it!” And as Ramsey increased the manifestations of his suspicions, lifting a tennis racket over the prostrate figure, “Oh, murder,” Fred said, resignedly. “All right, we'll change the subject. That fat little Werder cutie made out a pretty good case for Germany, didn't she?” Ramsey tossed the racket away, disposed himself in an easy chair with his feet upon the table, and presently chuckled. “You remember the time I had the fuss with Wesley Bender, back in the ole school days?” “Yep.” “All the flubdub this Werder girl got off to-night puts me in mind of the way I talked that day. I can remember it as well as anything! Wesley kept yelpin' that whoever mentioned a lady's name in a public place was a pup, and of course I didn't want to hit him for that; a boy's got a reg'lar instinct for tryin' to make out he's on the right side in a scrap, and he'll always try to do something, or say something, or he'll get the other boy to say someting to make it look as if the other boy was in the wrong and began the trouble. So I told poor ole Wes that my father spoke my mother's name in a public place whenever he wanted to, and I dared him to say my father was a pup. And all so on. A boy startin' up a scrap, why, half the time he'll drag his father and mother if there's any chance to do it. He'll fix up some way so he can say, 'Well, that's just the same as if you called my father and mother a fool,' or something like that. Then, afterward, he can claim he was scrappin' because he had to defend his father and mother, and of course he'll more than half believe it himself.