He waved back gaily and went skipping up the street. He arrived before the Lafontaine mansion with exactly five minutes to spare. The old Colonial house was set back in a wide plot and masked by convenient foliage. Skippy, passing down the side wall, sheltered himself behind a bush, his heart pumping with excitement, and drew on the gloves which he had borrowed from Butcher Stevens. Then extracting the shoebrush and cloth from his pocket, he busied himself hurriedly with removing from his trousers and shoes all traces of the dusty way he had come. This done, he hid the brush and cloth under the bush and straightened up. Unfortunately either the last preparations or the terrific sentimental strain of facing his first call upon a member of the opposite sex had so increased his temperature that his forehead was again covered with perspiration. "Great Willies! I can't go in like this--if I only had a handkerchief--what am I to do?" But just at the moment when he had improvised into a towel the most available part of his shirt, his heart stood still at hearing above him the following conversation: "Mimi, you're a witch," said the voice of his sister, "I never would have believed it." "Well, my dear, you wanted me to wake him up. I've done it. Goodness, I never saw any one go down so quickly. I really believe he's going to propose! If you could have seen his funny eyes when he told me that there was something he just _had_ to say to me." "For heaven's sake keep it up. It's better than soap, Mimi. One look at his hands and I knew he was in love." "My dear, what do you think--he's had my photograph for weeks--the one I gave you, of course. Now if that isn't a real romance. . . ." "He ought to be spanked, that boy--stealing away from school!" "My dear, he's told me all about his life's ambitions." "What's that?" "It's something about a bathtub--some sort of an invention that's going to revolutionize the bathtub industry." "Then it must be the outside of a bathtub," said Clara with a sisterly laugh. "Mimi, I just must hear his proposal." "You'll laugh and spoil it all." "On my honor!" Ten minutes later, Miss Mimi Lafontaine put on her kindliest smile as ushered in by the maid Mr. John C. Bedelle came magnificently into the room, spick and span, cool as the cucumber is credited to be at any temperature; an immaculate purple tie blooming under an unsullied collar, with only a slight pollen on the carefully-divided hair. How was she to know that, in five minutes, under the sting of betrayed confidence and broken illusions, a complete moral transformation had made of the urchin a man in the embryo, fired by the burning impulses of the deadliest hatred? He did not stumble or wind himself up in the curtain or upset the bowl of goldfish on the slight etagere by the sofa. He came in with a manner that was so completely nonchalant that Miss Mimi was manifestly impressed.