ell Margarita! He must
have--he--" But again imagination failed him and he proceeded on his
way, fists sunk in his pockets, sliding along gloomy lanes.

"And I believed I had met a good woman!" he said bitterly. "Faugh,
they're all alike. Well, I don't care what does become of me. Serve her
right if I went plump to the bad. And by jingo, I'll do it too!"

Whereupon, having resolved upon a life of crime, he plunged his hand
into his pocket and cast from him the now unnecessary cigarettes!

CHAPTER XXXV

THE SCALP HUNTER

SKIPPY in his sentimental progress had now reached the point where if he
could not control the impulses of his sentiments he could at least
review the past with some instructive profit.

"Girls are queer things, aren't they?" he said ruminatively to Snorky
Green, for the mood of confidence was on him.

"Queerer and queerier," said Snorky, considering the bosom of last
night's dress shirt with a view to future service.

"They get you before you know it and as soon as they get you they worry
the life out of you. One way or the other they start to making you
miserable just as soon as you show them you've fallen for them. Now
why?"

"Woman has no sense of gratitude," said Snorky, who had heard the phrase
from a brother who had suffered.

"And you can't be friends with them--well you know, just friends."

"I know," said Snorky heavily.

"What gets me," said Skippy, "is why we fall and fall and fall."

"Habit."

"Well, perhaps."

"Sure, habit, that's all."

"But this is the queerest of all," said Skippy, yawning and stretching
his arms deliciously. "How darned fine you feel when it's all over. You
go to bed thinking the bottom's been kicked out of things and you wake
up feeling so Jim dandy rip-roarin' chuck full of happiness that you
wonder what's happened, and then you remember that you're cured! Your
time's your own. You can wear, do and say what you like, spend your
money on yourself. You're free! Now it is queer, isn't it?"

"Like having a tooth out?" said Snorky.

"Exactly."

"Say, what story did you cook up about me to Margarita Tupper?" said
Skippy, tying the white cravat for the sixth time.

"Bygones is bygones," said Snorky evasively.

"You must have had me robbin' a coach or skinning a cat," said Skippy
encouragingly.

"You were throwing yourself away there, old top," said Snorky, avoiding
the direct answer. "Why in another week you'd a been reading little
Rollo