Young Fortunatus was dressed in a neat suit of dark blue serge, a neat, white straw hat, neat low-cut tan shoes, of the well-known “immaculate” trade mark, a neat, narrow four-in-hand tie, and carried a slender, neat, bamboo cane.
Down Persimmon Street (there’s never tree north of Hagerstown, Md.) came from the village “Smoky” Dodson, fifteen and a half, worst boy in Fishampton. “Smoky” was dressed in a ragged red sweater, wrecked and weather-worn golf cap, run-over shoes, and trousers of the “serviceable” brand. Dust, clinging to the moisture induced by free exercise, darkened wide areas of his face. “Smoky” carried a baseball bat, and a league ball that advertised itself in the rotundity of his trousers pocket. Haywood stopped and passed the time of day.
“Going to play ball?” he asked.
“Smoky’s” eyes and countenance confronted him with a frank blue-and-freckled scrutiny.
“Me?” he said, with deadly mildness; “sure not. Can’t you see I’ve got a divin’ suit on? I’m goin’ up in a submarine balloon to catch butterflies with a two-inch auger.
“Excuse me,” said Haywood, with the insulting politeness of his caste, “for mistaking you for a gentleman. I might have known better.”
“How might you have known better if you thought I was one?” said “Smoky,” unconsciously a logician.
“By your appearance,” said Haywood. “No gentleman is dirty, ragged and a liar.”
“Smoky” hooted once like a ferry-boat, spat on his hand, got a firm grip on his baseball bat and then dropped it against the fence.
“Say,” said he, “I knows you. You’re the pup that belongs in that swell private summer sanitarium for city-guys over there. I seen you come out of the gate. You can’t bluff nobody because you’re rich. And because you got on swell clothes. Arabella! Yah!”
“Ragamuffin!” said Haywood.
“Smoky” picked up a fence-rail splinter and laid it on his shoulder.
“Dare you to knock it off,” he challenged.
“I wouldn’t soil my hands with you,” said the aristocrat.
“’Fraid,” said “Smoky” concisely. “Youse city-ducks ain’t got the I sand. I kin lick you with one-hand.”
“I don’t wish to have any trouble with you,” said Haywood. “I asked you a civil question; and you replied, like a—like a—a cad.”
“Wot’s a cad?” asked “Smoky.”
“A cad is a disagreeable person,” answered Haywood, “who lacks manners and doesn’t know his place. They sometimes play baseball.”
“I can tell you what a mollycoddle is,” said “Smoky.” “It’s a monkey dressed up by its mother and sent out to pick daisies on the lawn.”
“When you have the honour to refer to the members of my family,” said Haywood, with some dim ideas of a code in his mind, “you’d better leave the ladies out of your remarks.”
“Ho! ladies!” mocked the rude one. “I say ladies! I know what them rich women in the city does. They, drink cocktails and swear and give parties to gorillas. The papers say so.”