"Oh, now, girls, don't be hard on me," said Mr. Ba.s.sity, sitting down uninvited and speaking with the most disarming contrition.

"We all used to be such good friends once, and now, for the life of me, I don't know, what's the matter. I valued your friendship tremendously--valued it more than I can tell, and now I am losing it without even knowing why. It cuts a fellow; it's humiliating; it is crool, that's what it is, awful crool, and I'll tell you the straight-out truth that I've cried over it!"

He looked quite capable of crying over it again, and his honest, manly face bore mute witness to his words. Though addressing himself to Miss Hemingway, his eyes were more often fixed on Grace Sinclair, and it was plain that it was her good opinion he valued most. But she was as merciless as Dolly, and showed not the least sign of relenting.

"We have decided that we do not care for the further pleasure of your acquaintance," said Miss Hemingway. "It's a disagreeable thing to have to say--but it's the truth! We liked you at first because there was something breezy and Western about you; then you got breezier and Westerner til it was more than the traffic could stand."

"Now see here," broke out Mr. Ba.s.sity in pleading accents, "have I ever done anything caddish or ungentlemanly--intentionally, I mean--anything that could possibly justify my being dropped like this--that could--"

"Perhaps not intentionally," Interrupted Miss Hemingway, "though it's no good your coming around here to say you didn't know any better. You ought to have known better, that's all."

"Known what?" bleated Mr. Ba.s.sity. "In Heaven's name, tell me what?"

"Oh, it isn't one thing--it's a thousand," said Dolly. "It's--it's --general social inept.i.tude!"

Mr. Ba.s.sity looked more depressed than ever. He didn't know what the word meant, and it seemed to cover a terrifying accusation.

He was seen silently making a note of it for a future reference to a dictionary.

"I'm just a rough, uncouth fellow," said he at last. "I know that well enough without three young ladies' telling me so: An oil man--a successful oil man--hasn't much chance to cultivate the social graces. If he can keep on the right side of common honesty he has done more than most. I guess even our best people out there would give you a shock--and I don't pretend I even ran with them!"

"That's the most redeeming thing you've said yet," remarked Grace.

"Oh, they wouldn't have me," remarked Coal Oil Johnny with fatal truthfulness.

"All you need is toning down," said Miss Hemingway, with a suspicion of kindness in her voice. "You're too exuberant, that's all. You're always rushing in where angels fear to tread, till it has grown on you like a habit. When other people stop you're just beginning!"

"Couldn't you give me another chance?" he asked, still with his eyes pathetically on Grace Sinclair's face. "Just one more chance to try and hit it off better next time? Now, just sit up, every one of you, and tell me frankly what I've done to offend you--stamp all over me--bite my head off--and then let's begin again with a clean slate, and see if I can't buck up"

"I'll leave it to the general vote," said Miss Hemingway. "You certainly have a very winning nature in some ways--and who knows?--you might possibly do better after this awful warning.

Only you mustn't come round here next time demanding explanations. The next time will be positive and final. Yes,"

she went on, "I propose that Mr. Ba.s.sity be given a good talking to, and then have his name put on the probation list."

"Poor Mr. Ba.s.sity!" said Sattie Felton. "I second the motion for reinstating him temporarily!"

Grace Sinclair was not so quick in giving her decision. In her girlish heart she enjoyed the big man's discomfiture, and was mischievous enough to prolong his suspense. She knew that to him her opinion was the most important of all, and this gave her an added pleasure in withholding her verdict. All three looked at her as she bent her pretty brown head and seemed to weigh the question. She was a Southerner, and her French-Spanish blood betrayed itself in her grace, her slender hands and feet, and the type of her dark and unusual beauty. She was more a woman than either Dolly or Sattie, and the fact that Mr. Ba.s.sity was desperately in love with her fanned within her breast a wilful desire to torment him.

"Let me think!" she said.

"'Pon my soul!--" began that unfortunate young man, boisterously attempting to sway her judgment.

"Hush!" exclaimed Sattie Felton.

"She's thinking," said Miss Hemingway severely.

Mr. Ba.s.sity noisily subsided.

"I don't know whether it's worth while to forgive him," said Grace at last. "He's so incorrigible--so wild and woolly--that if you're nice to him he's like one of those dogs that want to jump all over you!"

"Oh, Miss Sinclair, please, please--!" cried Coal Oil Johnny.

"Well, I won't hang the jury," continued Grace; "only it must be clearly understood that we have the privilege of making a few remarks"

Mr. Ba.s.sity made a pantomime of baring his breast.

"Strike!" he said.

"You first," said Dolly to Grace.

"Last Tuesday I was playing golf at the links," began that young lady vindictively. "Mr. Ba.s.sity volunteered to call for me at four and take me home in his French automobile. I knew we were going too fast and said so twice, but he only answered, 'Oh, bother!' or something equally polite and gracious. Then as we raced into Franklin Street we found a rope across it and sixteen policemen waiting to arrest us! Pleasant, wasn't it?--with a million people looking on; and my picture next day in the paper.

I was so mortified I could have cried, and I can't think of it even now without burning all over"

"Perhaps the prisoner might care to offer some explanation?"

suggested Miss Hemingway.

"Well, really, it was most unfortunate," admitted Coal Oil Johnny. "The fact is, the low gear is chewed up on that car, and I've always been forced to run it on the intermediate--and the most you can throttle down the intermediate to is eighteen miles an hour!"

"The legal speed being eight, I believe," Icily interjected Miss Sinclair.

"I don't know what the silly law is," continued Mr. Ba.s.sity, "but the only way to obey it would be to get out and push the car.

Couldn't ask a lady to do that, could I?"

"You could have thrown in your intermediate and then thrown it out again, and run on momentum," said Miss Sinclair. "That's automobile A B C!"

"Oh, but my dear girl," protested Coal Oil Johnny, "the clutches on that car are something fierce, and half the time the intermediate won't mesh. When you're lucky enough to get it in, of course you keep it in."

"Yes, and get arrested," said Miss Sinclair, "and give your pa.s.senger some disagreeable notoriety, not to speak of shaking up her happy home and getting her allowance stopped for a month."

Mr. Ba.s.sity looked acutely miserable. To have brought penury to his lady-love struck him to the heart.

"I'm the most wretched fellow alive," he said. "If ever there was a child of misfortune, it's me. I can only throw myself on the mercy of the court and grovel--yes, grovel --if you'll show me a place to grovel and teach me how!"

"Have you anything else against the prisoner?" Inquired Miss Hemingway of Grace.

"About sixty-five other complaints," a.s.sented that young lady.

"But I'll let it go at this, which was the worst of all"

"Miss Sattie Felton, what have you against the unhappy wretch who stands trembling at the bar of justice?" asked the self-appointed president of the court.

"Last Sunday I was at the Country Club with papa," said Miss Felton. "The prisoner engaged in an altercation with my male parent on the subject of religion, said parent being a man of strong views and short temper. Said parent, however, being a man of the world as well, tried to evade an argument and escape, but was penned up in a corner for ten purple minutes. Said afterward that he had never been so affronted in all his life; explodes even now at the recollection; calls the prisoner a word that begins with a B, contains a double O and ends with R!"

At this staggering blow poor Coal Oil Johnny covered his face with his hands and groaned.

"It's all true," he said, "only I was kind of goaded into it. It began by my saying that if religious people would only be Christians, too, the world would be a better place to live in!"

"The court is now going to get in its own little knife," said Miss Hemingway. "The court, in a moment of generous weakness, verging on imbecility, invited, or, rather, caused to be invited, the prisoner to dinner. Prisoner, through the absence of one lady from the party, was placed next to a distinguished young sociologist. Of course, in his usual headlong and unrestrained manner, the prisoner had to teach the distinguished young sociologist a thing or two he didn't know about sociology.

Roared at him! Yes, ladies of the jury, positively roared at him, and beat on the table, extra, with his fist!"

"But he was such an a.s.s!" said the prisoner.

"No reason at all why you should roar at him," said the court, "and disturb everybody and make them feel uncomfortable."