Title: Torchy As A Pa
Author: Ford, Sewell, 1868-1946
Language: English
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TORCHY AS A PA

BY
SEWELL FORD

AUTHOR OF
THE TORCHY AND THE SHORTY McCABE STORIES

GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS   NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

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Copyright, 1919, 1920, by
SEWELL FORD

Copyright, 1920, by
EDWARD J. CLODE

All Rights Reserved

Printed In the United States of America

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CONTENTS

 CHAPTER                                      PAGE

       I. Vee Ties Something Loose               1
      II. When Hallam Was Rung Up               16
     III. The Gummidges Get a Break             34
      IV. Finding Out About Buddy               50
       V. In Deep for Waddy                     69
      VI. How Torchy Anchored a Cook            89
     VII. How the Garveys Broke in             105
    VIII. Nicky and the Setting Hen            122
      IX. Brink Does a Sideslip                136
       X. 'Ikky-Boy Comes Along                150
      XI. Louise Reverses the Clock            162
     XII. When the Curb Got Gypped             177
    XIII. The Mantle of Sandy the Great        191
     XIV. Torchy Shunts a Wizard               205
      XV. Stanley Takes the Jazz Cure          220
     XVI. The Mystery of the Thirty-One        234
    XVII. No Luck with Auntie                  248
   XVIII. Hartley Pulls a New One              263
     XIX. Torchy Gets a Hunch                  279
      XX. Giving 'Chita a Look                 293

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TORCHY AS A PA

CHAPTER I

VEE TIES SOMETHING LOOSE


I forget just what it was Vee was rummagin' for in the drawer of her
writin' desk. Might have been last month's milk bill, or a stray hair
net, or the plans and specifications for buildin' a spiced layer cake
with only two eggs. Anyway, right in the middle of the hunt she cuts
loose with the staccato stuff, indicatin' surprise, remorse, sudden
grief and other emotions.

"Eh?" says I. "Is it a woman-eatin' mouse, or did you grab a hatpin by
the business end?"

"Silly!" says she. "Look what I ran across, Torchy." And she flips an
engraved card at me.

I picks it on the fly, reads the neat script on it, and then hunches my
shoulders. "Well, well!" says I. "At home after September 15, 309 West
Hundred and Umpty Umpt street. How interestin'! But who is this Mr. and
Mrs. Hamilton Porter Blake, anyway?"

"Why, don't you remember?" says Vee. "We sent them that darling
urn-shaped candy jar. That is Lucy Lee and her dear Captain."

"Oh, then she got him, did she?" says I. "I knew he was a goner when she
went after him so strong. And now I expect they're livin' happy ever
after?"

Maybe you don't remember my tellin' you about Lucy Lee, the Virginia
butterfly we took in over the week-end once and how I had to scratch
around one Saturday to find some male dinner mate for her, and picked
this hard-boiled egg from the bond room, one of these buddin' John D.'s
who keeps an expense account and shudders every time he passes a
millinery store or thinks what two orchestra seats and a double taxi
fare would set him back. And, the female being the more expensive of the
species, he has trained himself to be girl proof. That's what he lets on
to me beforehand, but inside of forty-eight minutes by the watch, or
between his first spoonful of tomato soup and his last sip of cafe noir,
this Lucy Lee party had him so dizzy in the head he didn't know whether
he was gazin' into her lovely eyes or being run down by a truck. Honest,
some of these babidolls with high voltage lamps like that ought to be
made to use dimmers. For look! Just as she's got him all wound up in the
net, what does Lucy Lee do but flit sudden off to the Berkshires, where
a noble young S. O. S. captain has just come back from the war and the
next we know they're engaged, while in the bond room of the Corrugated
Trust is one more broken heart, or what passes for the same among them
young hicks.

And now here is Lucy Lee, flaggin' as young Mrs. Blake, livin' right in
the same town with him.

"How stupid of me to forget!" says Vee. "We must run in and call on them
right away, Torchy."

"We?" says I. "Ah, come!"

"We'll have dinner first at that cute little Cafe Bretone you've been
telling me about," says Vee, "and go up to see the Blakes afterwards."

Yes, that was the program we followed. And without the aid of a guide we
located this Umpty Umpt street. The number is about half way down the
block that runs from upper Broadway to Riverside Drive. It's one of the
narrow streets, you know, and the scenery is just as cheerful as a
section of the Hudson River tube on a foggy night. Nothing but
seven-story apartment buildings on either side; human hives, where the
only thing that can be raised is the rent, which the landlord attends to
every quarter.

Having lived out in the near-country for a couple of years, I'd most
forgotten what ugly, gloomy barracks these big apartment buildings were.
Say, if they built state prisons like that, with no more sun or air in
the cells, there'd be an awful howl. But the Rosenheimers and the Max
Blums and the Gilottis can run up jerry built blocks with 8x10 bedrooms
openin' on narrow airshafts, and livin' rooms where you need a couple of
lights burnin' on sunny days, and nobody says a word except to beg the
agent to let 'em pay $150 a month or so for four rooms and bath. I can
feel Vee give a shudder as we dives into the tunnel.

"But really," says she, "I suppose it must be very nice, only half a
block from the Drive, and with such an imposing entrance."

"Sure!" says I. "Just as cosy as being tucked away in a safety deposit
vault every night. That's what makes some of these New Yorkers so
patronizin' and haughty when they happen to stray out to way stations
and crossroads joints where the poor Rubes live exposed continual to
sunshine and fresh air and don't seem to know any better."

"Just think!" says Vee. "Lucy Lee's home down in Virginia was one of
those delightful old Colonial houses set on a hill, with more than a
hundred acres of farm land around it. And Captain Blake must have been
used to an outdoor life. He's a civil engineer, I believe. But then,
with the honeymoon barely over, I suppose they don't mind."

"We might ask 'em," I suggests.

"Don't you dare, Torchy!" says she.

By that time, though, we're ready to interview the fuzzy-haired West
Indian brunette in charge of the 'phone desk in one corner of the
marble wainscoted lobby. And when he gets through givin' the hot
comeback to some tenant who has dared to protest that he's had the wrong
number, he takes his time findin' out for us whether or not the Blakes
are in. Finally he grunts something through the gum and waves us toward
the elevator. "Fourth," says he. And a slouchy young female in a dirty
khaki uniform takes us up, jerky, to turn us loose in a hallway with a
dozen doors openin' off.

There's such a dim light we could hardly read the cards in the door
plates, and we was pawin' around, dazed, when a husky bleached blonde
comes sailin' out of an apartment.

"Will you please tell me which is the Blakes' bell?" asks Vee.

"Blakes?" says the blonde. "Don't know 'em."

"Perhaps we're on the wrong floor," I suggests.

But about then a door opens and out peers Lucy Lee herself. "Why, there
you are!" says she. "We were just picking up a little. You know how
things get in an apartment. So good of you to hunt us up. Come right
in."

So we squeezes in between a fancy hall seat and the kitchen door, edges
down a three-foot hallway, and discovers Captain Blake just strugglin'
into his coat, at the same time kickin' some evenin' papers, dexterous,
under a davenport.

"Why, how comfy you are here, aren't you?" says Vee, gazin' around.

"Ye-e-es, aren't we?" says Lucy Lee, a bit draggy.

If you've ever made one of these flathouse first calls you can fill in
the rest for yourself. We are shown how, by leanin' out one of the front
windows, you can almost see the North River; what a cute little dinin'
room there is, with a built-in china closet and all; and how convenient
the bathroom is wedged between the two sleeping rooms.

"But really," says Lucy Lee, "the kitchen is the nicest. Do you know,
the sun actually comes in for nearly an hour every afternoon. And isn't
everything so handy?"

Yes, it was. You could stand in the middle and reach the gas stove with
one hand and the sink with the other, and if you didn't want to use the
washtub you could rest a loaf of bread on it. Then there was the
dumbwaiter door just beside the ice-box, and overhead a shelf where you
could store a whole dollar's worth of groceries, if you happened to have
that much on hand at once. It was all as handy as an upper berth.

"You see," explains Lucy Lee, "we have no room for a maid, and couldn't
possibly get one if we did have room, so I am doing my own work; that
is, we are. Hamilton is really quite a wonderful cook; aren't you,
Hammy, dear? Of course, I knew how to make fudge, and I am learning to
scramble eggs. We go out for dinner a lot, too."

"Isn't that nice?" says Vee, encouragin'.

Gradually we got the whole story. It seems Blake wasn't a captain any
more, but had an engineerin' job on one of the new tubes, so they had to
stick in New York. They had thought at first it would be thrilling, but
I gathered that most of the thrills had worn off. And along towards the
end Lucy Lee admits that she's awfully lonesome. You see, she'd been
used to spendin' about six months of the year with Daddy in Washington,
three more in flittin' around from one house party to the other, and
what was left of the year restin' up down on the big plantation, where
they knew all the neighbors for miles around.

"But here," says she, "we seem to know hardly anyone. Oh, yes, there are
a few people in town we've met, but somehow we never see them. They live
either in grand houses on Fifth Avenue, or in big hotels, or in
Brooklyn."

"Then you haven't gotten acquainted with anyone in the building here?"
asks Vee.

"Why," says Lucy Lee, "the janitor's wife is a Mrs. Biggs, I believe.
I've spoken to her several times--about the milk."

"You poor dear!" says Vee.

"It's so tiresome," goes on Lucy Lee, "wandering out at night to some
strange restaurant and eating dinner among total strangers. We go often
to one perfectly dreadful little place because there's a funny old
waiter that we call by his first name. He tells us about his married
daughter, whose husband is a steamfitter and has been out on strike for
nearly two months. But Hamilton always tips him more than he should, so
it makes our dinners quite expensive. We have to make up, next night, by
having fried eggs and bacon at home."

       *       *       *       *       *

Well, it's a tale of woe, all right. Lucy Lee don't mean to complain,
but when she gets started on the subject she lets the whole thing out.
Life in the great city, if you have to spend twenty hours out of the
twenty-four in a four-and-bath apartment, ain't so allurin', the way she
sketches it out. Course, she ain't used to it, for one thing. She thinks
if she had some friends nearby it might not be so bad. As for Hamilton,
he listens to her with a puzzled, hopeless expression, like he didn't
understand.

Vee seems to be studyin' over something, but she don't appear to be
gettin' anywhere. So we sits around and talks for an hour or so. There
ain't room to do much else in a flat. And about 9:30 Mr. Blake has a
brilliant thought.

"I say, Lucy," says he, "suppose we make a rinktum-diddy for the folks,
eh?"

"Sounds exciting'," says I. "Do you start by joinin' hands around the
table?"

No, you don't. You get out the electric chafing dish and begin by fryin'
some onions. Then you melt up some cheese, add some canned tomatoes,
and the result is kind of a Spanish Welsh rabbit that's almost as tasty
as it is smelly.

It was while we was messin' around the vest pocket kitchen, everybody
tryin' to help, that we spots this face at the window opposite. It's
sort of a calm, good natured face. You wouldn't call the young lady a
heart-breaker exactly, for her mouth is cut kind of generous and her big
eyes are wide set and serious; but you might guess that she was a decent
sort and more or less sociable. In fact she's starin' across the ten
feet or so of air space watchin' our maneuvers kind of interested and
wistful.

"Who's your neighbor?" asks Vee.

"I'm sure I haven't an idea," says Lucy Lee. "I see her a lot, of
course. She spends as much time in her kitchen as I do, even more.
Usually she seems to be alone."

"Why don't you speak to her some time?" suggests Vee.

"Oh, I wouldn't dare," says Lucy Lee. "It--it isn't done, you know. I
tried that twice when I first came, with women I met in the elevator,
and I was promptly snubbed. New Yorkers don't do that sort of thing, I
understand."

"But she's rather a nice looking girl," insists Vee. "And see, she's
half smiling. I'm going to speak to her." Which she does, right off the
bat. "I hope you don't mind the onion perfume?" says Vee.

The strange young lady doesn't slam down the window and go off tossin'
her head, indignant, so she can't be a real New Yorker. Instead she
smiles and shows a couple of cheek dimples. "It smells mighty good,"
says she. "I was just wondering what it could be."

"Won't you come over and find out?" says Vee, smilin' back.

"Yes, do come and join us," puts in Lucy Lee. "I'll open the hall door
for you."

"Why, I--I'd love to if--if I may," says the young lady.

And that's how, half an hour or so later, when all that was left of this
rinktum-diddy trick was some brown smears on five empty plates, we begun
hearin' the story of the face at the window. She's young Mrs. William
Fairfield, and she's been that exactly three months. Before that she had
been Miss Esther Hartley, of Turkey Run, Md., and Kaio Chow, China. Papa
Hartley had been a medical missionary and Esther, after she got through
at Wellesley, had joined him as a nurse and kindergarten teacher. She'd
been living in Kaio Chow for three years and the mission outfit was
getting along fine when some kind of a Boxer mess broke out and they all
had to leave. Coming back on an Italian steamer from Genoa she met Bill,
who'd been in aviation, and there'd been some lovely moonlight nights
and--well, Bill had persuaded her that teaching young Chinks to learn
c-a-t, cat, wouldn't be half as nice as being Mrs. William Hartley.
Besides, he had a good position waiting for him in a big wholesale
leather house right in New York, and it would be such fun living among
regular people.

"I suppose it is fun, too," says Esther, "but somehow I can't seem to
get used to it. Everyone here gives you such, cold, suspicious looks;
even the folks you meet in the hallways and elevator, as though they
meant to say, 'Don't you dare speak to me. I don't know who or what you
are, so don't come near.' They're like that, you know. Why, the street
gamins of Kaio Chow were not much worse when I first went there. Yes,
they did throw stones at me a few times, but in less than a month they
were calling me the Doctor Lady and letting me tell them how wrong it
was to spend so much time gambling around the food carts. Of course,
they kept right on gambling for fried fish and rice cakes, but they
would grin friendly when they saw me. Up to tonight no one in New York
has even smiled at me.

"It's such a wonderful place, too; and so big, you would almost think
there was enough to share with, strangers. But they seem to resent my
being here at all, so I go out very little now when I am alone. And as
Bill is away all day, and sometimes has to work evenings as well, I am
alone a great deal. About the only place I can see the sky from and
other people is this little kitchen window. So I stay there a lot, and I
am sorry to say that often I'm foolish enough to wish myself back at
the mission among all those familiar yellow faces, where I could stand
on the bamboo shaded galleries and hear the hubbub in the compound, and
watch the coolies wading about in the distant rice fields. Isn't that
silly? There must be something queer about me."

"Not so awfully queer," says Vee. "You're lonesome, that's all."

"No more than I am, I'm sure," says Lucy Lee. "I wonder if there are
many others?"

"Only two or three million more," says I. "That's why the cabarets and
movie shows are so popular."

That starts us talking over what there was for folks to do in New York
evenings, and while we can dope out quite a lot of different ways of
passin' the time between 8 p. m. and midnight, nearly every one is so
expensive that the average young couple can't afford to tackle 'em
more'n once a week or so. The other evenings they sit at home in the
flat.

"And yet," says young Mrs. Fairfield, "hardly any of them but could find
a congenial group of people if--if they only knew where to look and how
to get acquainted with each other. Why, right in this block I've noticed
ever so many who I'm sure are rather nice. But there seems to be no way
of getting together."

"That's it, precisely!" says Vee. "So why should you wish yourself back
in China?"

"I beg pardon?" says Mrs. Bill.

"I mean," says Vee, "that here is a missionary field, right at your
door. If you can go off among foreigners and get them to give up some of
their silly ways and organize them into groups and classes, why can't
you do something of the kind for these silly New York flat dwellers?
Can't they be organized, too?"

"Why," says Mrs. Bill, her eyes openin' wider, "I never thought of that.
But--but there are so many of them."

"What about starting with your own block?" suggests Vee. "Perhaps with
only one side of the street at first. Couldn't you find out how many
were interested in one particular thing--music, or dancing, or
bridge--and get them together?"

"Oh, I see!" says Mrs. Bill, clappin' her hands, enthusiastic. "Make a
social survey. Why, of course. One could get up a sort of questionnaire
card and drop it in the letter boxes for each family to fill out, if
they cared to do so, and then you could call meetings of the various
groups."

"If I could find a few home folks from Virginia, that's all I would
ask," says Lucy Lee.

"Then we would start the card with 'Where born?'" says Mrs. Bill. "That
would show us how many were Southerners, how many from the West, from
New England, and so on. Next we would want to know something about their
ages."

"Not too much," suggests Hamilton Blake. "Better ask 'em if they're
over or under thirty."

"Of course," says Mrs. Bill. "Let's see how such a card would look. Next
we would ask them what amusements they liked best: music, dancing,
theatre going, bowling, bridge, private theatricals, chess and so on.
Please check with a cross. And are you a high-brow; if so, why? Is it
art, books, languages, or the snare drum?"

"Don't forget the poker fiends and the movie fans," I puts in.

Mrs. Bill writes that down. "We will have to begin by electing ourselves
an organizing committee," says she, "and we will need a small printing
fund."

"I'll chip in ten," says Mr. Blake.

"So will we," says Vee.

"And I am sure Bill will, too," says Mrs. Fairfield, "which will be
quite enough to print all the cards we need. And tomorrow evening we
will get together in our apartment and make out the questionnaire
complete. Shall we?"

So when we left to catch a late train for Long Island it looked like
West Hundred and Umpty Umpt street was going to have something new
sprung on it. Course, we didn't know how far these two young couples
would get towards reformin' New York, but they sure was in earnest,
'specially young Mrs. Bill, who seems to have more or less common sense
tucked away between her ears.

That must have been a week or ten days ago, and as we hadn't heard from
any of them, or seen anything in the papers, we was kind of curious. So
here yesterday I has to call up Lucy Lee on the 'phone.

"Say," says I, "how's that block sociable progressin'?"

"Oh, perfectly wonderful!" says Lucy Lee. "Why, at our first meeting, in
a big dance hall, we had nearly 300 persons and were almost swamped. But
Esther is a perfect wizard at organizing. She got them into groups in
less than half an hour, and before we adjourned they had formed all
kinds of clubs and associations, from subscription dance clubs to a Lord
Dunsany private theatrical club. Everyone in the block who didn't turn
out at first has been clamoring to get in since and it has been keeping
us busy sorting them out. You've no idea what a difference it makes up
here. Why, I know almost everybody in the building now, and some of them
are really charming people. They're beginning to seem like real
neighbors and I don't think we shall ever pass another dull evening
while we live here. Even folks across the street have heard about it and
want Esther to come over and organize them."

So I had quite a bulletin to take home to Vee.

"Isn't that splendid!" says she.

"Anyway," says I, "I guess you started something. If it spreads enough,
maybe New York'll be almost fit to live in. But I have my doubts."



CHAPTER II

WHEN HALLAM WAS RUNG UP


It ain't often Mr. Robert starts something he can't finish. When he
does, though, he's shifty at passin' it on. Yes, I'll say he is. For in
such cases I'm apt to be the one that's handiest, and you know what that
means. It's a matter of Torchy being joshed into tacklin' any old
proposition that may be batted up, with Mr. Robert standin' by ready to
spring the grin.

Take this little go of his with the Hallam Beans--excuse me, the F.
Hallam Beans. Doesn't that sound arty? Well, that's what they were, this
pair. Nothing but. I forget where it was they drifted in from, but of
course they couldn't have found each other anywhere but in Greenwich
Village. And in course of time they mated up there. It was the logical,
almost the brilliant thing to do. Instead of owing rent for two skylight
studios they pyramided on one; besides, after that each one could borrow
the makin's off the other when the cigarettes ran out, and if there came
pea-green moments when they doubted whether they were real geniuses or
not one could always buck up the other.

If they had stuck to the Village I expect we'd never heard anything
about them, but it seems along early last spring F. Hallam had a stroke
of luck. He ran across an old maid art student from Mobile who was up
for the summer and was dyin' to get right into the arty atmosphere. Also
she had $300 that her grip wasn't any too tight on, and before she knew
it F. Hallam had sub-let the loft to her until Sept. 15, payable in
advance. Two days later the Beans, with more'n half of the loot left,
were out on Long Island prospectin' around in our locality and talking
vague about taking a furnished bungalow. They were shown some neat ones,
too, runnin' from eight to fifteen hundred for three months, but none of
'em seemed to be just right. But when they discovered this partly
tumbled down shack out on a back lane beyond Mr. Robert Ellinses' big
place they went wild over it. Years ago some guy who thought he was
goin' to get rich runnin' a squab farm had put it up, but he'd quit the
game and the property had been bought up by Muller, our profiteerin'
provision dealer. And Muller didn't do a thing but soak 'em $30 a month
rent for the shack, that has all the conveniences of a cow shed in it.

But the Beans rented some second-hand furniture, bought some oil lamps
and a two-burner kerosene stove, and settled down as happy and contented
as if they'd leased a marble villa at Newport. From then on you'd be
liable to run across 'em most anywhere, squattin' in a field or along
the back roads with their easels and paint brushes, daubin' away
industrious.

You might know it would be either Mrs. Robert or Vee who would pick 'em
up and find out the whole story. As a matter of fact it was both, for
they were drivin' out after ferns or something when they saw the Beans
perched on a stone wall tryin' to unbutton a can of sardines with a
palette knife and not having much success. You know the kind of people
who either lose the key to a sardine can or break off the tab and then
gaze at it helpless! That was them to the life.

And when Mrs. Robert finds how they're livin' chiefly on dry groceries
and condensed milk, so's to have more to blow in on dinky little tubes
of Chinese white and Prussian blue and canvas, of course she has to get
busy slippin' 'em little trifles like a dozen fresh eggs, a mess of
green peas and a pint of cream now and them. She follows that up by
havin' 'em come over for dinner frequent. Vee has to do her share too,
chippin' in a roast chicken or a cherry pie or a pan of doughnuts, so
between the two the Hallam Beans were doin' fairly well. Hallam, he
comes back generous by wishin' on each of 'em one of his masterpieces.
The thing he gives us Vee hangs up over the livin' room mantelpiece,
right while he's there.

"Isn't that perfectly stunning, Torchy?" she demands.

"I expect it is," says I, squintin' at it professional, "but--but just
what is it supposed lo be?" And I turns inquirin' to F. Hallam.

"Why," says he, "it is a study of afternoon light on a group of willows.
We are not Futurists, you see; Revertists, rather. Our methods--at least
mine--are frankly after the Barbizon school."

"Yeauh!" says I, noddin' wise. "I knew one once who could do swell
designs on mirrors with a piece of soap."

"I beg pardon," says Hallam. "One what?"

"A barber's son," says I. "I got him a job as window decorator, too."

But somehow after that Hallam sort of shies talkin' art with me. A
touchy party, F. Hallam. The least little thing would give him the
sulks. And even when he was feelin' chipper his face was long enough. As
a floorwalker in a mournin' goods shop he'd be a perfect fit. But you
couldn't suggest anything that sounded like real work to Hallam. He
claims that he was livin' for his art. Maybe so, but I'll be hanged if
he was livin' on it. I got to admit, though, that he dressed the part
fairly well; for in that gray flannel shirt and the old velvet coat and
the flowin' black tie, and with all that stringy, mud-colored hair
fallin' around his ears, he couldn't be mistaken for anything else. Even
a movie audience would have spotted him as an artist without a leader to
that effect.

Mrs. Hallam Bean was a good runnin' mate for him, for she has her hair
boxed and wears paint-smeared smocks. Only she's a shy actin', quiet
little thing, and real modest. There's no doubt whatever but that she
has decided that F. Hallam is going to be a great painter some day. When
she ain't sayin' as much she's lookin' it; and Hallam, I suspect, is
always ready to make the vote unanimous.

I judged from a few remarks of Mr. Robert's that he wasn't quite as
strong for the Hallams as Mrs. Robert was, but seein' 'em around so much
he couldn't help gettin' more or less interested in the business end of
their career.

"Yes," says he, "they seem to be doing fairly well this summer; but how
about next winter, when they go back to town? You know they can't
possibly sell any of those things. How are they going to keep from
starving?"

Mrs. Robert didn't know. She said she'd mention the matter to F. Hallam.
And she found he wasn't worrying a bit. His plans were vague enough. He
was doing a head of Myrtle--that being Mrs. Bean--which he thought he
might let some magazine have as a cover picture. And then, other things
were bound to turn up. They always had, you know.

But toward the end of the season the Beans got shabbier than ever.
Myrtle's smocks were torn and stained, with a few cigarette burns here
and there, and her one pair of walking boots were run over at the heel
and leaky in the sole. As for Hallam, that velvet coat had so many
grease spots on it that it was hardly fit to wear outside of a stable,
and his rubber-soled shoes gave his toes plenty of air. The Beans
admitted that their finances were down to the zero point and they had to
be asked in for dinner at least three times a week to keep 'em from
bein' blue in the gills.

"Hang it all!" says Mr. Robert, "the fellow ought to have a regular job
of some kind. I suppose he can draw after a fashion. I'll see what I can
do."

And by rustlin' around among his friends he finds one who runs a big
advertisin' agency and can place another man in the art department.
You'd 'most thought F. Hallam would have been tickled four ways at the
prospect of draggin' down a pay envelope reg'lar and being able to look
the rent agent in the face. But say, what does he do but scrape his foot
and wriggle around like he'd been asked to swallow a non-skid headache
tablet. At last he gets out this bleat about how he'd always held his
art to be too sacred a thing for him to commercialize and he really
didn't know whether he could bring himself to drawin' ad. pictures or
not. He'd have to have time to think it over.

"Very well," says Mr. Robert, restrainin' himself from blowin' a fuse as
well as he could. "Let me know tomorrow night. If you decide to take the
place, come over about 6:30; if you find that your views as to the
sacredness of your art are too strong, you needn't bother to arrive
until 8:30--after dinner."

I expect it was some struggle, but Art must have gone down for the full
count. Anyway the Beans were on hand when the tomato bisque was served
next evenin', and in less'n a week F. Hallam was turnin' out a perfectly
good freehand study of a lovely lady standin' graceful beside a
Never-smoke oil stove--no-wicks, automatic feed, send for our
catalogue--and other lively compositions along that line. More'n that,
he made good and the boss promised him that maybe in a month or so he'd
turn him loose with his oil paints on something big, a full page in
color, maybe, for a leadin' breakfast food concern. Then the Beans moved
back to town and we heard hardly anything more about 'em.

I understand, though, that they sort of lost caste with their old crowd
in Greenwich Village. Hallam tried to keep up the bluff for a while that
he wasn't workin' reg'lar, but his friends began to suspect. They
noticed little things, like the half pint of cream that was left every
morning for the Beans, the fact that Hallam was puttin' on weight and
gettin' reckless with clean collars. And finally, after being caught
coming from the butcher's with two whole pounds of lamb chops, Myrtle
broke down and confessed. They say after that F. Hallam was a changed
man. He had his hair trimmed, took to wearin' short bow ties, and when
he dined at the Purple Pup, sneaked in and sat at a side table like any
tourist from the upper West Side.

Course, on Sundays and holidays he put on the old velvet coat, and set
up his easel and splashed away with his paints. But mostly he did heads
of Myrtle, and figure stuff. It was even hinted that he hired models.

It must have been on one of his days home that this Countess Zecchi
person discovered him in his old rig. She'd been towed down there on a
slummin' party by a club friend of Mr. Robert's who'd heard of Hallam
and had the address. You remember hearin' about the Countess, maybe? She
was Miss Mae Collins, of Kansas City, originally, and Zecchi was either
the second or third of her hubbies, or hobbies, whichever you'd care to
call 'em. A lively, flighty female, Countess Zecchi, who lives in a
specially decorated suite at the Plutoria, sports a tiger cub as a pet,
and indulges in other whims that get her more or less into the
spotlight.

Her particular hunch on this occasion was that she must have her
portrait done by a real Bohemian artist, and offhand she gives F. Hallam
the job.

"You must paint me as Psyche," says she. "I've always wanted to be done
as Psyche. Can't we have a sitting tomorrow?"

Hallam was almost too thrilled for words, but he managed to gasp out
that she could. So he reports sick to his boss, blows in all his spare
cash buyin' a big mirror and draperies to fix up a Psyche pool in the
studio, and decides that at last luck has turned. For three days the
Countess Zecchi shows up reg'lar, drapes herself in pink tulle, and
Hallam paints away enthusiastic.

Then she don't come any more. For a week she stalls him off and finally
tells him flat that posing as Psyche bores her. Besides, she's just
starting south on a yachting party. The portrait? Oh, she doesn't care
about that. She hadn't really given him a commission, just told him he
might paint her. And he mustn't bother her by calling up again.
Positively.

So Hallam hits the earth with a dull thud. He reports back on the
advertisin' job and groans every time he thinks how much he spent on the
mirror and big canvas. He'd been let in, that's all. But he finishes up
the Psyche picture durin' odd times. He even succeeded in unloadin' it
on some dealer who supplies the department stores, so he quits about
square.

Then an odd thing happens. At the advertisin' agency there's a call from
a big customer for a picture to go with a Morning Glory soap ad. It's a
rush order, to be done in six colors. Hallam has a bright little
thought. Why wouldn't his Psyche picture fit in? The boss thinks it's
worth lookin' up, and an hour later he comes back from the dealer's with
the trade all made. And inside of three weeks no less than two dozen
magazines was bindin' in a full page in colors showin' the fair form of
the Countess Zecchi bendin' over a limpid pool tryin' to fish out a cake
of Morning Glory soap. It was a big winner, that ad. The soap firm
ordered a hundred thousand copies struck off on heavy plate paper, and
if you sent in five wrappers with a two-cent stamp you'd be mailed a
copy to tack up in the parlor.

Whether or not the general public would have recognized the Countess
Zecchi as the girl in the soap ad. if she'd kept still about it is a
question. Most likely it wouldn't. But the Countess didn't keep still.
That wasn't her way. She proceeds to put up a holler. The very day she
discovers the picture, through kind friends who almost swamped her with
cut-out copies and telegrams, she rushes back to New York and calls up
the reporters. All one afternoon she throws cat fits for their benefit
up at her Plutoria apartment. She tells 'em what a wicked outrage has
been sprung on her by a wretched shrimp of humanity who flags under the
name of Bean and pretends to be a portrait painter. She goes into
details about the mental anguish that has almost prostrated her since
she discovered the fiendish assault on her privacy, and she announces
how she has begun action for criminal libel and started suit for damages
to the tune of half a million dollars.

Well, you've seen what the papers did to that bit of news. They sure did
play it up, eh? The Psyche picture, with all its sketchy draperies, was
printed side by side with half tones of the Countess Zecchi. And of
course they didn't neglect F. Hallam Bean. He has to be photographed and
interviewed, too. Also, Hallam wasn't dodgin' either a note-book or a
camera. As a result he is mentioned as "the well-known portrait painter
of Greenwich Village," and so on. One headline I remember was like this:
"Founder of American Revertist School Sued for Half Million."

I expect I kidded Mr. Robert more or less about his artist friend. He
don't know quite how to take it, Mr. Robert. In one way he feels kind of
responsible for Hallam, but of course he ain't worried much about the
damage suit. The Countess might get a judgment, but she'd have a swell
time collectin' anything over a dollar forty-nine, all of which she must
have known as well as anybody. But she was gettin' front page space. So
was F. Hallam. And the soap firm was runnin' double shifts fillin' new
orders.

Then here one afternoon, as Mr. Robert and me are puttin' the finishin'
touches to a quarterly report, who should drift into the Corrugated
general offices but F. Hallam Bean, all dolled up in an outfit that he
must have collected at some costumers. Anyway, I ain't seen one of them
black cape coats for years, and the wide-brimmed black felt hat is a
curio. Also he's gone back to the flowin' necktie and is lettin' his
hair grow wild again.

"Well, well!" says I. "Right off the boulevard, eh?"

"Why the masquerade?" demands Mr. Robert.

He don't seem a bit disturbed at our josh, but just smiles sort of
satisfied and superior. "I suppose it is different," says he, "but
then, so am I. I've just been having some new photos taken. They're to
be used with an article I'm contributing to a Sunday paper. It is to be
entitled, 'What is a Revertist?' They are paying me $100 for it. Not
bad, eh!"

"Pretty soft, I'll say," says I. "Soak 'em while the soakin's good."

"Still getting on well with your job?" asked Mr. Robert.

"Oh, I've chucked that," says Hallam airy. "No more of that degrading
grind for me. I've arrived, you know."

"Eh?" gasps Mr. Robert. "Where?"

"Why," says F. Hallam, "don't you understand what has happened during
these last two weeks? Fame has found me out. I am known as the founder
of a new school of art--the original Revertist. My name has become a
household word. And before this absurd libel suit is finished I shall be
painting the portraits of all the leading society people. They are
already asking about me, and as soon as I find a suitable studio--I'm
considering one on West 59th Street, facing Central Park--I shall be
overwhelmed with orders. It's bound to come."

"You're quite sure this is fame, are you?" asks Mr. Robert.

F. Hallam smiles and shrugs his shoulders. "Quite," says he.

And Mr. Robert can't tell him it's anything else. Hasn't he got his
pockets full of newspaper clippings to prove it? Don't people turn and
stare after him in the street and nudge each other in the subway cars?
Aren't his artist friends giving him a banquet at the Purple Pup? So why
should he work for wages any more, or save up any of the easy money
that's coming his way? And he sails out indignant, with his cape
overcoat swayin' grand from his narrow shoulders.

"I give him up, Torchy," says Mr. Robert. "That is, unless you can
suggest some way of making him see what an ass he is. Come, now!"

"All right," says I, gettin a sudden hunch. "I don't know as it will
work in his case, for he's got it bad, but suppose we tow him out for a
look at Private Ben Riggs?"

"By George!" says Mr. Robert, slappin' his knee. "The very thing.
Sunday, eh?"

It was easy enough stagin' the affair. All he had to do was to ask the
Beans out for the week-end, and then after Sunday dinner load 'em into
the tourin' car, collect me, and drive off about 20 miles or so to the
south shore of Long Island.

Maybe, though, you don't remember about Private Ben Riggs? Oh, of course
the name still sticks. It's that kind of a name. But just what was it he
did? Uh-huh! Scratchin' your head, ain't you? And yet it was less than
two years ago that he was figurin' more prominent in the headlines than
anybody else you could name, not barrin' Wilson or Von Hindenburg.

One of our first war heroes, Ben Riggs was, and for nearly two weeks
there he had the great American people shoutin' themselves hoarse in his
honor, as you might say. There was editorials, comparin' his stunt to
what Dewey did at Manila Bay, or Hobson at Santiago, and showin' how
Private Ben had a shade the best of it, after all. The Sunday
illustrated sections had enlarged snapshots of him, of his boyhood home
in Whositville; of his dear old mother who made that classic remark,
"Now, wasn't that just like Ben"; and of his girlish sweetheart, who was
cashier at the Acme Lunch and who admitted that "she always had known
Ben was going to be a great man some day."

Then when the governor of Ben's state worked his pull and got Ben sent
home right in the midst of it all there was another grand
hooray--parades, banquets and so on. And they raised that testimonial
fund for him to buy a home with, and presented him with a gold medal.
Next, some rapid firin' publishin' firm rushed out a book: "Private Ben
Rigg's Own Story," which he was supposed to have written. And then, too,
he went on in a vaudeville sketch and found time to sign a movie
contract with a firm that was preparin' to screen his big act, "True To
Life."

It was along about that stage that Private Ben, with more money in the
bank than he'd ever dreamed came from all the mints, got this great
scheme in his nut that a noble plute like him ought to have a big
estate somewhere and build a castle on it. So he comes out here on the
south shore, lets a real estate shark get hold of him, and the next
thing he knows he owns about a hundred acres of maybe the most worthless
land on the whole island. His next move is to call in an architect, and
inside of a month a young army of laborers was layin' the foundations
for what looked like a city hall, but was really meant to be Riggsmere
Manor, with 78 rooms, 23 baths, four towers, and a dinin' room 65 feet
long and a ceiling 16 feet in the clear.

Then the slump came. I forget whether it was a new hero, or another
submarine raid. Anyway, the doings of Private Ben Riggs ceased to be
reported in the daily press. He dropped out of sight, like a nickel that
rolls down a sewer openin'. They didn't want him any more in vaudeville.
The movie producer welched on his proposition. The book sales fell off
sudden. The people that wanted to name cigars or safety razors after
him, or write songs about him, seemed to forget.

For a few days Private Ben couldn't seem to understand what had
happened. He went around in a kind of a daze. But he had sense enough
left to stop work on the Manor, countermand orders for materials, and
pull out with what he could. It wasn't such a great pile. There was a
construction shed on the property, fairly well built, and by running up
a chimney and having a well sunk, he had what passed for a home. There
in the builder's shack Private Ben has been living ever since. He has
stuck up a real estate sign and spends most of his time layin' out his
acres of sand and marsh into impossible buildin' lots. As he's way off
on a back road, few people ever come by, but he never misses a chance of
tacklin' those that do and tryin' to wish a buildin' plot on 'em. That's
how we happen to know him so well, and to have kept up with his career.

On the way out we sort of revived F. Hallam Bean's memories of Private
Ben Riggs. First off he thought Ben had something to do with the Barbara
Freitchie stunt, or was he the one who jumped off Brooklyn Bridge? But
at last he got it straight. Yes, he remembered having had a picture of
Private Ben tacked up in his studio, only last year. Then we tried him
on Jack Binns, and Sergeant York and Lieutenant Blue and Dr. Cook. He
knew they'd all done something or other to make the first page, but his
guesses were kind of wide.

"I would like to see Private Ben, though," says F. Hallam. "Must be an
interesting chap."

"He is," says Mr. Robert. "His scrap books are interesting, too. He has
ten of them."

"By Jove!" says Hallam. "Good idea. I must tell Myrtle about that."

But after we'd been hailed by this lonesome lookin' party in baggy pants
and the faded blue yachtin' cap, and we'd let him lead us past the stone
foundations where a fine crop of weeds was coming up, and he'd herded
us into his shack and was tryin' to spring a blueprint prospectus on us,
F. Hallam sort of put his foot in his mouth by remarkin':

"So you are Private Ben Riggs, are you?"

"I was--once," says he. "Now I'm just Sand-Lot Riggs. Who are you?"

"Oh, pardon me," puts in Mr. Robert. "I thought you would know. This is
Mr. Hallam Bean, the celebrated founder of the Revertist school of art."

"Oh, yes!" said Riggs. "The one who painted the corset picture ad."

"Soap picture," I corrects hasty, "featurin' the Countess Zecchi."

"That's so, it was soap," admits Riggs. "And I was noticin' in the
mornin' paper how the Countess had decided to drop them suits."

"What?" says Hallam, starin' at him. "Where was that? On the front
page?"

"No," says Riggs. "It was a little item on the inside mixed up with the
obituary notes. That's always the way. They start you on the front page,
and then----" Private Ben shrugs his shoulders. But he proceeds to add
hasty, with a shrewd squint at Hallam: "Course, it's different with you.
Say, how about buyin' the estate here? I'd be willin' to let it go
cheap."

"No, thank you," says F. Hallam, crisp.

"Part of it then," insists Riggs. "I'd been meanin' to write you about
it. I generally do write 'em while--while they're on the front."

"No," says Hallam, and edges toward the door.

He seemed to get the idea. Before he starts back for town that night he
asks Mr. Robert if he could say a word for him at the advertisin'
agency, as he thought it might be just as well if he hung onto the job.
It wasn't such a poor thought, for Hallam fades out of public view a
good deal quicker than he came in.

"Maybe it wasn't Fame that rung him up, after all," I suggests to Mr.
Robert.

He nods. "It might have been her step-sister, Notoriety," says he.

"Just what's the difference?" says I.

Mr. Robert rubs his chin. "Some old boy whose name I've forgotten, put
it very well once," says he. "Let's see, he said that Fame was the
perfume distilled from the perfect flowering of a wise and good life;
while Notoriety was--er----"

"Check!" says I. "It's what you get when you fry onions, eh?"

Mr. Robert grins. "Some day, Torchy," says he, "I think I shall ask you
to translate Emerson's Essays for me."

It's all josh, all right. But that's what you get when you're a private
sec. de luxe.



CHAPTER III

THE GUMMIDGES GET A BREAK


This news about how the Gummidges had come back is 'phoned in by Vee
here the other afternoon. She's some excited over it, as she always is
when she sees another chance of extendin' the helpin' hand. I'll admit I
wasn't quite so thrilled. You see, I'd been through all that with the
Gummidges two or three times before and the novelty had sort of worn
off. Besides, that last rescue act we'd pulled had been no common
charity hand-out. It had been big stuff, nothing less than passing the
hat among our friends and raising enough to send the whole lot of 'em so
far West that the prospects of their ever gettin' back to New York was
mighty slim. Maybe that was one reason I'd been so enthusiastic over
puttin' the job through. Not more'n eighteen months ago that had been,
and here they all were back in our midst once more.

"At the same old address," adds Vee, "so you can guess what that means,
Torchy."

"Uh-huh!" says I. "The Patricia apartments has a perfectly punk janitor
again and we're due to listen to another long tale of woe."

"Oh, well," says Vee, "it will be interesting to see if Mrs. Gummidge
is still bearing up cheerful and singing that 'When the Clouds Are
Darkest' song of hers. Of course, I am coming right in as soon as I can
pack a basket. They're sure to be hungry, so I'm going to put in a whole
roasted chicken, and some jars of that strawberry jam Rowena likes so
much, and heaps of bread and butter sandwiches. Probably they'll need a
few warm clothes, too, so I hope you don't mind, Torchy, if I tuck in a
couple of those khaki shirts of yours, and a few pairs of socks,
and----"

"Say," I breaks in, "don't get too reckless with my wardrobe. I ain't
got enough to fit out the whole Gummidge family, you know. Save me a
dress tie and a change of pajamas if you can."

"Silly!" says she. "And listen: I will call for you about 5 o'clock and
we'll go up to see them together."

"Very well," says I. "I'll try to hold myself back until then."

At that, I expect I was some curious to find out just how the Gummidges
had managed it. Must have been Ma Gummidge who found a way. Hen.
Gummidge never would, all by himself. About as helpless an old
Stick-in-the-Mud, he was, as I'd, ever helped pry out of the muck. And a
chronic crape hanger. If things were bad, he was sure they were going to
be worse.

"I never have no luck," was his constant whine. It was his motto, as
you might say, his Fourteen Points of Fate.

I never could make out whether he got that way on account of his face,
or if his face had lengthened out as his disposition grew gloomy. It was
a long face, almost as long and sad as a cow's. Much too long for his
body and legs as he was only medium height up as far as the chin. Kind
of a stoop shouldered, hollow chested, thin shanked party, too.
Somewhere in the fifties, I should judge, but he might have been sixty
by his looks and the weary way he dragged around.

When I first knew him he was assistant engineer in the Corrugated
buildin' and I used to see him risin' solemn out of the sidewalk on the
ash elevator, comin' up from the basement like some sad, flour-sprinkled
ghost. And then before he'd roll off the ash cans he'd lean his elbows
on the safety bar and stare mournful up and down Broadway for a spell,
just stallin' around. Course, I got to kiddin' him, askin' what he found
so comic in the boiler-room and why he didn't let me in on the joke.

"Huh!" he'd grunt. "If there's any joke down there, young feller, I'm
it. I wonder how much grinnin' you'd do if you had to slave ten hours a
day in a hole like that. I ought to be up sittin' on the right side of
an engine cab, fast freight, and drawin' my three hundred a month with
time and a half overtime. That's what I set out to be when I started as
wiper. Got to be fireman once, but on the second run we hit a weak rail
and went into the ditch. Three busted ribs and my hospital expenses was
all I pulled out of that with; and when I tried to get damages they put
my name on the blacklist, which finished my railroadin' career for good.
Maybe it was just as well. Likely I'd got mashed fair in the next wreck.
That's me. Why say, if it was rainin' soup I'd be caught out with a
fork."

Yes, he was some consistent gloom hound, Henry Gummidge. Let him tell it
and what Job went through was a mere head-cold compared to his trials
and tribulations. And the worst was yet to come. He knew it because he
often dreamed of seeing a bright yellow dog walkin' on his hind legs
proud and wearin' a shiny collar. And then the dog would change into a
bow-legged policeman swingin' a night-stick threatenin'. All of which a
barber friend of Henry's told him meant trouble in the pot and that he
must beware of a false friend who came across the water. The barber got
it straight from a dream book, and there must be something in it, for
hadn't Henry been done out of $3 by a smooth talkin' guy from Staten
Island?

Well, sure enough, things did happen to Gummidge. He had a case of
shingles. Then he dropped the silver watch he'd carried for fifteen
years and before he knew it had stepped square on it with the iron
plated heel of his work boots, squashin' the crystal into the works.
And six weeks later he'd carelessly rested a red hot clinker rake on
his right foot and had seared off a couple of toes. But the climax came
when he managed to bug the safety catch on the foolproof ash elevator
and took a 20-foot drop with about a ton of loaded ash cans. He only had
a leg broken, at that, but it was three or four months before he came
limpin' out of the hospital to find that the buildin' agent didn't care
to have him on the payroll any more.

Somehow Henry got his case before Mr. Robert, and that's how I was sent
scoutin' out to see if all this about a sufferin' fam'ly was a fairy
tale or not. Well, it was and it wasn't. There was a Mrs. Gummidge, and
Rowena, and Horatio, just as he'd described. And they was livin' in a
back flat on a punk block over near the North river. Their four dark
rooms was about as bare of furniture as they could be. I expect you
might have loaded the lot on a push cart. And the rations must have been
more or less skimpy for some time.

But you couldn't exactly say that Ma Gummidge was sufferin'. No. She'd
collected a couple of fam'ly washes from over Seventh avenue way and was
wadin' into 'em cheerful. Also she was singin' "When the Clouds Are
Darkest," rubbin' out an accompaniment on the wash board and splashin'
the suds around reckless, her big red face shinin' through the steam
like the sun breakin' through a mornin' fog.

Some sizable old girl, Ma Gummidge; one of these bulgy, billowy females
with two chins and a lot of brownish hair. And when she wipes her hands
and arms and camps down in a chair she seems to fill all one side of the
room. Even her eyes are big and bulgy. But they're good-natured eyes. Oh
my, yes. Just beamin' with friendliness and fun.

"Yes, Henry's had kind of a hard time," she admits, "but I tell him he
got off lucky. Might have been hurt a lot worse. And he does feel
downhearted about losin' his job. But likely he'll get another one
better'n that. And we're gettin' along, after a fashion. Course, we're
behind on the rent, and we miss a meal now and then; but most folks eat
too much anyway, and things are bound to come out all right in the end.
There's Rowena, she's been promised a chance to be taken on as extra
cash girl in a store. And Horatio's gettin' big enough to be of some
help. We're all strong and healthy, too, so what's the use worryin', as
I say to Henry."

Say, she had Mrs. Wiggs lookin' like a consistent grouch, Ma Grummidge
did. Rowena, too, is more or less of an optimist. She's about 16, built
a good deal on her mother's lines, and big enough to tackle almost any
kind of work, but I take it that thus far she ain't done much except
help around the flat. Horatio, he's more like his father. He's only 15
and ought to be in school, but it seems he spends most of his time
loafin' at home. They're a folksy fam'ly, I judge; the kind that can
sit around and chat about nothing at all for hours at a time. Why, even
the short while I was there, discoverin' how near they was to bein' put
out on the street, they seemed to be havin' a whale of a time. Rowena,
dressed in a saggy skirt and a shirt waist with one sleeve partly split
out, sits in the corner gigglin' at some of her Ma's funny cracks. And
then Ma Gummidge springs that rollin' chuckly laugh of hers when Rowena
adds some humorous details about a stew they tried to make out of a
piece of salt pork and a couple of carrots.

But the report I makes to Mr. Robert is mostly about facts and finances,
so he slips a ten spot or so into an envelope for 'em, and next day he
finds a club friend who owns a row of apartment houses, among them the
Patricia, where there's a janitor needed. And within a week we had the
Gummidges all settled cozy in basement quarters, with enough to live on
and more or less chance to graft off the tenants.

Then Vee has to get interested in the Gummidges, too, from hearin' me
tell of 'em, and the next I knew she'd added 'em to her reg'lar list.
No, I don't mean she pensions Pa Gummidge, or anything like that. She
just keeps track of the fam'ly, remembers all their birthdays, keeps 'em
chirked up in various ways, shows Rowena how to do her hair so it won't
look so sloppy, fits Horatio out so he can go back to school, and
smooths over a row Pa Gummidge has managed to get into with the tenant
on the second floor west. It ain't so much that she likes to boss other
peoples' affairs as it is that she gets to have a real likin' for 'em
and can't help tryin' to give 'em a boost. And she's 'specially strong
for Ma Gummidge.

"Do you know, Torchy," she tells me, "her disposition is really quite
remarkable. She can be cheerful and good natured under the most trying
circumstances."

"Lucky for her she can," says I. "I expect she was born that way."

"But she wasn't born to live in a basement and do janitor's work," says
Vee. "For you know Gummidge puts most of it on her. No, her people were
fairly well-to-do. Her father ran a shoe store up in Troy. They lived
over the store, of course, but very comfortably. She had finished high
school and was starting in at the state normal, intending to be a
teacher, when she met Henry Gummidge and ran off and married him. He was
nearly ten years older and was engineer in a large factory. But he lost
that position soon after, and they began drifting around. Her father
died and in the two years that her mother tried to manage the shoe store
she lost all that they had saved. Then her mother died. And the
Gummidges kept getting poorer and poorer. But she doesn't complain. She
keeps saying that everything will turn out all right some time. I hope
it does."

"But I wouldn't bank heavy on it," says I. "I never studied Hen.
Gummidge's palm, or felt his bumps, but my guess is that he'll never
shake the jinx. He ain't the kind that does. He's headed down the chute,
Henry is, and Ma Gummidge is goin' to need all her reserve stock of
cheerfulness before she gets through. You watch."

Well, it begun to look like I was some grand little prophet. Even as a
janitor Hen. Gummidge was in about the fourth class, and the Patricia
apartments were kind of high grade. The tenants did a lot of grouchin'
over Henry. He wouldn't get steam up in the morning until about 8:30. He
didn't keep the marble vestibule scrubbed the way he should, and so on.
He had a lot of alibis, but mostly he complained that he was gettin'
rheumatism from livin' in such damp quarters. If it hadn't been for Vee
talkin' smooth to the agent Gummidge would have been fired. As it is he
hangs on, limpin' around gloomy with his hand on his hip. I expect his
joints did pain him more or less. And at last he gives up altogether and
camps down in an easy chair next to the kitchen stove.

It was about then he heard from this brother of his out in Nebo, Texas.
Seems brother was an old bach who was runnin' a sheep ranch out there.
Him and Henry hadn't kept close track of each other for a good many
years, but now brother Jim has a sudden rush of fraternal affection. He
wants Henry and his family to come out and join him. He's lonesome, and
he's tired of doin' his own cookin'. He admits the ranch ain't much
account, but there's a livin' on it, and if Henry will come along he'll
make him an equal partner.

"Ain't that just my luck?" says Henry. "Where could I scrape up enough
money to move to Texas, I'd like to know?"

"Think you'd like to go, do you?" I asks.

"Course I would," says Gummidge. "It would do my rheumatism good. And,
then, I'd like to see old Jim again. But Gosh! It would take more 'n a
hundred dollars to get us all out there, and I ain't had that much at
once since I don't know when."

"Still," says I, "the thing might be financed. I'll see what can be
done." Meaning that I'd put it up to Mr. Robert and Vee.

"Why, surely!" says Vee. "And wouldn't that be splendid for them all?"

"You may put me down for fifty," says Mr. Robert. "If he'll move to
China I'll double it."

But Nebo seemed to be far enough off to be safe. And it was surprisin'
how easy we stood it when the tickets was all bought and the time came
to say good-bye to the Gummidges. As I remember, we was almost merry
over it. Even Mr. Robert has to shoot off something he thinks is
humorous.

"When you all get to Nebo," says he, "perhaps the old mountain will be a
little less lonely."

"And if anybody offers to give you a steer down there," says I, "don't
refuse. It might be just tin-horn advice, but then again he might mean a
long-horn beef."

As usual Henry is the only gloom in the party. He shakes his head.
"Brother Jim only keeps sheep," says he, "and I never did like mutton
much, nohow. Maybe I won't live to git there, though. Seems like an
awful long ways to go."

But they did land there safe enough, for about a week or ten days later
Vee gets a postcard from Ma Gummidge sayin' that it was lucky they got
there just as they did for they found Brother Jim pretty sick. She was
sure she'd have him prancin' around again soon, and she couldn't say how
much she thanked us all for what we'd done.

And with that the Gummidges sort of fades out. Not another word comes
from 'em. Must have been a year and a half ago they went. More, I
expect. We had one or two other things to think of meanwhile. You know
how easy it is to forget people like that, specially when you make up
your mind that they're sort of crossed off for good. And after a spell
if somebody mentioned Texas maybe I'd recall vague that I knew someone
who was down there, and wonder who it was.

Then here the other afternoon comes Vee with this announcement that the
Gummidges were back. Do you wonder I didn't give way to any wild,
uncontrolled joy? I could see us goin' through the same old program with
'em; listenin' to Pa Gummidge whine about how bad he felt, tryin' to
keep his job for him, plannin' out a career for Horatio, and watchin'
Rowena split out more shirtwaists.

Vee shows up prompt a little before closin' time. She's in a taxi and
has a big suit case and a basket full of contributions. "What puzzles
me," says she, "is how he could get back his old place so readily."

"Needn't worry you long," says I. "Let's go on up and have it over with
and then go somewhere for dinner."

So, of course, when we rolls up to the Patricia apartment we dives down
into janitor's quarters as usual. But we're halted by a putty-faced
Swede person in blue denims, who can converse and smoke a pipe at the
same time.

"Yah, I bane yanitor here long time," says he.

"Eh?" says I. "What about Gummidge then?"

"Oh, Meester Gummidge," says he. "He bane new tenant on second floor,
yes? Sublet, furnished, two days ago yet. Nice peoples."

Well, at that I stares at Vee and she stares back.

"Whaddye mean, nice?" I demands.

"Swell peoples," says the Swede, soundin' the "v" in swell. "Second
floor."

"There must be some mistake," says Vee, "but I suppose we might as well
go up and see."

So up we trails to the elevator, me with the suitcase in one hand and
the basket in the other, like a Santa Claus who has lost his way.

"Mr. Henry Grummidge?" says the neat elevator girl. "Yes'm. Second."

And in another minute Vee was being greeted in the dark hallway and
folded in impetuous by Ma Grummidge herself. But as we are towed into
the white and gold living room, where half a dozen pink-shaded electric
bulbs are blazin', we could see that it wasn't exactly the same Mrs.
Gummidge we'd known. She's about the same build, and she has the same
number of chins. Also there's the old familiar chuckly laugh. But that's
as far as it goes. This Mrs. Gummidge is attired--that's the proper
word, I expect--in a black satin' evenin' dress that fits her like she'd
been cast into it. Also her mop of brownish hair has been done up neat
and artistic, and with the turquoise necklace danglin' down to her
waist, and the marquise dinner ring flashin' on her right hand, she's
more or less impressive to behold.

"Why, Mrs. Gummidge!" gasps Vee.

"I just thought that's what you'd say," says she. "But wait 'till you've
seen Rowena. Come, dearie; here's comp'ny."

She was dead right. It was a case of waitin' to see Rowena, and we held
our breaths while she rustled in. Say, who'd have thought that a few
clothes could make such a difference? For instead of the big sloppy
young female who used to slouch, gigglin' around the basement who
should breeze in but a zippy young lady, a bit heavy about the shoulders
maybe for that flimsy style of costume, but more or less stunning, for
all that. Rowena had bloomed out. In fact, she had the lilies of the
field lookin' like crepe paper imitations.

And we'd no sooner caught our breath after inspectin' her than Horatio
makes an entrance, and we behold the youngster whose usual costume was
an old gray sweater and a pair of baggy pants now sportin' a suit of
young hick raiment that any shimmy hound on Times Square would have been
glad to own. Slit pockets? Oh my, yes; and a soft collar that matched
his lilac striped shirt, and cuff links and socks that toned in with
both, and a Chow dog on a leather leash.

Then Pa Gummidge, shaved and slicked up as to face and hair, his bowlegs
in a pair of striped weddin' trousers and the rest of him draped in a
frock coat and a fancy vest, with gold eyeglasses hung on him by a black
ribbon. He's puffin' away at a Cassadora cigar that must have measured
seven inches over-all when it left the box. In fact, the Gummidges are
displayin' all the usual marks of wealth and refinement.

"But tell me," gasps Vee, "what on earth has happened? How did--did you
get it?"

"Oil," says Pa Gummidge.

Vee looks blank. "I--I don't understand," says she.

"Lemme guess," says I. "You mean you struck a gusher on the sheep
ranch?"

"I didn't," says Gummidge. "Them experts I leased the land to did,
though. Six hundred barrels per, and still spoutin' strong. They pay me
a royalty on every barrel, too."

"Oh!" says I. "Then you and Brother Jim--"

"Poor Jim!" says Henry. "Too bad he couldn't have hung on long enough to
enjoy some of it. Enough for both. Lord, yes! Just my luck to lose him.
Only brother I ever had. But he's missin' a lot of trouble, at that.
Having to eat with your coat on, for one thing. And this grapefruit for
breakfast nonsense. I'm always squirtin' myself in the eye."

"Isn't that just like Henry?" chuckles Ma Gummidge. "Why, he grumbles
because the oil people send him checks so often and he has to mail 'em
to his bank. But his rheumatism's lots better and we're all havin' the
best time. My, it--it's 'most like being in Heaven."

She meant it, too, every word. There wasn't an ounce of joy that Ma
Gummidge was missin'.

"And it's so nice for you to be here in a comfortable apartment, instead
of in some big hotel," says Vee.

"Henry's notion," says Mrs. Gummidge. "You remember the Whitleys that
complained about him? He had an idea Whitley's business was petering
out. Well, it was, and he was glad enough to sub-let to Henry. Never
knew, either, until after the lease was signed, who we were. Furnished
kind of nice, don't you think?"

"Why, Ma!" protests Rowena. Then she turns to Vee. "Of course, it'll do
for a while, until we find something decent up on Riverside Drive; one
with a motor entrance, you know. You're staying for dinner, aren't you?"

"Why," begins Vee, glancin' doubtful at me, "I think we----"

"Oh, do stay!" chimes in Ma Gummidge. "I did the marketing myself today;
and say, there's a rib roast of beef big enough for a hotel, mushrooms
raised under glass, an alligator pear salad, and hothouse strawberries
for dessert. Besides, you're about the only folks we know that we could
ask to dinner. Please, now!"

So we stayed and was waited on by two haughty near-French maids who
tried to keep the Gummidges in their places, but didn't more than half
succeed.

As we left, Rowena discovers for the first time all the hand luggage.
"Oh!" says she, eyeing the suitcase. "You are in town for the week-end,
are you?"

"Not exactly," says' I. "Just a few things for a fam'ly that Vee thought
might need 'em."

And Vee gets out just in time to take the lid off a suppressed snicker.
"Only think!" says she. "The Gummidges living like this!"

"I'm willing," says I. "I get back my shirts."



CHAPTER IV

FINDING OUT ABOUT BUDDY


The best alibi I can think up is that I did it offhand and casual.
Somehow, at the time it didn't seem like what people would call an
important step in my career. No. Didn't strike me that way at all.
Looked like a side issue, a trifle. There was no long debate over
whether I would or wouldn't, no fam'ly council, no advice from friends.
Maybe I took a second look, might have rubbed my chin thoughtful once,
and then I said I would.

But most of the big stuff, come to think of it, gets put over like that;
from gettin' engaged to havin' the news handed you that you're a
grand-daddy. Course, you might be workin' up to it for a long time, but
you're so busy on other lines that you hardly notice. Then all of a
sudden--Bing! Lots of young hicks' start in on a foxtrot all free and
clear, and before the orchestra has swung into the next one-step they've
said the fatal words that gets 'em pushing a baby carriage within a
year. Same with a lot of other moves that count big.

Gettin' Buddy wished on us, for instance. I remember, I wasn't payin'
much attention to what the barber was sayin'. You don't have to, you
know; 'specially when they're like Joe Sarello, who generally has a lot
to say. He'd been discoursin' on several subjects--how his cousin Carmel
was gettin' on with his coal and wood business up in New Rochelle, what
the League of Nations really ought to do to the Zecho-Slovacks, how much
the landlord has jumped his rent, and so on.

Then he begun talkin' about pups. I was wonderin' if Joe wasn't taking
too much hair off the sides, just above the ears. He's apt to when he
gets runnin' on. Still, I'd rather take a chance with him than get my
trimmin' done in the big shop at the arcade of the Corrugated Buildin',
where they shift their shear and razor artists so often you hardly get
to know one by sight before he's missin'. But Joe Sarello, out here at
Harbor Hills, with his little two-chair joint opposite the station, he's
a fixture, a citizen. If he gets careless and nicks you on the ear you
can drop in every mornin' and roast him about it. Besides, when he opens
a chat he don't have to fish around and guess whether you're a reg'lar
person with business in town, or if you're a week-end tourist just blown
in from Oconomowoc or Houston. He knows all about you, and the family,
and your kitchen help, and about Dominick, who does your outside work
and tends the furnace.

He was tellin' me that his litter of pups was comin' on fine. I expect I
says "Uh-huh," or something like that. The news didn't mean much to me.
I was about as thrilled as if he'd been quotin' the f. o. b. price of
new crop Brazil nuts. In fact, he'd mentioned this side line of his
before. Barberin' for commuters left him more or less time for such
enterprises. But it might have been Angora goats he was raisin', or
water buffalo, or white mice.

"You no lika da dogs, hey?" asks Joe, kind of hurt.

"Eh?" says I, starin' critical into the mirror to see if he hadn't
amputated more from the left side than the right. "Oh sure! I like dogs
well enough. That is, real doggy dogs; not these little imitation parlor
insects, like Poms and Pekes and such. Ain't raisin' that kind, are you,
Joe?"

Joe chuckles, unbuttons me from the apron, brushes a lot of short hair
down my neck, and holds a hand mirror so I can get a rear elevation view
of my noble dome. "Hah!" says he. "You must see. I show you dogs what is
dogs. Come."

And after I've retrieved my collar and tie I follows him out back where
in a lean-to shed he has a chicken wire pen with a half dozen or so of
as cute, roly-poly little puppies as you'd want to see. They're sort of
rusty brown and black, with comical long heads and awkward big paws, and
stubby tails. And the way they was tumbling over each other, tryin' to
chew with their tiny teeth, and scrimmagin' around like so many boys
playin' football in a back lot--well, I couldn't help snickerin' just
watchin' 'em for a minute.

"All spoke for but dees wan," says Joe, fishing out one of the lot.
"Meester Parks he pick heem first wan, but now he hafta go by Chicago
and no can take. Fine chance for you. With beeg place like you got you
need good watch dog. Hey? What you say?"

"What's the breed, Joe?" I asks.

Joe gawps at me disgusted. I expect such ignorance was painful. "Wot
kind?" says he. "Wot you t'ink? Airedale."

"Oh, yes! Of course, Airedales," says I, like it was something I'd
forgotten.

And then I scratches my head. Hadn't I heard Vee sayin' how she liked
some particular kind of a dog? And wasn't it this kind? Why, sure, it
was. Well, why not? Joe says they're all ready to be delivered, just
weaned and everything.

"I'll go you," says I. "How much?"

Say, I had to gasp when Joe names his bargain price. You see, I'd never
been shoppin' for dogs before, and I hadn't kept track of the puppy
market quotations. Course, I knew that some of these fancy, full-grown
specimens of classy breeds brought big money at times. But little pups
like this, that you could hold in your hand, or tuck into your overcoat
pocket--why, my idea was the people who had 'em sort of distributed 'em
around where they would have good homes; or else in the case of a party
like Joe you might slip him a five or a ten.

No, I ain't tellin' what I paid. Not to anybody. But after sayin' what I
had I couldn't back out without feelin' like a piker. And when Joe says
confidential how he's knockin' off ten at that I writes out the check
more or less cheerful.

"Ought to be good blood in him, at that figure," I suggests.

"Heem!" says Joe. "He got pedigree long lak your arm. Hees mothair ees
from Lady Glen Ellen III., hees father ees blue ribbon winner two tam,
Laird Ben Nevis, what was sell for----"

"Yes, I expect the fam'ly hist'ry's all right," I breaks in. "I'll take
your word for it. But what do we feed him--dog biscuit?"

"No, no!" says Joe. "Not yet. Some bread wit' milk warm up in pan.
T'ree, four tam a day. Bymeby put in leetle scrap cook meat an' let him
have soup bone for chew. Mus' talk to heem all tam. He get wise quick.
You see."

"You flatter me, Joe," says I. "Nobody ever got wise from my talkin' to
'em. Might be interestin' to try it on a pup, though. So long."

And as I strolls along home with this warm, wriggly bunch of fur in the
crook of my arm I get more and more pleased with myself. As I dopes it
out I ought to make quite a hit, presenting Vee with something she's
been wantin' a long time. Almost as though I'd had it raised special
for her, and had been keepin' it secret for months. Looked like I was
due to acquire merit in the domestic circle, great gobs of it.

"Hey, Vee!" I sings out, as soon as I've opened the livin' room door.
"Come see what I've brought you."

She wasn't long coming, and I got to admit that when I displays Mr. Pup
the expected ovation don't come off. I don't get mixed up in any fond
and impetuous embrace. No. If I must tell the truth she stands there
with her mouth open starin' at me and it.

"Why--why, Torchy!" she gasps. "A puppy?"

"Right, first guess," says I. "By the way you're gawpin' at it, though,
it might be a young zebra or a baby hippopotamus. But it's just a mere
puppy. Airedale."

"Oh!" says Vee, gaspier than ever. "An--an Airedale?"

"Well?" says I. "Wasn't that the kind I've heard you boostin' all
along?"

"Ye-e-es," says she, draggy, "I--I suppose it was. And I do admire them
very much, but--well, I hadn't really thought of owning one. They--they
are such strenuous dogs, you know; and with the baby and all----"

"Say, take a look!" I breaks in. "Does this one size up like he was a
child eater? Here, heft him once." And I hands him over.

Course, it ain't five minutes before she's cuddlin' him up and cooin' to
him, and he's gnawing away at her thumb with his little puppy teeth.

"Such a dear!" says Vee. "And we could keep him out in the garage, and
have Dominick look after him, couldn't we? For they get to be such big
dogs, you know."

"Do they?" says I.

I didn't see quite how they could. Why, this one was about big enough to
go in a hat, that's all, and he was nearly two months old. But say, what
I didn't know about Airedale pups was a heap. Grow! Honest, you could
almost watch him lengthen out and fill in. Yet for a couple of weeks
there he was no more'n a kitten, and just as cute and playful. Every
night after dinner I'd spend about an hour rollin' him over on his back
and lettin' him bite away at my bare hand. He liked to get hold of my
trouser leg, or Vee's dress, or the couch cover, or anything else that
was handy, and tug away and growl. Reg'lar circus to see him.

And then I begun to find scratches on my hands. The little rascal was
gettin' a full set of puppy teeth. Sharp as needles, too. I noticed a
few threads pulled out of my sleeve. And once when he got a good grip on
Vee's skirt he made a rip three inches long. But he was so cunnin' about
it we only laughed.

"You young rough houser!" I'd say, and push him over. He'd come right
back for more, though, until he was tuckered and then he'd stretch out
on something soft and sleep with one paw over his nose while we watched
admirin'.

We had quite a time findin' a name for him. I got Joe to give his
pedigree all written out and we was tryin' to dope out from that
something that would sound real Scotch. Vee got some kennel catalogues,
too, and read over some of those old Ian MacLaren stories for names, but
we couldn't hit on one that just suited. Meanwhile I begins callin' him
Buddy, as the boys did everybody in the army, and finally Vee insists
that it's exactly the name for him.

"He's so rough and ready," says she.

"He's rough, all right," says I, examinin' a new tooth mark on the back
of my hand.

And he kept on gettin' rougher. What he really needed, I expect, was a
couple of cub bears to exercise his teeth and paws on; good, husky,
tough-skinned ones, at that. Not havin' 'em he took it out on us. Oh,
yes. Not that he was to blame, exactly. We'd started him that way, and
he seemed to like the taste of me 'specially.

"They're one-man dogs, you know," says Vee.

"Meanin'," says I, "that they like to chew one man at a time. See my
right wrist. Looks like I'd shoved it through a pane of glass. Hey, you
tarrier! Lay off me for a minute, will you? For the love of soup eat
something else. Here's a slipper. Now go to it."

And you should see him shake and worry that around the room. Almost as
good as a vaudeville act--until I discovers that he's gnawed a hole
clear through the toe. "Gosh!" says I. "My favorite slipper, too."

At four months he was no longer a handful. He was a lapful, and then
some. Somewhere near twenty-five pounds, as near as we could judge by
holding him on the bathroom scales for the fraction of a second. And
much too lively for any lap. Being cuddled wasn't his strong point.
Hardly. He'd be all over you in a minute, clawin' you in the face with
his big paws and nippin' your ear or grabbin' a mouthful of hair; all
playful enough, but just as gentle as being tackled by a quarterback on
an end run.

And he was gettin' wise, all right. He knew to the minute when mealtime
came around, and if he wasn't let out on the kitchen porch where his
chow was served he thought nothing of scratchin' the paint off a door or
tryin' to chew the knob. Took only two tries to teach him to stand up on
his hind legs and walk for his meals, as straight as a drum major. Also
he'd shake hands for a bit of candy, and retrieve a rubber ball. But
chiefly he delighted to get a stick of soft wood and go prancin' through
the house with it, rappin' the furniture or your shins as he went, and
end up by chewin' it to bits on the fireplace hearth rug. Or it might be
a smelly old bone that he'd smuggled in from outside. You could guess
that would get Vee registerin' a protest and I'd have to talk to Buddy.

"Hey!" I'd remark, grabbin' him by the collar. "Whaddye think this is, a
soap fact'ry? Leggo that shin-bone."

"Gr-r-r-r!" he'd remark back, real hostile, and roll his eyes menacin'.

At which Vee would snicker and observe: "Now isn't he the dearest thing
to do that, Torchy? Do let him have his booful bone there. I'll spread a
newspaper under it."

Her theory was good, only Buddy didn't care to gnaw his bone on an
evening edition. He liked eatin' it on the Turkish rug better. And
that's where he did eat it. That was about the way his trainin' worked
out in other things. We had some perfectly good ideas about what he
should do; he'd have others, quite different; and we'd compromise. That
is, we'd agree that Buddy was right. Seemed to me about the only thing
to do, unless you had all day or all night to argue with him and show
him where he was wrong. I could keep it up for an hour or two. Then I
either got hoarse or lost my disposition.

You remember there was some talk of keepin' him in the garage at first.
Anyway, it was mentioned. And he was kept there the first night, until
somewhere around 2 A. M. Then I trailed out in a bathrobe and slippers
and lugged him in. He'd howled for three hours on a stretch and seemed
to be out for the long-distance championship. Not havin' looked up the
past performances in non-stop howlin' I couldn't say whether he'd hung
up a new record or not. I was willin' to concede the point. Besides, I
wanted a little sleep, even if he didn't. I expect we was lucky that he
picks out a berth behind the kitchen stove as the proper place for him
to snooze. He might have fancied the middle of our bed. If he had, we'd
camped on the floor, I suppose.

Another good break for us was the fact that he was willin' to be
tethered out daytimes on a wire traveler that Dominick fixed up for him.
Course, he did dig up a lot of Vee's favorite dahlia bulbs, and he
almost undermined a corner of the kitchen wing when he set out to put a
choice bone in cold storage, but he was so comical when he tamped the
bone down with his nose that Vee didn't complain.

"We can have the hole filled in and sodded over next spring," says Vee.

"Huh!" I says. "By next spring he'll be big enough to tunnel clear under
the house."

Looked like he would. At five months Buddy weighed 34 pounds and to
judge by his actions most of him was watchspring steel geared in high
speed. He was as hard as nails all over and as quick-motioned as a cat.
I'd got into the habit of turnin' him loose when I came home and
indulgin' in a half hour's rough house play with him. Buddy liked that.
He seemed to need it in his business of growin' up. If I happened to
forget, he wasn't backward in remindin' me of the oversight. He'd
developed a bark that was sort of a cross between an automobile shrieker
and throwin' a brick through a plate glass window, and when he put his
whole soul into expressin' his feelin's that way everybody within a mile
needed cotton in their ears. So I'd drape myself in an old raincoat, put
on a pair of heavy drivin' gauntlets, and frisk around with him.

No doubt about Buddy's being glad to see me on them occasions. His
affection was deep and violent. He'd let out a few joy yelps, take a
turn around the yard, and then come leapin' at me with his mouth open
and his eyes rollin' wild. My part of the game was to grab him by the
back of the neck and throw him before he could sink his teeth into any
part of me. Sometimes I missed. That was a point for Buddy. Then I'd pry
his jaws loose and he'd dash off for another circle. I couldn't say how
the score averaged. I was too busy to keep count. About fifty-fifty
would be my guess. Anyway, it did Buddy a lot of good and must have been
fine practice. If he ever has to stop an offensive on the part of an
invadin' bull-dog he'll be in good trim. He'd tackle one, all right. The
book we bought says that an Airedale will go up a tree after a mountain
lion. I can believe it. I've never seen Buddy tuck his tail down for
anything on four legs. Yet he ain't the messy kind. He don't seem
anxious to start anything. But I'll bet he'd be a hard finisher.

And he sure is a folksy dog with the people he knows around the house.
Most of 'em he treats gentler than he does me, which shows that he's got
some sense. And when it comes to the baby; why, say, he'll gaze as
admirin' at young Master Richard toddlin' around as if he was some blood
relation; followin' him everywhere, with that black nose nuzzled under
one of the youngster's arms, or with a sleeve held tender in his teeth.
Any kid at all Buddy is strong for. He'll leave a bone or his play any
time he catches sight of one, and go prancin' around 'em, waggin' his
stubby tail friendly and inviting 'em to come have a romp.

Maybe you wouldn't accuse Buddy of being handsome. I used to think
Airedales was about the homeliest dogs on the list. Mostly, you know,
they're long on nose. It starts between their ears and extends straight
out for about a foot. Gives 'em kind of a simple expression. But you get
a good look into them brown eyes of Buddy's, 'specially when he's
listenin' to you with his head cocked on one side and an ear turned
wrong side out, and you'll decide he must have some gray matter
concealed somewhere. Then there's that black astrakan coat-effect on his
back, and the clean-cut lines of his deep chest and slim brown legs,
which are more or less decorative. Anyway he got so he looked kind of
good to me.

Like people, though, Buddy had his bad days. Every once in a while his
fondness for chewin' things would get him in wrong. Then he'd have to
be scolded. And you can't tell me he don't know the meanin' of the words
when you call him a "bad, bad dog." No, sir. Why, he'd drop his head and
tail and sneak into a corner as if he'd been struck with a whip. And
half an hour later he'd be up to the same sort of mischief. I asked Joe
Sarello about it.

"Ah!" says Joe, shruggin' his shoulders. "Hees puppy yet. Wanna do w'at
he lak, all tam. He know better, but he strong in the head. You gotta
beat him up good. No can hurt. Tough lak iron. Beat him up."

But Vee won't have it. I didn't insist. I didn't care much for the job.
So Buddy gets off by being informed stern that he'd a bad, bad dog.

And then here the other day I comes home to find Buddy locked in the
garage and howlin' indignant. Vee says he mustn't be let out, either.

"What's the idea?" I asks.

Then I gets the whole bill of complaint. It seems Buddy has started the
day by breakin' loose from his wire and chasin' the chickens all over
the place. He'd cornered our pet Rhode Island Red rooster and nipped out
a mouthful of tail feathers. It took the whole household and some of the
neighbors to get him to quit that little game.

This affair had almost been forgiven and he was havin' his lunch on the
back porch when Vee's Auntie blows in unexpected for a little visit.
Before anybody has time to stop him Buddy is greetin' her in his usual
impetuous manner. He does it by plantin' his muddy forepaws in three
places on the front of her dress and then grabbin' her gold lorgnette
playful, breakin' the chain, and runnin' off with the loot.

I expect that was only Buddy's idea of letting her know that he welcomed
her as a member of the fam'ly in good standin'. But Auntie takes it
different. She asks Vee why we allow a "horrible beast like that to run
at large." She's a vivid describer, Auntie. She don't mind droppin' a
word of good advice now and then either. While she's being sponged off
and brushed down she recommends that we get rid of such a dangerous
animal as that at once.

So Buddy is tied up again outside. But it appears to be his day for
doing the wrong thing. Someone has hung Vee's best evenin' wrap out on a
line to air after having a spot cleaned. It's the one with the silver
fox fur on the collar. And it's hung where Buddy can just reach it.
Well, you can guess the rest. Any kind of a fox, deceased or otherwise,
is fair game for Buddy. It's right in his line. And when they discovered
what he was up to there wasn't a piece of that fur collar big enough to
make an ear muff. Parts of the wrap might still be used for polishin'
the silver. Buddy seemed kind of proud of the thorough job he'd made.

Well, Vee had been 'specially fond of that wrap. She'd sort of blown
herself when she got it, and you know how high furs have gone to these
days. I expect she didn't actually weep, but she must have been near it.
And there was Auntie with more stern advice. She points out how a brute
dog with such destructive instincts would go on and on, chewin' up first
one valuable thing and then another, until we'd have nothing left but
what we had on.

Buddy had been tried and found guilty in the first degree. Sentence had
been passed. He must go.

"Perhaps your barber friend will take him back," says Vee. "Or the
Ellinses might want him. Anyway, he's impossible. You must get rid of
him tonight. Only I don't wish to know how, or what becomes of him."

"Very well," says I, "if that's the verdict."

I loads Buddy ostentatious into the little roadster and starts off, with
him wantin' to sit all over me as usual, or else drapin' himself on the
door half-way out of the car. Maybe I stopped at Joe Sarello's, maybe I
only called at the butcher's and collected a big, juicy shin-bone.
Anyway, it was' after dark when I got back and when I came in to dinner
I was alone.

The table chat that evenin' wasn't quite as lively as it generally is.
And after we'd been sitting around in the livin' room an hour or so with
everything quiet, Vee suddenly lets loose with a sigh, which is a new
stunt for her. She ain't the sighin' kind. But there's no mistake about
this one.

"Eh?" says I, lookin' up.

"I--I hope you found him a good home," says she.

"Oh!" says I. "The impossible beast? Probably as good as he deserves."

Then we sat a while longer.

"Little Richard was getting very fond of him," Vee breaks out again.

"Uh-huh," says I.

We went upstairs earlier than usual. There wasn't so much to do about
gettin' ready--no givin' Buddy a last run outside, or makin' him shake a
good night with his paw, or seein' that he had water in his dish.
Nothing but turnin' out the lights. Once, long after Vee should have
been asleep. I thought I heard her snifflin', but I dozed off again
without makin' any remark.

I must have been sawin' wood good and hard, too, when I wakes up to find
her shakin' me by the shoulder.

"Listen, Torchy," she's sayin'. "Isn't that Buddy's bark?"

"Eh? Buddy?" says I. "How could it be?"

"But it is!" she insists. "It's coming from the garage, too."

"Well, that's odd," says I. "Maybe I'd better go out and see."

I was puzzled all right, in spite of the fact that I'd left him there
with his bone and had made Dominick promise to stick around and quiet
him if he began yelpin'. But this wasn't the way Buddy generally barked
when he was indignant. He was lettin' 'em out short and crisp. They
sounded different somehow, more like business. And the light was turned
on in the garage!

First off I thought Dominick must be there. Maybe I wouldn't have dashed
out so bold if I'd doped it out any other way. I hadn't thought of car
thieves. Course, there had been some cases around, mostly young hicks
from the village stealin' joy-rides. But I hadn't worried about their
wantin' to take my little bus. So I arrives on the jump.

And there in a corner of the garage are two young toughs, jumpin' and
dodgin' at a lively rate, with Buddy sailin' into 'em for all he's worth
and givin' out them quick short battle cries. One of the two has just
managed to get hold of a three-foot length of galvanized water pipe and
is swingin' vicious at Buddy when I crashes in.

Well, we had it hectic for a minute or so there, but it turns out a draw
with no blood shed, although I think Buddy and I could have made 'em
sorry they came if they hadn't made a break and got past us. And when we
gets back to where Vee is waitin' with the fire-poker in her hand Buddy
still waves in his teeth a five-inch strip of brown mixture trousering.

"You blessed, blessed Buddy!!" says Vee, after she's heard the tale.

Oh, yes, Buddy finished the night behind the stove in the kitchen. I
guess he's kind of earned his right to that bunk. Course, he ain't
sprouted any wings yet, but he's gettin' so the sight of a switch waved
at him works wonders. Some day, perhaps, he'll learn to be less careless
what he exercises them sharp teeth of his on. Last night it was the
leather covering on the library couch--chewed a hole half as big as your
hand.

"Never mind," says Vee. "We can keep a cushion over it."



CHAPTER V

IN DEEP FOR WADDY


And all the time I had Wadley Fiske slated as a dead one! Course, he was
one of Mr. Robert's clubby friends. But that don't always count. He may
be choosey enough picking live wires for his office staff, Mr. Robert,
as you might guess by my bein' his private sec; but when it came to
gettin' a job lot of friends wished on him early in his career, I must
say he couldn't have been very finicky.

Not that Waddy's a reg'lar washout, or carries a perfect vacuum between
the ears, or practices any of the seven deadly sins. He's a cheerful,
good-natured party, even if he is built like a 2x4 and about as broad in
the shoulders as a cough drop is thick. I understand he qualifies in the
scheme of things by playin' a fair game of billiards, is always willing
to sit in at bridge, and can make himself useful at any function where
the ladies are present. Besides, he always wears the right kind of
clothes, can say bright little things at a dinner party, and can
generally be located by calling up any one of his three clubs.

Chiefly, though, Waddy is a ladies' man. With him being in and out of
the Corrugated General Offices so much I couldn't help gettin' more or
less of a line on him that way, for he's always consultin' Mr. Robert
about sendin' flowers to this one, or maneuverin' to get introduced to
the other, or gushin' away about some sweet young thing that he's met
the night before.

"How does he get away with all that Romeo stuff," I asks Mr. Robert
once, "without being tagged permanent? Is it just his good luck?"

"Waddy calls it his hard luck," says Mr. Robert. "It seems as if they
just use him to practice on. He will find a new queen of his heart,
appear to be getting on swimmingly up to a certain point--and then she
will marry someone else. Invariably. I've known of at least a half dozen
of his affairs to turn out like that."

"Kind of a matrimonial runner-up, eh?" says I.

Oh, yes, I expect we got off a lot of comic lines about Waddy. Anyway we
passed 'em as such. But of course there come days when we have other
things to do here at the Corrugated besides shoot the gay and frivolous
chatter back and forth. Now and then. Such as here last Wednesday when
Mr. Robert had two committee meetin's on for the afternoon and was goin'
over with me some tabulated stuff I'd doped out for the annual report.
Right in the midst of that Wadley Fiske blows in and proceeds to hammer
Mr. Robert on the back.

"I say, Bob," says he, "you remember my telling you about the lovely
Marcelle Jedain? I'm sure I told you."

"If you didn't it must have been an oversight," says Mr. Robert.
"Suppose we admit that you did."

"Well, what do you think?" goes on Waddy, "She is here!"

"Eh?" says Mr. Robert, glancin' around nervous. "Why the deuce do you
bring her here?"

"No, no, my dear chap!" protests Waddy. "In this country, I mean."

"Oh!" and Mr. Robert sighs relieved. "Well, give the young lady my best
regards and--er--I wish you luck. Thanks for dropping in to tell me."

"Not at all," says Waddy, drapin' himself easy on a chair. "But that's
just the beginning."

"Sorry, Waddy," says Mr. Robert, "but I fear I am too busy just now
to----"

"Bah!" snorts Waddy. "You can attend to business any time--tomorrow,
next week, next month. But the lovely Marcelle may be sailing within
forty-eight hours."

"Well, what do you expect me to do?" demands Mr. Robert. "Want me to
scuttle the steamer?"

"I want you to help me find Joe Bruzinski," says Waddy.

Mr. Robert throws up both hands and groans. "Here, Torchy," says, he,
"take him away. Listen to his ravings, and if you can discover any
sense----"

"But I tell you," insists Waddy, "that I must find Bruzinski at once."

"Very well," says Mr. Robert, pushin' him towards the door. "Torchy will
help you find him. Understand, Torchy? Bruzinski. Stay with him until he
does."

"Yes, sir," says I, grinnin' as I locks an arm through one of Waddy's
and tows him into the outer office. "Bruzinski or bust."

And by degrees I got the tale. First off, this lovely Marcelle person
was somebody he'd met while he was helpin' wind up the great war. No,
not on the Potomac sector. Waddy actually got across. You might not
think it to look at him, but he did. Second lieutenant, too. Infantry,
at that. But they handed out eommissions to odder specimens than him at
Plattsburg, you know. And while Waddy got over kind of late he had the
luck to be in a replacement unit that made the whoop-la advance into
Belgium after the Hun line had cracked.

Seems it was up in some dinky Belgian town where the Fritzies had been
runnin' things for four years that Waddy meets this fair lady with the
impulsive manners. His regiment had wandered in only a few hours after
the Germans left and to say that the survivin' natives was glad to see
'em is drawin' it mild. This Miss Jedain was the gladdest of the glad,
and when Waddy shows up at her front door with a billet ticket callin'
for the best front room she just naturally falls on his neck. I take it
he got kissed about four times in quick concussion. Also that the flavor
lasted.

"To be received in that manner by a high born, charming young woman,"
says Waddy. "It--it was delightful. Perhaps you can imagine."

"No," says I. "I ain't got that kind of a mind. But go on. What's the
rest?"

Well, him and the lovely Marcelle had three days of it. Not going to a
fond clinch every time he came down to breakfast or drifted in for
luncheon. She simmered down a bit, I under stand, after her first wild
splurge. But she was very folksy all through his stay, insisted that
Waddy was her heroic deliverer, and all that sort of thing.

"Of course," says Waddy, "I tried to tell her that I'd had very little
to do personally with smashing the Hindenburg line. But she wouldn't
listen to a word. Besides, my French was rather lame. So we--we--Well,
we became very dear to each other. She was charming, utterly. And so
full of gratitude to all America. She could not do enough for our boys.
All day she was going among them, distributing little dainties she had
cooked, giving them little keepsakes, smiling at them, singing to them.
And every night she had half a dozen officers in to dinner. But to
me--ah, I can't tell you how sweet she was."

"Don't try," says I. "I think I get a glimmer. All this lasted three
days, eh! Then you moved on."

Waddy sighs deep. "I didn't know until then how dreadful war could be,"
says he. "I promised to come back to her just as soon as the awful mess
was over. She declared that she would come to America if I didn't. She
gave me one of her rings. 'It shall be as a token,' she told me, 'that I
am yours.'"

"Sort of a trunk check, eh?" says I.

"Ah, that ring!" says Waddy. "You see, it was too large for my little
finger too small for any of the others. And I was afraid of losing it if
I kept it in my pocket. I was always losing things--shaving mirrors,
socks, wrist watch. Going about like that one does. At least, I did. All
over France I scattered my belongings. That's what you get by having had
a valet for so long.

"So I called up Joe Bruzinski, my top sergeant. Best top in the army,
Joe; systematic, methodical. I depended upon him for nearly everything;
couldn't have gotten along without him, in fact. Not an educated fellow,
you know. Rather crude. An Americanized Pole, I believe. But efficient,
careful about little things. I gave him the ring to keep for me. Less
than a week after that I was laid up with a beastly siege of influenza
which came near finishing me. I was shipped back to a base hospital and
it was more than a month before I was on my feet again. Meanwhile I'd
gotten out of touch with my division, applied for a transfer to another
branch, got stuck with an S. O. S. job, and landed home at the tail-end
of everything after all the shouting was over."

"I see," says I. "Bruzinski lost in the shuffle."

"Precisely," says Waddy. "Mustered out months before I was. When I did
get loose they wouldn't let me go back to Belgium. And then----"

"I remember," says I. "You side-tracked the lovely Marcelle for that
little blonde from. Richmond, didn't you?"

"A mere passing fancy," says Waddy, flushin' up. "Nothing serious. She
was really engaged all the time to Bent Hawley. They're to be married
next month, I hear. But Marcelle! She has come. Just think, she has been
in this country for weeks, came over with the King and Queen of Belgium
and stayed on. Looking for me. I suppose. And I knew nothing at all
about it until yesterday. She's in Washington. Jimmy Carson saw her
driving down Pennsylvania avenue. He was captain of my company, you
know. Rattle-brained chap, Jimmy. Hadn't kept track of Bruzinski at all.
Knew he came back, but no more. So you see? In order to get that ring I
must find Joe."

"I don't quite get you," says I. "Why not find the lovely Marcelle first
and explain about the ring afterwards?"

Waddy shakes his head. "I was in uniform when she knew me," says he.
"I--I looked rather well in it, I'm told. Anyway, different. But in
civies, even a frock coat, I've an idea she wouldn't recognize me as a
noble hero. Eh?"

"Might be something in that," I admits.

"But if I had the ring that she gave me--her token--well, you see?" goes
on Waddy. "I must have it. So I must find Bruzinski."

"Yes, that's your play," I agrees. "Where did he hail from?"

"Why, from somewhere in Pennsylvania," says Waddy; "some weird little
place that I never could remember the name of."

"Huh!" says I. "Quite a sizable state, you know. You couldn't ramble
through it in an afternoon pagin' Joe Bruzinski."

"I suppose one couldn't," says Waddy. "But there must be some way of
locating him. Couldn't I telegraph to the War Department?"

"You could," says I, "and about a year from next Yom Kippur you might
get a notice that your wire had been received and placed on file. Why,
they're still revisin' casualty lists from the summer of 1918. If you're
in any hurry about gettin' in touch with Mr. Bruzinski----"

"Hurry!" gasps Waddy. "Why, I must find him by tonight."

"That's goin' to call for speed," says I. "I don't see how you
could--Say, now! I just thought of something. We might tickle Uncle Sam
in the W. R. I. B."

"Beg pardon!" says Waddy, gawpin'.

"War Risk Insurance Bureau," I explains. "That is, if Miss Callahan's
still there. Used to be one of our stenogs until she went into war work.
Last I knew she was still at it, had charge of one of the filing cases.
They handle soldier's insurance there, you know, and if Bruzinski's kept
his up----"

"By George!" breaks in Waddy. "Of course. Do you know, I never thought
of that."

"No, you wouldn't," says I "May not work, at that. But we can try. She's
a reg'lar person, Miss Callahan."

Anyway, she knew right where to put her fingers on Joe Bruzinski's card
and shoots us back his mailin' address by lunch time. It's Coffee Creek,
Pa.

"What an absurd place to live in!" says Waddy. "And how on earth can we
ever find it."

"Eh?" says I. "We?"

"But I couldn't possibly get there by myself," says Waddy. "I've never
been west of Philadelphia. Oh, yes, I've traveled a lot abroad, but
that's different. One hires a courier. Really, I should be lost out of
New York. Besides, you know Mr. Robert said you were to--oh, there he is
now. I say, Bob, isn't Torchy to stay with me until I find Bruzinski?"

"Absolutely," says Mr. Robert, throwin' a grin over his shoulder at me
as he slips by.

"Maybe he thinks that's a life sentence," says I. "Chuck me that
Pathfinder from the case behind you, will you? Now let's see. Here we
are, page 937--Coffee Creek, Pa. Inhabitants 1,500. Flag station on the
Lackawanna below Wilkes-Barre. That's in the Susquehanna valley. Must be
a coal town. Chicago limited wouldn't stop there. But we can probably
catch a jitney or something from Wilkes-Barre. Just got time to make the
1:15, too. Come on. Lunch on train."

I expect Waddy ain't been jumped around so rapid before in his whole
career. I allows him only time enough to lay in a fresh supply of
cigarettes on the way to the ferry and before he's caught his breath we
are sittin' in the dinin' car zoomin' through the north end of New
Jersey. I tried to get him interested in the scenery as we pounded
through the Poconos and galloped past the Water Gap, but it couldn't be
done. When he gets real set on anything it seems Waddy has a single
track mind.

"I trust he still has that ring," he remarks.

"That'll ride until we've found your ex-top sergeant," says I. "What was
his line before he went in the army--plumber, truck driver, or what?"

Waddy hadn't the least idea. Not having been mixed up in industry
himself, he hadn't been curious. Now that I mentioned it he supposed
Joe had done something for a living. Yes, he was almost sure. He had
noticed that Joe's hands were rather rough and calloused.

"What would that indicate?" asks Waddy.

"Most anything," says I, "from the high cost of gloves to a strike of
lady manicures. Don't strain your intellect over it, though. If he's
still in Coffee Creek there shouldn't be much trouble findin' him."

Which was where I took a lot for granted. When we piled off the express
at Wilkes-Barre I charters a flivver taxi, and after a half hour's drive
with a speed maniac who must have thought he was pilotin' a DeHaviland
through the clouds we're landed in the middle of this forsaken, one
horse dump, consistin' of a double row of punk tenement blocks and a
sprinklin' of near-beer joints that was givin' their last gasp. I tried
out three prominent citizens before I found one who savvied English.

"Sure!" says he. "Joe Bruzinski? He must be the mine boss by Judson's
yet. First right hand turn you take and keep on the hill up."

"Until what?" says I.

"Why, Judson's operation--the mine," says he. "Can't miss. Road ends at
Judson's."

Uh-huh. It did. High time, too. A road like that never should be allowed
to start anywhere. But the flivver negotiated it and by luck we found
the mine superintendent in the office--a grizzled, chunky little
Welshman with a pair of shrewd eyes. Yes, he says Bruzinski is around
somewhere. He thinks he's down on C level plotting out some new
contracts for the night shift.

"What luck!" says Waddy. "I say, will you call him right up?"

"That I will, sir," says the superintendent, "if you'll tell me how."

"Why," says Waddy, "couldn't you--er--telephone to him, or send a
messenger?"

It seems that can't be done. "You might try shouting down, the shaft
though," says the Welshman, with a twinkle in his eyes.

Waddy would have gone hoarse doin' it, too, if I hadn't given him the
nudge. "Wake up," says I. "You're being kidded."

"But see here, my man----" Waddy begins.

"Mr. Llanders is the name," says the superintendent a bit crisp.

"Ah, yes. Thanks," says Waddy. "It is quite important, Mr. Llanders,
that I find Bruzinski at once."

"Mayhap he'll be up by midnight for a bite to eat," says Llanders.

"Then we'll just have to go down where he is," announces Waddy.

Llanders stares at him curious. "You'd have an interesting time doing
that, young man," says he; "very interesting."

"But I say," starts in Waddy again, which was where I shut him off.

"Back up, Waddy," says I, "before you bug the case entirely. Let me ask
Mr. Llanders where I can call up your good friend Judson."

"That I couldn't rightly say, sir," says Llanders. "It might be one
place, and it might be another. Maybe they'd know better at the office
of his estate in Scranton, but as he's been dead these eight years----"

"Check!" says I. "It would have been a swell bluff if it had worked
though, wouldn't it?"

Llanders indulges in a grim smile. "But it didn't," says he.

"That's the sad part," says I, "for Mr. Fiske here is in a great stew to
see this Bruzinski party right away. There's a lady in the case, as you
might know; one they met while they were soldierin' abroad. So if
there's any way you could fix it for them to get together----"

"Going down's the only way," says Llanders, "and that's strictly against
orders."

"Except on a pass, eh?" says I. "Lucky we brought that along. Waddy,
slip it to Mr. Llanders. No, don't look stupid. Feel in your right hand
vest pocket. That's it, one of those yellow-backed ones with a double X
in the corners. Ah, here! Don't you know how to present a government
pass?" And I has to take it away from him and tuck it careless into the
superintendent's coat pocket.

"Of course," says Llanders, "if you young gentlemen are on official
business, it makes a difference."

"Then let's hurry along," says Waddy, startin' impatient.

"Dressed like that?" says Llanders, starin' at Waddy's Fifth Avenue
costume. "I take it you've not been underground before, sir?"

"Only in the subway," says Waddy.

"You'll find a coal mine quite unlike the subway," says Llanders. "I
think we can fix you up for it, though."

They did. And when Waddy had swapped his frock coat for overalls and
jumper, and added a pair of rubber boots and a greasy cap with an
acetylene lamp stuck in the front of it he sure wouldn't have been
recognized even by his favorite waiter at the club. I expect I looked
about as tough, too. And I'll admit that all this preparation seemed
kind of foolish there in the office. Ten minutes later I knew it wasn't.
Not a bit.

"Do we go down in a car or something?" asks Waddy.

"Not if you go with me," says Llanders. "We'll walk down Slope 8. Before
we start, however, it will be best for me to tell you that this was a
drowned mine."

"Listens excitin'," says I. "Meanin' what?"

"Four years ago the creek came in on us," says Llanders, "flooded us to
within ten feet of the shaft mouth. We lost only a dozen men, but it was
two years before we had the lower levels clear. We manage to keep it
down now with the pumps, Bruzinski is most likely at the further end of
the lowest level."

"Is he?" says Waddy. "I must see him, you know."

Whether he took in all this about the creek's playful little habits or
not I don't know. Anyway, he didn't hang back, and while I've started on
evenin' walks that sounded a lot pleasanter I wasn't going to duck then.
If Waddy could stand it I guessed I could.

So down we goes into a black hole that yawns in the middle of a muddy
field. I hadn't gone far, either, before I discovers that being your own
street light wasn't such an easy trick. I expect a miner has to wear his
lamp on his head so's to have his hands free to swing a pick. But I'll
be hanged if it's comfortable or easy. I unhooked mine and carried it in
my hand, ready to throw the light where I needed it most.

And there was spots where I sure needed it bad, for this Slope 8
proposition was no garden pathway, I'll say. First off, it was mucky and
slippery under foot, and in some places it dips down sharp, almost as
steep as a church roof. Then again there was parts where they'd skimped
on the ceilin', and you had to do a crouch or else bump your bean on
unpadded rocks. On and down, down and on we went, slippin' and slidin',
bracin' ourselves against the wet walls, duckin' where it was low and
restin' our necks where they'd been more generous with the excavatin'.

There was one 'specially sharp pitch of a hundred feet or so and right
in the worst of it we had to dodge a young waterfall that comes
filterin' down through the rocks. It was doin' some roarin' and
splashin', too. I was afraid Llanders might not have noticed it.

"How about it!" says I. "This ain't another visit from the creek, is
it?"

"Only part of it," says he careless. "The pumps are going, you know."

"I hope they're workin' well," says I.

As for Waddy, not a yip out of him. He sticks close behind Llanders and
plugs along just as if he was used to scramblin' through a muddy hole
three hundred feet or so below the grass roots. That's what it is to be
100 per cent in love. All he could think of was gettin' that ring back
and renewin' cordial relations with the lovely Marcelle. But I was
noticin' enough for two. I knew that we'd made so many twists and turns
that we must be lost for keeps. I saw the saggy, rotten timbers that
kept the State of Pennsylvania from cavin' in on us. And now and then I
wondered how long it would be before they dug us out.

"Where's all the coal?" I asks Llanders, just by way of makin' talk.

"Why, here," says he, touchin' the side-wall.

Sure enough, there it was, the real black diamond stuff such as you
shovel into the furnace--when you're lucky. I scaled off a piece and
tested it with the lamp. And gradually I begun to revise my ideas of a
coal mine. I'd always thought of it as a big cave sort of a place, with
a lot of miners grouped around the sides pickin' away sociable. But here
is nothing but a maze of little tunnels, criss-crossin' every which way,
with nobody in sight except now and then, off in a dead-end, we'd get a
glimpse of two or three kind of ghosty figures movin' about solemn. It's
all so still, too. Except in places where we could hear the water
roarin' there wasn't a sound. Only in one spot, off in what Llanders
calls a chamber, we finds two men workin' a compressed air jack-hammer,
drillin' holes.

"They'll be shooting a blast soon," says Llanders. "Want to wait?"

"No thanks," says I prompt. "Mr. Fiske is in a rush."

Maybe I missed something interestin', but with all that rock over my
head I wasn't crazy to watch somebody monkey with dynamite. The
jack-hammer crew gave us a line on where we might find Bruzinski, and I
expect for a while there I led the way. After another ten-minute stroll,
durin' which we dodged a string of coal cars being shunted down a grade,
we comes across three miners chattin' quiet in a corner. One of 'em
turns out to be the mine-boss.

"Hey, Joe!" says Llanders. "Somebody wants to see you."

At which Waddy pushes to the front. "Oh, I say, Bruzinski! Remember me,
don't you?" he asks.

Joe looks him over casual and shakes his head.

"I'm Lieutenant Fiske, you know," says Waddy. "That is, I was."

"Well, I'll be damned!" says Joe earnest. "The Loot! What's up?"

"That ring I gave you in Belgium," goes on Waddy. "I--I hope you still
have it?"

"Ye-e-es," says Joe draggy. "Fact is, I was goin' to use it tomorrow.
I'm gettin' engaged. Nice girl, too. I was meanin' to----"

"But you can't, Joe," breaks in Waddy. "Not with that ring. Miss Jedain
gave me that. Here, I'll give you another. How will this do?" And Waddy
takes a low set spark off his finger.

"All right. Fine!" says Joe, and proceeds to unhook the other ring from
his leather watch, guard. "But what's all the hurry about?"

"Because she's here," says Waddy. "In Washington, I mean. The lovely
Marcelle. Came over looking for me, Joe, just as she promised. Perhaps
you didn't know she did promise, though?"

"Sure," says Joe. "That's what she told all of us."

"Eh?" gasps Waddy.

"Some hugger, that one," says Joe. "Swell lady, too. A bear-cat for
makin' love, I'll tell the world. Me, and the Cap., and the First Loot,
and you, all the same day. She was goin' to marry us all. And the Cap.,
with a wife and two kids back in Binghamton, N. Y., he got almost
nervous over it."

"I--I can't believe it," says Waddy gaspy. "Did--did she give you a--a
token, as she did to me?"

"No," says Joe. "None of us fell quite so hard for her as you did. I
guess we kinda suspected what was wrong with her."

"Wrong?" echoes Waddy.

"Why not?" asks Joe. "Four years of the Huns, and then we came blowin'
in to lift the lid and let 'em come up out of the cellars. Just
naturally went simple in the head, she did. Lots like her, only they
took it out in different ways. Her line was marryin' us, singly and in
squads; overlookin' complete that she had one perfectly good hubby who
was an aide or something to King Albert, as well as three nice
youngsters. We heard about that later, after she'd come to a little."

For a minute or so Waddy stands there starin' at Joe with his mouth open
and his shoulders sagged. Then he slumps on a log and lets his chin
drop.

"Goin' to hunt her up and give back the ring?" asks Joe. "That the
idea?"

"Not--not precisely," says Waddy. "I--I shall send it by mail, I think."

And all the way out he walked like he was in a daze. He generally takes
it hard for a day or so, I understand. So we had that underground
excursion all for nothing. That is, unless you count my being able to
give Mr. Robert the swift comeback next mornin' when he greets me with
a chuckle.

"Well, Torchy," says he, "how did you leave Bruzinski?"

"Just where I found him," says I, "about three hundred feet
underground."



CHAPTER VI

HOW TORCHY ANCHORED A COOK


It began with Stella Flynn, but it ended with the Hon. Sour Milk and
Madam Zenobia. Which is one reason why my job as private sec. to Mr.
Robert Ellins is one I wouldn't swap for Tumulty's--unless they came
insistin' that I had to go to the White House to save the country. And
up to date I ain't had any such call. There's no tellin' though. Mr.
Robert's liable to sic 'em onto me any day.

You see, just because I've happened to pull a few winnin' acts where I
had the breaks with me he's fond of playin' me up as a wizard performer
in almost any line. Course, a good deal of it is just his josh, but
somehow it ain't a habit I'm anxious to cure him of. Yet when he bats
this domestic crisis up to me--this case of Stella Flynn--I did think it
was pushin' the comedy a bit strong.

"No," says I, "I'm no miracle worker."

"Pooh, Torchy!" says Vee. "Who's saying you are? But at least you might
try to suggest something. You think you're so clever at so many things,
you know."

Trust the folks at home for gettin' in these little jabs.

"Oh, very well," says I. "What are the facts about Stella?"

While the bill of particulars is more or less lengthy all it amounts to
is the usual kitchen tragedy. Stella has given notice. After havin' been
a good and faithful cook for 'steen years; first for Mrs. Ellins's
mother, and then being handed on to Mrs. Ellins herself after she and
Mr. Robert hooked up; now Stella announces that she's about to resign
the portfolio.

No, it ain't a higher wage scale she's strikin' for. She's been boosted
three times durin' the last six months, until she's probably the best
paid lady cook on Long Island. And she ain't demandin' an eight-hour
day, or recognition as chairman of the downstairs soviet. Stella is a
middle-aged, full-chested, kind of old-fashioned female who probably
thinks a Bolshevik is a limb of the Old Boy himself and ought to be met
with holy water in one hand and a red-hot poker in the other. She's
satisfied with her quarters, havin' a room and bath to herself; she's
got no active grouch against any of the other help; and being sent to
mass every Sunday mornin' in the limousine suits her well enough.

But she's quittin', all the same. Why? Well, maybe Mr. Robert remembers
that brother Dan of hers he helped set up as a steam fitter out in
Altoona some six or seven years ago? Sure it was a kind act. And Danny
has done well. He has fitted steam into some big plants and some
elegant houses. And now Danny has a fine home of his own. Yes, with a
piano that plays itself, and gilt chairs in the parlor, and a sedan top
on the flivver, and beveled glass in the front door. Also he has a
stylish wife who has "an evenin' wrap trimmed with vermin and is
learnin' to play that auctioneer's bridge game." So why should his
sister Stella be cookin' for other folks when she might be livin' swell
and independent with them? Ain't there the four nieces and three nephews
that hardly knows their aunt by sight? It's Danny's wife herself that
wrote the letter urgin' her to come.

"And do all the cooking for that big family, I suppose?" suggests Mrs.
Ellins.

"She wasn't after sayin' as much, ma'am," says Stella, "but would I be
sittin' in the parlor with my hands folded, and her so stylish? And
Danny always did like my cookin'."

"Why should he not?" asks Mrs. Ellins. "But who would go on adding to
your savings account? Don't be foolish, Stella."

All of which hadn't gotten 'em anywhere. Stella was bent flittin' to
Altoona. Ten days more and she would be gone. And as Mr. Robert finishes
a piece of Stella's blue ribbon mince pies and drops a lump of sugar
into a cup of Stella's unsurpassed after-dinner coffee he lets out a
sigh.

"That means, I presume," says he, "hunting up a suite in some apartment
hotel, moving into town, and facing a near-French menu three times a
day. All because our domestic affairs are not managed on a business
basis."

"I suppose you would find some way of inducing Stella to stay--if you
were not too busy?" asks Mrs. Robert sarcastic.

"I would," says he.

"What a pity," says she, "that such diplomatic genius must be confined
to mere business. If we could only have the benefit of some of it here;
even the help of one of your bright young men assistants. They would
know exactly how to go about persuading Stella to stay, I suppose?"

"They would find a way," says Mr. Robert. "They would bring a trained
and acute mentality to the problem."

"Humph!" says Mrs. Robert, tossing her head. "We saw that worked out in
a play the other night, you remember. Mr. Wise Business Man solves the
domestic problem by hiring two private detectives, one to act as cook,
the other as butler, and a nice mess he made of it. No, thank you."

"See here, Geraldine," says Mr. Robert. "I'll bet you a hundred Torchy
could go on that case and have it all straightened out inside of a
week."

"Done!" says Mrs. Robert.

And in spite of my protests, that's the way I was let in. But I might
not have started so prompt if it hadn't been for Vee eggin' me on.

"If they do move into town, you know," she suggests, "it will be rather
lonesome out here for the rest of the winter. We'll miss going there for
an occasional Sunday dinner, too. Besides, Stella ought to be saved from
that foolishness. She--she's too good a cook to be wasted on such a
place as Altoona."

"I'll say she is," I agrees. "I wish I knew where to begin blockin' her
off."

I expect some people would call it just some of my luck that I picks up
a clue less'n ten minutes later. Maybe so. But I had to have my ear
stretched to get it and even then I might have missed the connection if
I'd been doin' a sleep walkin' act. As it is I'm pikin' past the
servants' wing out toward the garage to bring around the little car for
a start home, and Stella happens to be telephonin' from the butler's
pantry with the window part open. And when Stella 'phones she does it
like she was callin' home the cows.

About all I caught was "Sure Maggie, dear--Madame Zenobia--two flights
up over the agency--Thursday afternoon." But for me and Sherlock that's
as good as a two-page description. And when I'd had my rapid-fire
deducer workin' for a few minutes I'd doped out my big idea.

"Vee," says I, when we gets back to our own fireside, "what friend has
Stella got that she calls Maggie, dear?"

"Why, that must be the Farlows' upstairs maid," says she. "Why,
Torchy?"

"Oh, for instance," says I "And didn't you have a snapshot of Stella you
took once last summer?"

Vee says she's sure she has one somewhere.

"Dig it out, will you?" says I.

It's a fairly good likeness, too, and I pockets it mysterious. And next
day I spends most of my lunch hour prowlin' around on the Sixth Ave.
hiring line rubberin' at the signs over the employment agencies. Must
have been about the tenth hallway I'd scouted into before I ran across
the right one. Sure enough, there's the blue lettered card announcin'
that Madame Zenobia can be found in Room 19, third floor, ring bell. I
rang.

I don't know when I've seen a more battered old battle-axe face, or a
colder, more suspicious pair of lamps than belongs to this old dame with
the henna-kissed hair and the gold hoops in her ears.

"Well, young feller," says she, "if you've come pussyfootin' up here
from the District Attorney's office you can just sneak back and report
nothing doing. Madame Zenobia has gone out of business. Besides, I ain't
done any fortune tellin' in a month; only high grade trance work, and
mighty little of that. So good day."

"Oh, come, lady," says I, slippin' her the confidential smile, "do I
look like I did fourth-rate gumshoein' for a livin'? Honest, now?
Besides, the trance stuff is just what I'm lookin' for. And I'm not
expectin' any complimentary session, either. Here! There's a ten-spot
on account. Now can we do business?"

You bet we could.

"If it's in the realm of Eros, young man," she begins, "I think----"

"But it ain't," says I. "No heart complications at all. This ain't even
a matter of a missin' relative, a lost wrist watch, or gettin' advice on
buyin' oil stocks. It's a case of a cook with a wilful disposition. Get
me? I want her to hear the right kind of dope from the spirit world."

"Ah!" says she, her eyes brightenin'. "I think I follow you, child of
the sun. Rather a clever idea, too. Your cook, is she?"

"No such luck," says I. "The boss's, or I wouldn't be so free with the
expense money. And listen, Madame; there's another ten in it if the
spirits do their job well."

"Grateful words, my son," says she. "But these high-class servants are
hard to handle these days. They are no longer content to see the cards
laid out and hear their past and future read. Even a simple trance
sitting doesn't satisfy. They must hear bells rung, see ghostly hands
waved, and some of them demand a materialized control. But they are so
few! And my faithful Al Nekkir has left me."

"Eh?" says I, gawpin'.

"One of the best side-kicks I ever worked with, Al Nekkir," says Madame
Zenobia, sighin'. "He always slid out from behind the draperies at just
the right time, and he had the patter down fine. But how could I keep a
real artist like that with a movie firm offering him five times the
money? I hear those whiskers of his screen lovely. Ah, such whiskers!
Any cook, no matter how high born, would fall for a prophet's beard like
that. And where can I find another?"

Well, I couldn't say. Whiskers are scarce in New York. And it seems
Madame Zenobia wouldn't feel sure of tacklin' an A1 cook unless she had
an assistant with luxurious face lamberquins. She might try to put it
over alone, but she couldn't guarantee anything. Yes, she'd keep the
snapshot of Stella, and remember what I said about the brother in
Altoona. Also it might be that she could find a substitute for Al Nekkir
between now and Thursday afternoon. But there wasn't much chance. I had
to let it ride at that.

So Monday was crossed off, Tuesday slipped past into eternity with
nothing much done, and half of Wednesday had gone the same way. Mr.
Robert was gettin' anxious. He reports that Stella has set Saturday as
her last day with them and that she's begun packin' her trunk. What was
I doing about it?

"If you need more time off," says he, "take it."

"I always need some time off," says I, grabbin my hat.

Anyway, it was too fine an afternoon to miss a walk up Fifth Avenue.
Besides, I can often think clearer when my rubber heels are busy. Did
you ever try walkin' down an idea? It's a good hunch. The one I was
tryin' to surround was how I could sub in for this Al Nekkir party
myself without gettin' Stella suspicious. If I had to say the lines
would she spot me by my voice? If she did it would be all up with the
game.

Honest, I wasn't thinkin' of whiskers at all. In fact, I hadn't
considered the proposition, but was workin' on an entirely different
line, when all of a sudden, just as I'm passin' the stone lions in front
of the public library, this freak looms up out of the crowd. Course you
can see 'most anything on Fifth Avenue, if you trail up and down often
enough--about anything or anybody you can see anywhere in the world,
they say. And this sure was an odd specimen.

He was all of six feet high and most of him was draped in a brown
raincoat effect that buttoned from his ankles to his chin. Besides that,
he wore a green leather cap such as I've never seen the mate to, and he
had a long, solemn face that was mostly obscured by the richest and
rankest growth of bright chestnut whiskers ever in captivity.

I expect I must have grinned. I'm apt to. Probably it was a friendly
grin. With hair as red as mine I can't be too critical. Besides, he was
gazin' sort of folksy at people as he passed. Still, I didn't think he
noticed me among so many and I hadn't thought of stoppin' him. I'd gone
on, wonderin' where he had blown in from, and chucklin' over that fancy
tinted beard, when the first thing I knew here he was at my elbow
lookin' down on me.

"Forgive, sahib, but you have the face of a kindly one," says he.

"Well, I'm no consistent grouch, if that's what you mean," says I.
"What'll it be?"

"Could you tell to a stranger in a strange land what one does who has
great hunger and no rupees left in his purse?" says he.

"Just what you've done," says I. "He picks out an easy mark. I don't
pass out the coin reckless, though. Generally I tow 'em to a hash house
and watch 'em eat. Are you hungry enough for that?"

"Truly, I have great hunger," says he.

So, five minutes later I've led him into a side street and parked him
opposite me at a chop house table. "How about a slice of roast beef
rare, with mashed potatoes and turnips and a cup of coffee?" says I.

"Pardon," says he, "but it is forbidden me to eat the flesh of animals."

So we compromised on a double order of boiled rice and milk with a hunk
of pumpkin pie on the side. And in spite of the beard he went to it
business-like and graceful.

"Excuse my askin'," says I, "but are you going or coming?"

He looks a bit blank at that. "I am Burmese gentleman," says he. "I am
named Sarrou Mollik kuhn Balla Ben."

"That's enough, such as it is," says I. "Suppose I use only the last of
it, the Balla Ben part?"

"No," says he, "that is only my title, as you say Honorable Sir."

"Oh, very well," says I, "Sour Milk it is. And maybe you're willin' to
tell how you get this way--great hunger and no rupees?"

He was willin'. It seems he'd first gone wanderin' from home a year or
so back with a sporty young Englishman who'd hired him as guide and
interpreter on a trip into the middle of Burmah. Then they'd gone on
into India and the Hon. Sour Milk had qualified so well as all round
valet that the young Englishman signed him up for a two-year jaunt
around the world. His boss was some hot sport, though, I take it, and
after a big spree coming over on a Pacific steamer from Japan he'd been
taken sick with some kind of fever, typhoid probably, and was makin' a
mad dash for home when he had to quit in New York and be carted to some
hospital. Just what hospital Sour Milk didn't know, and as the Hon.
Sahib was too sick to think about payin' his board in advance his valet
had been turned loose by an unsympathizing hotel manager. And here he
was.

"That sure is a hard luck tale," says I. "But it ought to be easy for a
man of your size to land some kind of a job these days. What did you
work at back in Burmah?"

"I was one of the attendants at the Temple," says he.

"Huh!" says I. "That does make it complicated. I'm afraid there ain't
much call for temple hands in this burg. Now if you could run a
button-holin' machine, or was a paper hanger, or could handle a delivery
truck, or could make good as a floor walker in the men's furnishin'
department, or had ever done any barberin'--Say! I've got it!" and I
gazes fascinated at that crop of facial herbage.

"I ask pardon?" says he, starin' puzzled.

"They're genuine, ain't they?" I goes on. "Don't hook over the ears with
a wire? The whiskers, I mean."

He assures me they grow on him.

"And you're game to tackle any light work with good pay?" I asks.

"I must not cause the death of dumb animals," says he, "or touch their
dead bodies. And I may not serve at the altars of your people. But
beyond that----"

"You're on, then," says I. "Come along while I stack you up against
Madame Zenobia, the Mystic Queen."

We finds the old girl sittin' at a little table, her chin propped up in
one hand and a cigarette danglin' despondent from her rouged lips. She's
a picture of gloomy days.

"Look what I picked up on Fifth Ave.," says I.

And the minute she spots him and takes in the chestnut whiskers, them
weary old eyes of hers lights up. "By the kind stars and the jack of
spades!" says she. "A wise one from the East! Who is he?"

"Allow me, Madame Zenobia, to present the Hon. Sour Milk," says I.

"Pardon, Memsahib," he corrects. "I am Sarrou Mellik kuhn Balla Ben,
from the Temple of Aj Wadda, in Burmah. I am far from home and without
rupees."

"Allah be praised!" says Madame Zenobia.

"Ah!" echoes Sour Milk, in a deep boomin' voice that sounds like it came
from the sub-cellar. "Allah il Allah!"

"Enough!" says Madame Zenobia. "The Sage of India is my favorite control
and this one has the speech and bearing of him to the life. You may
leave us, child of the sun, knowing that your wish shall come true. That
is, provided the cook person appears."

"Oh, she'll be here, all right," says I. "They never miss a date like
that. There'll be two of 'em, understand. The thin one will be Maggie,
that I ain't got any dope on. You can stall her off with anything. The
fat, waddly one with the two gold front teeth will be Stella. She's the
party with the wilful disposition and the late case of wanderlust.
You'll know her by the snapshot, and be sure and throw it into her
strong if you want to collect that other ten."

"Trust Zenobia," says she, wavin' me away.

Say, I'd like to have been behind the curtains that Thursday afternoon
when Stella Flynn squandered four dollars to get a message from the
spirit world direct. I'd like to know just how it was done. Oh, she got
it, all right. And it must have been mighty convincin', for when Vee and
I drives up to the Ellinses that night after dinner to see if they'd
noticed any difference in the cook, or if she'd dropped any encouragin'
hints, I nearly got hugged by Mrs. Robert.

"Oh, you wonderful young person!" says she. "You did manage it, didn't
you?"

"Eh?" says I.

"Stella is going to stay with us," says Mrs. Robert. "She is unpacking
her trunk! However did you do it? What is this marvelous recipe of
yours?"

"Why," says I, "I took Madame Zenobia and added Sour Milk."

Yes, I had more or less fun kiddin' 'em along all the evenin'. But I
couldn't tell 'em the whole story because I didn't have the details
myself. As for Mr. Robert, he's just as pleased as anybody, only he lets
on how he was dead sure all along that I'd put it over. And before I
left he tows me one side and tucks a check into my pocket.

"Geraldine paid up," says he, "and I rather think the stakes belong to
you. But sometime, Torchy, I'd like to have you outline your process to
me. It should be worth copyrighting."

That bright little idea seemed to have hit Madame Zenobia, too, for when
I drops around there next day to hand her the final instalment, she and
the Hon. Sour Milk are just finishing a he-sized meal that had been sent
in on a tray from a nearby restaurant. She's actin' gay and mirthful.

"Ah, I've always known there was luck in red hair," says she. "And when
it comes don't think Zenobia doesn't know it by sight. Look!" and she
hands me a mornin' paper unfolded to the "Help Wanted" page. The marked
ad reads:

The domestic problem solved. If you would keep your servants consult
Madame Zenobia, the Mystic Queen. Try her and your cook will never
leave.

"Uh-huh!" says I. "That ought to bring in business these times. I expect
that inside of a week you'll have the street lined with limousines and
customers waitin' in line all up and down the stairs here."

"True words," says Madame Zenobia. "Already I have made four
appointments for this afternoon and I've raised my fee to $50."

"If you can cinch 'em all the way you did Stella," says I, "it'll be as
good as ownin' a Texas gusher. But, by the way, just how did you feed it
to her?"

"She wasn't a bit interested," says Madame Zenobia, "until I
materialized Sarrou Mellik as the wise man of India. Give us that patter
I worked up for you, Sarrou."

And in that boomin' voice of his the Hon. Sour Milk remarks: "Beware of
change. Remain, woman, where thou art, for there and there only will
some great good fortune come to you. The spirit of Ahmed the Wise hath
spoken."

"Great stuff!" says I. "I don't blame Stella for changin' her mind.
That's enough to make anybody a fixture anywhere. She may be the only
one in the country, but I'll say she's a permanent cook."

And I sure did get a chuckle out of Mr. Robert when I sketches out how
we anchored Stella to his happy home.

"Then that's why she looks at me in that peculiarly expectant way every
time I see her," says he. "Some great good fortune, eh? Evidently she
has decided that it will come through me."

"Well," says I, "unless she enters a prize beauty contest or something
like that, you should worry. Even if she does get the idea that you're
holdin' out on her, she won't dare quit. And you couldn't do better than
that with an Act of Congress. Could you, now?"

At which Mr. Robert folds his hands over his vest and indulges in a
cat-and-canary grin. I expect he was thinkin' of them mince pies.



CHAPTER VII

HOW THE GARVEYS BROKE IN


Course, Vee gives me all the credit. Perfectly right, too. That's the
way we have 'em trained. But, as a matter of fact, stated confidential
and on the side, it was the little lady herself who pushed the starter
button in this affair with the Garveys. If she hadn't I don't see where
it would ever have got going.

Let's see, it must have been early in November. Anyway, it was some
messy afternoon, with a young snow flurry that had finally concluded to
turn to rain, and as I drops off the 5:18 I was glad enough to see the
little roadster backed up with the other cars and Vee waitin' inside
behind the side curtains.

"Good work!" says I, dashin' out and preparin' to climb in. "I might
have got good and damp paddlin' home through this. Bright little thought
of yours."

"Pooh!" says Vee. "Besides, there was an express package the driver
forgot to deliver. It must be that new floor lamp. Bring it out, will
you, Torchy?"

And by the time I'd retrieved this bulky package from the express agent
and stowed it inside, all the other commuters had boarded their various
limousines and flivver taxis and cleared out.

"Hello!" says I, glancin' down the platform where a large and elegant
lady is pacin' up and down lonesome. "Looks like somebody has got left."

At which Vee takes a peek. "I believe it's that Mrs. Garvey," says she.

"Oh!" says I, slidin' behind the wheel and thrown' in the gear.

I was just shiftin' to second when Vee grabs my arm. "How utterly
snobbish of us!" says she. "Let's ask if we can't take her home?"

"On the runnin' board?" says I.

"We can leave the lamp until tomorrow," says Vee. "Come on."

So I cuts a short circle and pulls up opposite this imposin' party in
the big hat and the ruffled mink coat. She lets on not to notice until
Vee leans out and asks:

"Mrs. Garvey, isn't it?"

All the reply she gives is a stiff nod and I notice her face is pinked
up like she was peeved at something.

"If your car isn't here can't we take you home?" asks Vee.

She acts sort of stunned for a second, and then, after another look up
the road through the sheets of rain, she steps up hesitatin'. "I suppose
my stupid chauffeur forgot I'd gone to town," says she. "And as all the
taxis have been taken I--I---- But you haven't room."

"Oh, lots!" says Vee. "We will leave this ridiculous package in the
express office and squeeze up a bit. You simply can't walk, you know."

"Well----" says she.

So I lugs the lamp back and the three of us wedges ourselves into the
roadster seat. Believe me, with a party the size of Mrs. Garvey as the
party of the third part, it was a tight fit. From the way Vee chatters
on, though, you'd think it was some merry lark we was indulgin' in.

"This is what I call our piggy car," says she, "for we can never ask but
one other person at a time. But it's heaps better than having no car at
all. And it's so fortunate we happened to see you, wasn't it?"

Being more or less busy tryin' to shift gears without barkin' Mrs.
Garvey's knees, and turn corners without skiddin' into the gutter, I
didn't notice for a while that Vee was conductin' a perfectly good
monologue. That's what it was, though. Hardly a word out of our stately
passenger. She sits there as stiff as if she was crated, starin' cold
and stony straight ahead, and that peevish flush still showin' on her
cheekbones. Why, you'd most think we had her under arrest instead of
doin' her a favor. And when I finally swings into the Garvey driveway
and pulls up under the porte cochere she untangles herself from the
brake lever and crawls out.

"Thank you," says she crisp, adjustin' her picture hat. "It isn't often
that I am obliged to depend on--on strangers." And while Vee still has
her mouth open, sort of gaspin' from the slam, the lady has marched up
the steps and disappeared.

"Now I guess you know where you get off, eh, Vee?" says I chuckly. "You
_will_ pass up your new neighbors."

"How absurd of her!" says Vee. "Why, I never dreamed that I had offended
her by not calling."

"Well, you've got the straight dope at last," says I. "She's as fond of
us as a cat is of swimmin' with the ducks. Say, my right arm is numb
from being so close to that cold shoulder she was givin' me. Catch me
doin' the rescue act for her again."

"Still," says Vee, "they have been livin out here nearly a year, haven't
they? But then----"

At which she proceeds to state an alibi which sounds reasonable enough.
She'd rather understood that the Garveys didn't expect to be called on.
Maybe you know how it is in one of these near-swell suburbs! Not that
there's any reg'lar committee to pass on newcomers. Some are taken in
right off, some after a while, and some are just left out. Anyway,
that's how it seems to work out here in Harbor Hills.

I don't know who it was first passed around the word, or where we got it
from, but we'd been tipped off somehow that the Garveys didn't belong. I
don't expect either of us asked for details. Whether or not they did
wasn't up to us. But everybody seems to take it that they don't, and act
accordin'. Plenty of others had met the same deal. Some quit after the
first six months, others stuck it out.

As for the Garveys, they'd appeared from nowhere in particular, bought
this big square stucco house on the Shore road, rolled around in their
showy limousine, subscribed liberal to all the local drives and charity
funds, and made several stabs at bein' folksy. But there's no response.
None of the bridge-playing set drop in of an afternoon to ask Mrs.
Garvey if she won't fill in on Tuesday next, she ain't invited to join
the Ladies' Improvement Society, or even the Garden Club; and when
Garvey's application for membership gets to the Country Club committee
he's notified that his name has been put on the waitin' list. I expect
it's still there.

But it's kind of a jolt to find that Mrs. Garvey is sore on us for all
this. "Where does she get that stuff?" I asks Vee, after we get home.
"Who's been telling her we handle the social blacklist for the Roaring
Rock district of Long Island?"

"I suppose she thinks we have done our share, or failed to do it," says
Vee. "And perhaps we have. I'm rather sorry for the Garveys. I'm sure I
don't know what's the matter with them."

I didn't, either. Hadn't given it a thought, in fact. But I sort of got
to chewin' it over. Maybe it was the flashy way Mrs. Garvey dressed, and
the noisy laugh I'd occasionally heard her spring on the station
platform when she was talking to Garvey. Not that all the lady members
of the Country Club set are shrinkin' violets who go around costumed in
Quaker gray and whisper their remarks modest. Some are about as spiffy
dressers as you'll see anywhere and a few are what I'd call speedy
performers. But somehow you know who they are and where they came from,
and make allowances. They're in the swim, anyway.

The trouble might be with Garvey. He's about the same type as the other
half of the sketch--a big, two-fisted ruddy-faced husk, attired sporty
in black and white checks, with gray gaiters and a soft hat to match the
suit. Wore a diamond-set Shriners' watch fob, and an Elks' emblem in his
buttonhole. Course, you wouldn't expect him to have any gentle, ladylike
voice, and he don't. I heard he'd been sent on as an eastern agent of
some big Kansas City packin' house. Must have been a good payin' line,
for he certainly looks like ready money. But somehow he don't seem to be
popular with our bunch of commuters, although at first I understand he
tried to mix in free and easy.

Anyway, the verdict appears to be against lettin' the Garveys in, and we
had about as much to do with it as we did about fixin' the price of
coal, or endin' the sugar shortage. Yet here when we try to do one of
'em a good turn we get the cold eye.

"Next time," says I, "we'll remember we are strangers, and not give her
an openin' to throw it at us."

So I'm a little surprised the followin' Sunday afternoon to see the
Garvey limousine stoppin' out front. As I happens to be wanderin' around
outside I steps up to the gate just as Garvey is gettin' out.

"Ah, Ballard!" he says, cordial. "I want to thank you and Mrs. Ballard
for picking Mrs. Garvey up the other day when our fool chauffeur went to
sleep at the switch. It--it was mighty decent of you."

"Not at all," says I "Couldn't do much less for a neighbor, could we?"

"Some could," says he. "A whole lot less. And if you don't mind my
saying so, it's about the first sign we've had that we were counted as
neighbors."

"Oh, well," says I, "maybe nobody's had a chance to show it before. Will
you come in a minute and thaw out in front of the wood fire?"

"Why--er--I suppose it ain't reg'lar," says he, "but blamed if I
don't."

And after I've towed him into the livin' room, planted him in a wing
chair, and poked up the hickory logs, he springs this conundrum on me:

"Ballard," says he, "I'd like to ask you something and have you give me
an answer straight from the shoulder."

"That's my specialty," says I. "Shoot."

"Just what's the matter with us--Mrs. Garvey and me?" he demands.

"Why--why--Who says there's anything the matter with either of you?" I
asks, draggy.

"They don't have to say it," says he. "They act it. Everybody in this
blessed town; that is, all except the storekeepers, the plumbers, the
milkman, and so on. My money seems to be good enough for them. But as
for the others--well, you know how we've been frozen out. As though we
had something catching, or would blight the landscape. Now what's the
big idea? What are some of the charges in the indictment?"

And I'll leave it to you if that wasn't enough to get me scrapin' my
front hoof. How you goin' to break it to a gent sittin' by your own
fireside that maybe he's a bit rough in the neck, or too much of a yawp
to fit into the refined and exclusive circle that patronizes the 8:03
bankers' express? As I see it, the thing can't be done.

"Excuse me, Mr. Garvey," says I, "but if there's been any true bill
handed in by a pink tea grand jury it's been done without consultin'
me. I ain't much on this codfish stuff myself."

"Shake, young man," says he grateful. "I thought you looked like the
right sort. But without gettin' right down to brass tacks, or namin' any
names, couldn't you slip me a few useful hints? There's no use denyin'
we're in wrong here. I don't suppose it matters much just how; not now,
anyway. But Tim Garvey is no quitter; at least, I've never had that
name. And I've made up my mind to stay with this proposition until I'm
dead sure I'm licked."

"That's the sportin' spirit," says I.

"What I want is a line on how to get in right," says he.

At which I scratches my head and stalls around.

"For instance," he goes on, "what is it these fine Harbor Hills folks do
that I can't learn? Is it parlor etiquette? Then me for that. I'll take
lessons. I'm willin' to be as refined and genteel as anybody if that's
what I lack."

"That's fair enough," says I, still stallin'.

"You see," says Garvey, "this kind of a deal is a new one on us. I don't
want to throw any bull, but out in Kansas City we thought we had just as
good a bunch as you could find anywhere; and we were the ringleaders, as
you might say. Mixed with the best people. All live wires, too. We had a
new country club that would make this one of yours look like a freight
shed. I helped organize it, was one of the directors. And the Madam took
her part, too; first vice-president of the Woman's Club, charter member
of the Holy Twelve bridge crowd, as some called it, and always a
patroness at the big social affairs. A new doormat wouldn't, last us a
lifetime out there. But here--say, how do you break into this bunch,
anyway?"

"Why ask me, who was smuggled in the back door?" says I, grinnin'.

"But you know a lot of these high-brows and aristocrats," he insists. "I
don't. I don't get 'em at all. What brainy stunts or polite acts are
they strongest for? How do they behave when they're among themselves?"

"Why, sort of natural, I guess," says I.

"Whaddye mean, natural?" demands Garvey. "For instance?"

"Well, let's see," says I. "There's Major Brooks Keating, the imposin'
old boy with the gray goatee, who was minister to Greece or Turkey once.
Married some plute's widow abroad and retired from the diplomatic game.
Lives in that near-chateau affair just this side of the Country Club.
His fad is paintin'."

"Pictures?" asks Garvey.

"No. Cow barns, fences, chicken houses," says I. "Anything around the
place that will stand another coat."

"You don't mean he does it himself?" says Garvey.

"Sure he does," says I. "Gets on an old pair of overalls and jumper and
goes to it like he belonged to the union. Last time I was up there he
had all the blinds off one side of the house and was touchin' 'em up.
Mrs. Keating was givin' a tea that afternoon and he crashes right in
amongst 'em askin' his wife what she did with that can of turpentine.
Nobody seems to mind, and they say he has a whale of a time doin' it. So
that's his high-brow stunt."

Garvey shakes his head puzzled. "House painting, eh?" says he. "Some
fad, I'll say."

"He ain't got anything on J. Kearney Rockwell, the potty-built old sport
with the pink complexion and the grand duchess wife," I goes on. "You
know?"

Garvey nods. "Of Rockwell, Griggs & Bland, the big brokerage house,"
says he. "What's his pet side line?"

"Cucumbers," says I. "Has a whole hothouse full of 'em. Don't allow the
gardener to step inside the door, but does it all himself. Even lugs 'em
down to the store in a suitcase and sells as high as $20 worth a week,
they say. I hear he did start peddlin' 'em around the neighborhood once,
but the grand duchess raised such a howl he had to quit. You're liable
to see him wheelin' in a barrowful of manure any time, though."

"Ought to be some sight," says Garvey. "Cucumbers! Any more like him?"

"Oh, each one seems to have his own specialty," says I. "Take Austin
Gordon, one of the Standard Oil crowd, who only shows up at 26 Broadway
for the annual meetings now. You'd never guess what his hobby is. Puppet
shows."

"Eh?" says Garvey, gawpin'.

"Sort of Punch and Judy stuff," says I. "Whittles little dummies out of
wood, paints their faces, dresses 'em up, and makes 'em act by pullin' a
lot of strings. Writes reg'lar plays for 'em. He's got a complete little
theatre fitted up over his garage; stage, scenery, footlights, folding
chairs and everything. Gives a show every now and then. Swell affairs.
Everybody turns out. Course they snicker some in private, but he gets
away with it."

Garvey stares at me sort of dazed. "And here I've been afraid to do
anything but walk around my place wearing gloves and carrying a cane;"
says he. "Afraid of doing something that wasn't genteel, or that would
get the neighbors talking. While these aristocrats do what they please.
They do, don't they!"

"That about states it," says I.

"Do--do you suppose I could do that, too?" he asks.

"Why not?" says I. "You don't stand to lose anything, do you, even if
they do chatter? If I was you I'd act natural and tell 'em to go hang."

"You would?" says he, still starin'.

"To the limit," says I. "What's the fun of livin' if you can't?"

"Say, young man," says Garvey, slappin' his knee. "That listens
sensible to me. Blamed if I don't. And I--I'm much obliged."

And after he's gone Vee comes down from upstairs and wants to know what
on earth I've been talking so long to that Mr. Garvey about.

"Why," says I, "I've been givin' him some wise dope on how to live among
plutes and be happy."

"Silly!" says Vee, rumplin' my red hair. "Do you know what I've made up
my mind to do some day this week? Have you take me for an evening call
on the Garveys."

"Gosh!" says I. "You're some little Polar explorer, ain't you?"

It was no idle threat of Vee's. A few nights later we got under way
right after dinner and drove over there. I expect we were about the
first outsiders to push the bell button since they moved in. But we'd no
sooner rung than Vee begins to hedge.

"Why, they must be giving a party!" says she. "Listen! There's an
orchestra playing."

"Uh-huh!" says I. "Sounds like a jazz band."

A minute later, though, when the butler opens the door, there's no sound
of music, and as we goes in we catches Garvey just strugglin' into his
dinner coat. He seems glad to see us, mighty glad. Says so. Tows us
right into the big drawin' room. But Mrs. Garvey ain't so enthusiastic.
She warms up about as much as a cold storage turkey.

You can't feaze Vee, though, when she starts in to be folksy. "I'm just
so sorry we've been so long getting over," says she. "And we came near
not coming in this time. Didn't we hear music a moment ago. You're not
having a dance or--or anything, are you?"

The Garveys look at each other sort of foolish for a second.

"Oh, no," says Mrs. Garvey. "Nothing of the sort. Perhaps some of the
servants----"

"Now, Ducky," breaks in Garvey, "let's not lay it on the servants."

And Mrs. Garvey turns the color of a fire hydrant clear up into her
permanent wave. "Very well, Tim," says she. "If you _will_ let everybody
know. I suppose it's bound to get out sooner or later, anyhow." And with
that she turns to me. "Anyway, you're the young man who put him up to
this nonsense. I hope you're satisfied."

"Me?" says I, doin' the gawp act.

"How delightfully mysterious!" says Vee. "What's it all about?"

"Yes, Garvey," says I. "What you been up to?"

"I'm being natural, that's all," says he.

"Natural!" snorts Mrs. Garvey. "Is that what you call it?"

"How does it break out?" says I.

"If you must know," says Mrs. Garvey, "he's making a fool of himself by
playing a snare drum."

"Honest?" says I, grinnin' at Garvey.

"Here it is," says he, draggin' out from under a davenport a perfectly
good drum.

"And you might as well exhibit the rest of the ridiculous things," says
Mrs. Garvey.

"Sure!" says Garvey, swingin' back a Japanese screen and disclosin' a
full trap outfit--base drum with cymbals, worked by a foot pedal,
xylophone blocks, triangle, and sand boards--all rigged up next to a
cabinet music machine.

"Well, well!" says I. "All you lack is a leader and Sophie Tucker to
screech and you could go on at Reisenwebers."

"Isn't it all perfectly fascinating?" says Vee, testin' the drum pedal.

"But it's such a common, ordinary thing to do," protests Mrs. Garvey.
"Drumming! Why, out in Kansas City I remember that the man who played
the traps in our Country Club orchestra worked daytimes as a plumber. He
was a poor plumber, at that."

"But he was a swell drummer," says Garvey. "I took lessons of him, on
the sly. You see, as a boy, the one big ambition in my life was to play
the snare drum. But I never had money enough to buy one. I couldn't have
found time to play it anyway. And in Kansas City I was too busy trying
to be a good sport. Here I've got more time than I know what to do with.
More money, too. So I've got the drum, and the rest. I'm here to say,
too, that knocking out an accompaniment to some of these new jazz
records is more fun than I've ever had all the rest of my life."

"I'm sure it must be," says Vee. "Do play once for us, Mr. Garvey.
Couldn't I come in on the piano? Let's try that 'Dardanella' thing?"

And say, inside of ten minutes they were at it so hard that you'd most
thought Arthur Pryor and his whole aggregation had cut loose. Then they
did some one-step pieces with lots of pep in 'em, and the way Garvey
could roll the sticks, and tinkle the triangle, and keep the cymbals and
base drum goin' with his foot was as good to watch as a jugglin' act,
even if he does leak a lot on the face when he gets through.

"You're some jazz artist, I'll say," says I.

"So will the neighbors, I'm afraid," says Mrs. Garvey. "That will sound
nice, won't it?"

"Oh, blow the neighbors!" says Garvey. "I'm going to do as I please from
now on; and it pleases me to do this."

"Then we might as well nail up the front door and eat in the kitchen,
like we used to," says she, sighin'.

But it don't work out that way for them. It was like this: Austin Gordon
was pullin' off one of his puppet shows and comes around to ask Vee
wouldn't she do some piano playin' for him between the acts and durin'
parts of the performance. He'd hoped to have a violinist, too, but the
party had backed out. So Vee tells him about Garvey's trap outfit, and
how clever he is at it, and suggests askin' him in.

"Why, certainly!" says Gordon.

So Garvey pulls his act before the flower and chivalry of Harbor Hills.
They went wild over it, too. And at the reception afterwards he was
introduced all round, patted on the back by the men, and taffied up by
the ladies. Even Mrs. Timothy Garvey, who'd been sittin' stiff and
purple-faced all the evenin' in a back seat was rung in for a little of
the glory.

"Say, Garvey," says Major Brooks Keating, "we must have you and Mrs.
Ballard play for us at our next Country Club dinner dance after the fool
musicians quit. Will you, eh? Not a member? Well, you ought to be. I'll
see that you're made one, right away."

I don't know of anyone who was more pleased at the way things had turned
out than Vee. "There, Torchy!" says she. "I've always said you were a
wonder at managing things."

"Why shouldn't I be?" says I, givin' her the side clinch. "Look at the
swell assistant I've got."



CHAPTER VIII

NICKY AND THE SETTING HEN


Honest, the first line I got on this party with the steady gray eyes and
the poker face was that he must be dead from the neck up. Or else he'd
gone into a trance and couldn't get out.

Nice lookin' young chap, too. Oh, say thirty or better. I don't know as
he'd qualify as a perfect male, but he has good lines and the kind of
profile that had most of the lady typists stretchin' their necks. But
there's no more expression on that map of his than there would be to a
bar of soap. Just a blank. And yet after a second glance you wondered.

You see, I'd happened to drift out into the general offices in time to
hear him ask Vincent, the fair-haired guardian of the brass gate, if Mr.
Robert is in. And when Vincent tells him he ain't he makes no move to
go, but stands there starin' straight through the wall out into
Broadway. Looks like he might be one of Mr. Robert's club friends, so I
steps up and asks if there's anything a perfectly good private sec. can
do for him. He wakes up enough to shake his head.

"Any message?" says I.

Another shake. "Then maybe you'll leave your card?" says I.

Yes, he's willin' to do that, and hands it over.

"Oh!" says I. "Why didn't you say so? Mr. Nickerson Wells, eh? Why,
you're the one who's going to handle that ore transportation deal for
the Corrugated, ain't you?"

"I was, but I'm not," says the chatterbox.

"Eh?" says I, gawpin'.

"Can't take it on," says he. "Tell Ellins, will you?"

"Not much!" says I. "Guess you'll have to hand that to him yourself, Mr.
Wells. He'll be here any minute. Right this way."

And a swell time I had keepin' him entertained in the private office for
half an hour. Not that he's restless or fidgety, but when you get a
party who only stares bored at a spot about ten feet behind the back of
your head and answers most of your questions by blinkin' his eyes, it
kind of gets on your nerves. Still, I couldn't let him get away. Why,
Mr. Robert had been prospectin' for months to find the right man for
that transportation muddle and when he finally got hold of this Nicky
Wells he goes around grinnin' for three days.

Seems Nicky had built up quite a rep. by some work he did over in France
on an engineerin' job. Ran some supply tracks where nobody thought they
could be laid, bridged a river in a night under fire, and pulled a lot
of stuff like that. I don't know just what. Anyway, they pinned all
sorts of medals on him for it, made him a colonel, and when it was all
over turned him loose as casual as any buck private. That's the army for
you. And the railroad people he'd been with before had been shifted
around so much that they'd forgotten all about him. He wasn't the kind
to tell 'em what a whale of a guy he was, and nobody else did it for
him. So there he was, floatin' around, when Mr. Robert happened to hear
of him.

"Must have got you in some lively spots, runnin' a right of way smack up
to the German lines?" I suggests.

"M-m-m-m!" says he, through his teeth.

"Wasn't it you laid the tracks that got up them big naval guns?" I asks.

"I may have helped," says he.

So I knew all about it, you see. Quite thrillin' if you had a high speed
imagination. And you can bet I was some relieved when Mr. Robert blew in
and took him off my hands. Must have been an hour later before he comes
out and I goes into the private office to find Mr. Robert with his chin
on his wishbone and his brow furrowed up.

"Well, I take it the one-syllable champion broke the sad news to you!"
says I.

"Yes, he wants to quit," says Mr. Robert.

"Means to devote all his time to breakin' the long distance no-speech
record, does he?" I asks.

"I'm sure I don't know what he means to do," says Mr. Robert, sighin'.
"Anyway, he seems determined not to go to work for the Corrugated. I did
discover one thing, though, Torchy; there's a girl mixed up in the
affair. She's thrown him over."

"I don't wonder," says I. "Probably he tried to get through a whole
evenin' with her on that yes-and-no stuff."

No, Mr. Robert says, it wasn't that. Not altogether. Nicky has done
something that he's ashamed of, something she'd heard about. He'd
renigged on takin' her to a dinner dance up in Boston a month or so
back. He'd been on hand all right, was right on the spot while she was
waitin' for him; but instead of callin' around with the taxi and the
orchids he'd slipped off to another town without sayin' a word. The
worst of it was that in this other place was the other woman, someone
he'd had an affair with before. A Reno widow, too.

"Think of that!" says I, "Nicky the Silent! Say, you can't always tell,
can you? What's his alibi?"

"That's the puzzling part of it," says Mr. Robert. "He hasn't the ghost
of an excuse, although he claims he didn't see the other woman, had
almost forgotten she lived there. But why he deserted his dinner partner
and went to this place he doesn't explain, except to say that he doesn't
know why he did it."

"Too fishy," says I. "Unless he can prove he was walkin' in his sleep."

"Just what I tell him," says Mr. Robert. "Anyway, he's taking it hard.
Says if he's no more responsible than that he couldn't undertake an
important piece of work. Besides, I believe he is very fond of the girl.
She's Betty Burke, by the way."

"Z-z-zing!" says I. "Some combination, Miss Betty Burke and Nickerson
Wells."

I'd seen her a few times at the Ellinses, and take it from me she's some
wild gazelle; you know, lots of curves and speed, but no control. No
matter where you put her she's the life of the party, Betty is. Chatter!
Say, she could make an afternoon tea at the Old Ladies' Home sound like
a Rotary Club luncheon, all by herself. Shoots over the clever stuff,
too. Oh, a reg'lar girl. About as much on Nicky Wells' type as a hummin'
bird is like a pelican.

"Only another instance," says Mr. Robert, "to show that the law of
opposites is still in good working condition. I've never known Betty to
be as much cut up over anything as she's been since she found out about
Nicky. Only we couldn't imagine what was the matter. She's not used to
being forgotten and I suppose she lost no time in telling Nicky where he
got off. She must have cared a lot for him. Perhaps she still does. The
silly things! If they could only make it up perhaps Nicky would sign
that contract and go to work."

"Looks like a case of Cupid throwin' a monkey wrench into the gears of
commerce, eh?" says I. "How do you size up Nicky's plea of not guilty?"

"Oh, if he says he didn't see the other woman, he didn't, that's all,"
says Mr. Robert. "But until he explains why he went where she was
when----"

"Maybe he would if he had a show," says I. "If you could plot out a
get-together session for 'em somehow----"

"Exactly!" says Mr. Robert, slappin' his knee. "Thank you, Torchy. It
shall be done. Get Mrs. Ellins on the long distance, will you?"

He's a quick performer, Mr. Robert, when he's got his program mapped
out. He don't hesitate to step on the pedal. Before quittin' time that
afternoon he's got it all fixed up.

"Tomorrow night," says he, "Nicky understands that we're having a dinner
party out at the house. Betty'll be there. You and Vee are to be the
party."

"A lot of help I'll be," says I. "But I expect I can fill a chair."

When you get a private sec. that can double in open face clothes,
though, you've picked a winner. That's why I figure so heavy on the
Corrugated pay roll. But say, when I finds myself planted next to
Bubbling Betty at the table I begins to suspect that I've been miscast
for the part.

She's some smart dresser, on and off, Betty is. Her idea of a perfectly
good dinner gown is to make it as simple as possible. All she needs is a
quart or so of glass beads and a little pink tulle and there she is.
There's more or less of her, too. And me thinkin' that Theda Bara stood
for the last word in bare. I hadn't seen Betty costumed for the dinin'
room then. And I expect the blush roses in the flower bowl had nothing
on my ears when it came to a vivid color scheme.

By that time, of course, she and Nicky had recovered from the shock of
findin' themselves with their feet under the same table and they've
settled down to bein' insultin'ly polite to each other. It's "Mr. Wells"
and "Miss Burke" with them, Nicky with his eyes in his plate and Betty
throwin' him frigid glances that should have chilled his soup. And the
next thing I know she's turned to me and is cuttin' loose with her whole
bag of tricks. Talk about bein' vamped! Say, inside of three minutes
there she had me dizzy in the head. With them sparklin', roly-boly eyes
of hers so near I didn't know whether I was butterin' a roll or
spreadin' it on my thumb.

"Do you know," says she, "I simply adore red hair--your kind."

"Maybe that's why I picked out this particular shade," says I.

"Tchk!" says she, tappin' me on the arm. "Tell me, how do you get it to
wave so cunningly in front?"

"Don't give it away," says I, "but I do demonstratin' at a male beauty
parlor."

This seems to tickle Betty so much that she has to lean over and chuckle
on my shoulder. "Bob calls you Torchy, doesn't he?" she goes on. "I'm
going to, too."

"Well, I don't see how I can stop you," says I.

"What do you think of this new near-beer?" she demands.

"Why," says I, "it strikes me the bird who named it was a poor judge of
distance." Which, almost causes Betty to swallow an olive pit.

"You're simply delightful!" says she. "Why haven't we met before?"

"Maybe they didn't think it was safe," says I. "They might be right, at
that."

"Naughty, naughty!" says she. "But go on. Tell me a funny story while
the fish is being served."

"I'd do better servin' the fish," says I.

"Pooh!" says she. "I don't believe it. Come!"

"How do you know I'm primed?" says I.

"I can tell by your eyes," says she. "There's a twinkle in them."

"S-s-s-sh!" says I. "Belladonna. Besides, I always forget the good ones
I read in the comic section."

"Please!" insists Betty. "Every one else is being so stupid. And you're
supposed to entertain me, you know."

"Well," says I, "I did hear kind of a rich one while I was waitin' at
the club for Mr. Robert today only I don't know as----"

"Listen, everybody," announces Betty vivacious. "Torchy is going to tell
a story."

Course, that gets me pinked up like the candle shades and I shakes my
head vigorous.

"Hear, hear!" says Mr. Robert.

"Oh, do!" adds Mrs. Ellins.

As for Vee, she looks across at me doubtful. "I hope it isn't that one
about a Mr. Cohen who played poker all night," says she.

"Wrong guess," says I. "It's one I overheard at Mr. Robert's club while
a bunch of young sports was comparin' notes on settin' hens."

"How do you mean, setting hens?" asks Mr. Robert.

"It's the favorite indoor sport up in New England now, I understand,"
says I. "It's the pie-belt way of taking the sting out of the
prohibition amendment. You know, building something with a kick to it. I
didn't get the details, but they use corn-meal, sugar, water, raisins
and the good old yeast cake, and let it set in a cask! for twenty-one
days. Nearly everybody up there has a hen on, I judge, or one just
coming off."

"Oh, I see!" says Mr. Robert. "And had any of the young men succeeded;
that is, in producing something with--er--a kick to it?"

"Accordin' to their tale, they had," says I. "Seems they tried it out
in Boston after the Harvard-Yale game. A bunch got together in some
hotel room and opened a jug one of 'em had brought along in case Harvard
should win, and after that 10-3 score--well, I expect they'd have
celebrated on something, even if it was no more than lemon extract or
Jamaica ginger."

"How about that, Nicky?" asks Mr. Robert, who's a Yale man.

"Quite possible," says Nicky, who for the first time seems to have his
ears pricked up. "What then?"

"Well," says I, "there was one Harvard guy who wasn't much used to
hitting anything of the sort, but he was so much cheered up over seeing
his team win that he let 'em lead him to it. They say he shut his eyes
and let four fingers in a water glass trickle down without stopping to
taste it. From then on he was a different man. He forgot all about being
a Delta Kappa, whatever that is; forgot that he had an aunt who still
lived on Beacon Street; forgot most everything except that the birds
were singin' 'Johnny Harvard' and that Casey was a great man. He climbed
on a table and insisted on makin' a speech about it. You know how that
home brew stuff works sometimes?"

"I've been told that it has a certain potency," says Mr. Robert, winkin'
at Nicky.

"Anyway," I goes on, seein' that Nicky was still interested, "it seems
to tie his tongue loose. He gets eloquent about the poor old Elis who
had to stand around and watch the snake dance without lettin' out a yip.
Then he has a bright idea, which he proceeds to state. Maybe they don't
know anything about the glorious product of the settin' hen down in New
Haven. And who needs it more at such a time as this? Ought to have some
of 'em up there and lighten their load of gloom. Act of charity. Gotta
be done. If nobody else'll do it, he will. Go out into highways and
byways.

"And he does. Half an hour later he shows up at the home brew
headquarters with an Eli that he's captured on the way to the South
station. He's a solemn-faced, dignified party who don't seem to catch
what it's all about and rather balks when he sees the bunch. But he's
dragged in and introduced as Chester Beal, the Hittite."

"I beg pardon?" asks Nicky.

"I'm only giving you what I heard," says I. "Chester Beal might have
been his right name, or it might not, and the Hittite part was some of
his josh, I take it. Anyway, Chester was dealt a generous shot from the
jug, followin' which he was one of 'em. Him and the Harvard guy got real
chummy, and the oftener they sampled the home brew the more they thought
of each other. They discovered they'd both served in the same division
on the other side and had spent last Thanksgiving only a few miles from
each other. It was real touchin'. When last seen they was driftin' up
Tremont Street arm in arm singin' 'Madelon,' 'Boola-Boola,'
'Harvardiana' and other appropriate melodies."

"Just like the good old days, eh, Nicky?" suggests Mr. Robert.

But Nicky only shakes his head. "You say they were not seen again?" he
demands.

"Not until about 1:30 a. m.," says I, "when they shows up in front of
the Harvard Club on Commonwealth Avenue. One of the original bunch spots
the pair and listens in. The Harvard man is as eloquent as ever. He's
still going strong. But Chester, the Hittite, looks bored and weary.
'Oh, shut up!' says he. But the other one can't be choked off that way.
He just starts in again. So Chester leads him out to the curb and hails
a taxi driver. 'Take him away,' says Chester. 'He's been talking to me
for hours and hours. Take him away.' 'Yes, sir,'says the driver. 'Where
to, sir,' 'Oh, anywhere,' says Chester. 'Take him to--to Worcester.'
'Right,' says the driver, loadin' in his fare."

"But--but of course he didn't really take him all that distance?" puts
in Betty.

"Uh-huh!" says I. "That's what I thought was so rich. And about 10:30
next mornin' a certain party wakes up in a strange room in a strange
town. He's got a head on him like an observation balloon and a tongue
that feels like a pussycat's back. And when he finally gets down to the
desk he asks the clerk where he is. 'Bancroft House, Worcester, sir,'
says the clerk. 'How odd!' says he. 'But--er--? what is this charge of
$16.85 on my bill?' 'Taxi fare from Boston,' says the clerk. And they
say he paid up like a good sport."

"In such a case," says Mr. Robert "one does."

"Worcester!" says Betty. "That's queer."

"The rough part of it was," I goes on, "that he was due to attend a big
affair in Boston the night before, sort of a reunion of officers who'd
been in the army of occupation--banquet and dance afterward--I think
they call it the Society of the Rhine."

"What!" exclaims Betty.

"Oh, I say!" gasps Nicky. Then they look at each other queer.

I could see that I'd made some kind of a break but I couldn't figure out
just what it was. "Anyway," says I, "he didn't get there. He got to
Worcester instead. Course, though, you don't have to believe all you
hear at a club."

"If only one could," says Betty.

And it wasn't until after dinner that I got a slant on this remark of
hers.

"Torchy," says she, "where is Mr. Wells?"

"Why," says I, "I saw him drift out on the terrace a minute ago."

"Alone?" says she.

I nods.

"Then take me out to him, will you?" she asks.

"Sure thing," says I.

And she puts it up to him straight when we get him cornered. "Was that
the real reason why you were in Worcester?" she demands.

"I'm sorry," says he, hangin' his head, "but it must have been."

"Then, why didn't you say so, you silly boy!" she asks.

"How could I, Betty?" says he. "You see, I hadn't heard the rest of the
story until just now."

"Oh, Nicky!" says she.

And the next thing I knew they'd gone to a clinch, which I takes as my
cue to slide back into the house. Half an hour later they shows up
smilin' and tells us all about it.

As we're leavin' for home Mr. Robert gets me one side and pats me on the
back. "I say, Torchy," says he, "as a raconteur you're a great success.
It worked. Nicky will sign up tomorrow."

"Good!" says I. "Only send him where they ain't got the settin' hen
habit and the taxi drivers ain't so willin' to take a chance."



CHAPTER IX

BRINK DOES A SIDESLIP


Mostly it was a case of Old Hickory runnin' wild on the main track and
Brink Hollis being in the way. What we really ought to have in the
Corrugated general offices is one of these 'quake detectors, same as
they have in Washington to register distant volcano antics, so all hands
could tell by a glance at the dial what was coming and prepare to stand
by for rough weather.

For you never can tell just when old Hickory Ellins is going to cut
loose. Course, being on the inside, with my desk right next to the door
of the private office, I can generally forecast an eruption an hour or
so before it takes place. But it's apt to catch the rest of the force
with their hands down and their mouths open.

Why, just by the way the old boy pads in at 9:15, plantin' his hoofs
heavy and glarin' straight ahead from under them bushy eye dormers of
his, I could guess that someone was goin' to get a call on the carpet
before very long. And sure enough he'd hardly got settled in his big
leather swing chair before he starts barkin' for Mr. Piddie.

I expect when it comes to keepin' track of the overhead, and gettin' a
full day's work out of a bunch of lady typists, and knowin' where to buy
his supplies at cut-rates, Piddie is as good an office manager as you'll
find anywhere along Broadway from the Woolworth tower to the Circle; but
when it comes to soothin' down a 65-year-old boss who's been awake most
of the night with sciatica, he's a flivver. He goes in with his brow
wrinkled up and his knees shakin', and a few minutes later he comes out
pale in the gills and with a wild look in his eyes.

"What's the scandal, Piddie?" says I. "Been sent to summon the firin'
squad, or what?"

He don't stop to explain then, but pikes right on into the bond room and
holds a half-hour session with that collection of giddy young
near-sports who hold down the high stools. Finally, though, he tip-toes
back to me, wipes the worry drops from his forehead, and gives me some
of the awful details.

"Such incompetency!" says he husky. "You remember that yesterday Mr.
Ellins called for a special report on outside holdings? And when it is
submitted it is merely a jumble of figures. Why, the young man who
prepared it couldn't have known the difference between a debenture 5 and
a refunding 6!"

"Don't make me shudder, Piddie," says I. "Who was the brainless wretch?"

"Young Hollis, of course," whispers Piddie. "And it's not the first
occasion, Torchy, on which he has been found failing. I am sending some
of his books in for inspection."

"Oh, well," says I, "better Brink than some of the others. He won't take
it serious. He's like a duck in a shower--sheds it easy."

At which Piddie goes off shakin' his head ominous. But then, Piddie has
been waitin' for the word to fire Brink Hollis ever since this cheerful
eyed young hick was wished on the Corrugated through a director's pull
nearly a year ago, when he was fresh from college. You see, Piddie can't
understand how anybody can draw down the princely salary of twenty-five
a week without puttin' his whole soul into his work, or be able to look
his boss in the face if there's any part of the business that he's vague
about.

As for Brink, his idea of the game is to get through an eight-hour day
somehow or other so he can have the other sixteen to enjoy himself in,
and I expect he takes about as much interest in what he has to do as if
he was countin' pennies in a mint. Besides that he's sort of a
happy-go-lucky, rattle-brained youth who has been chucked into this high
finance thing because his fam'ly thought he ought to be doing something
that looks respectable; you know the type?

Nice, pleasant young chap. Keeps the bond room force chirked up on rainy
days and always has a smile for everybody. It was him organized the
Corrugated Baseball Nine that cleaned up with every other team in the
building last summer. They say he was a star first baseman at Yale or
Princeton or wherever it was he was turned loose from. Also he's some
pool shark, I understand, and is runnin' off a progressive tournament
that he got Mr. Robert to put up some cups for.

So I'm kind of sorry, when I answers the private office buzzer a little
later, and finds Old Hickory purple in the face and starin' at something
he's discovered between the pages of Brink's bond book.

"Young man," says he as he hands it over, "perhaps you can fell me
something about this?"

"Looks lite a program," says I, glancin' it over casual. "Oh, yes. For
the first annual dinner of the Corrugated Crabs. That was last Saturday
night."

"And who, may I ask," goes on Old Hickory, "are the Corrugated Crabs?"

"Why," says I, "I expect they're some of the young sports on the general
office staff."

"Huh!" he grunts. "Why Crabs?"

I hunches my shoulders and lets it go at that.

"I notice," says Old Hickory, taking back the sheet, "that one feature
of the entertainment was an impersonation by Mr. Brinkerhoff Hollis, of
'the Old He-Crab Himself unloading a morning grouch'. Now, just what
does that mean?"

"Couldn't say exactly," says I. "I wasn't there."

"Oh, you were not, eh?" says he. "Didn't suppose you were. But you
understand, Torchy, I am asking this information of you as my private
secretary. I--er--it will be treated as confidential."

"Sorry, Mr. Ellins," says I, "but you know about as much of it as I do."

"Which is quite enough," says he, "for me to decide that the Corrugated
can dispense with the services of this Hollis person at once. You will
notify Mr. Piddie to that effect."

"Ye-e-es, sir," says I, sort of draggy.

He glances up at me quick. "You're not enthusiastic about it, eh?" says
he.

"No," says I.

"Then for your satisfaction, and somewhat for my own," he goes on, "we
will review the case against this young man. He was one of three who won
a D minus rating in the report made by that efficiency expert called in
by Mr. Piddie last fall."

"Yes, I know," says I. "That squint-eyed bird who sprung his brain tests
on the force and let on he could card index the way your gray matter
worked by askin' a lot of nutty questions. I remember. Brink Hollis was
guyin' him all the while and he never caught on. Had the whole bunch
chucklin'over it. One of Piddie's fads, he was."

Old Hickory waves one hand impatient. "Perhaps," says he. "I don't mean
to say I value that book psychology rigamarole very highly myself. Cost
us five hundred, too. But I've had an eye on that young man's work ever
since, and it hasn't been brilliant. This bond summary is a sample. It's
a mess."

"I don't doubt it!" says I. "But if I'd been Piddie I think I'd have
hung the assignment for that on some other hook than Hollis's. He didn't
know what a bond looked like until a year ago and that piece of work
called for an old hand."

"Possibly, possibly," agrees Old Hickory. "It seems he is clever enough
at this sort of thing, however," and he waves the program.

I couldn't help smotherin' a chuckle.

"Am I to infer," says Mr. Ellins, "that this He-Crab act of his was
humorous?"

"That's what they tell me," says I. "You see, right after dinner Brink
was missin' and everybody was wonderin' what had become of him, when all
of a sudden he bobs up through a tin-foil lake in the middle of the
table and proceeds to do this crab impersonation in costume. They say it
was a scream."

"It was, eh?" grunts Old Hickory. "And the Old He-Crab referred to--who
was that?"

"Who do you guess, Mr. Ellins?" says I, grinnin'.

"H-m-m-m," says he, rubbin' his chin. "I can't say I'm flattered. Thinks
I'm an old crab, does he?"

"I expect he does," I admits.

"Do you?" demands Old Hickory, whirlin' on me sudden.

"I used to," says I, "until I got to know you better."

"Oh!" says he. "Well, I suppose the young man has a right to his own
opinion. And my estimate of him makes us even. But perhaps you don't
know with what utter contempt I regard such a worthless----"

"I got a general idea," says I. "And maybe that's because you don't know
him very well."

For a second the old boy stares at me like he was goin' to blow a
gasket. But he don't. "I will admit," says he, "that I may have failed
to cultivate a close acquaintance with all the harum-scarum cut-ups in
my employ. One doesn't always find the time. May I ask what course you
would recommend?"

"Sure!" says I. "If it was me I wouldn't give him the chuck without a
hearin'."

That sets him chewin' his cigar. "Very well," says he. "Bring him in."

I hadn't figured on gettin' so close to the affair as this, but as I had
I couldn't do anything else but see it through. I finds Brink drummin' a
jazz tune on his desk with his fingers and otherwise makin' the best of
it.

"Well," says he, as I taps him on the shoulder, "is it all over?"

"Not yet," says I. "But the big boss is about to give you the third
degree. So buck up."

"Wants to see me squirm, does he?" says Brink. "All right. But I don't
see the use. What'll I feed him, Torchy?"

"Straight talk, nothing else," says I. "Come along."

And I expect when Brink Hollis found himself lined up in front of them
chilled steel eyes he decided that this was a cold and cruel world.

"Let's see," opens Old Hickory, "you've been with us about a year,
haven't you?"

Hollis nods.

"And how do you think you are getting on as a business man?" asks Mr.
Ellins.

"Fairly rotten, thank you," says he.

"I must say that I agree with you," says Old Hickory. "How did you
happen to honor us by making your start here?"

"Because the governor didn't want me in his office," says Hollis, "and
could get me into the Corrugated."

"Hah!" snorts Old Hickory. "Think we're running a retreat for younger
sons, do you!"

"If I started in with that idea," says Brink, "I'm rapidly getting over
it. And if you want to know, Mr. Ellins, I'm just as sick of working in
the bond room as you are of having me there."

"Then why in the name of the seven sins do you stick?" demands Old
Hickory.

Brink shrugs his shoulders. "Dad thinks it's best for me," says he. "He
imagines I'm making good. I suppose I've rather helped along the notion,
and he's due to get some jolt when he finds I've nose-dived to a crash."

"Unfortunately," says Old Hickory, "we cannot provide shock absorbers
for fond fathers. Any other reasons why you wished to remain on our pay
roll?"

"One," says Brink, "but it will interest you less than the first. If I
got a raise next month I was planning to be married."

Old Hickory sniffs. "That's optimism for you!" says he. "You expect us
to put a premium on the sort of work you've been doing? Bah!"

"Oh, why drag out the agony?" says Brink. "I knew I'd put a crimp in my
career when I remembered leaving that crab banquet program in the book.
Let's get to that."

"As you like," says Old Hickory. "Not that I attach any great importance
to such monkey shines, but we might as well take it up. So you think I'm
an old crab, do you?"

"I had gathered that impression," says Brink. "Seemed to be rather
general around the shop."

Old Hickory indulges in one of them grins that are just as humorous as a
crack in the pavement. "I've no doubt," says he. "And you conceived the
happy idea of dramatizing me as the leading comic feature for this
dinner party of my employees? It was a success, I trust."

"Appeared to take fairly well," says Brink.

"Pardon me if I seem curious," goes on Old Hickory, "but just how did
you--er--create the illusion?"

"Oh, I padded myself out in front," says Brink, "and stuck on a lot of
cotton for eyebrows, and used the make-up box liberal, and gave them
some red-hot patter on the line that--well, you know how you work off a
grouch, sir. I may have caught some of your pet phrases. Anyway, they
seemed to know who I meant."

"You're rather clever at that sort of thing, are you?" asks Old Hickory.

"Oh, that's no test," says Brink. "You can always get a hand with local
gags. And then, I did quite a lot of that stuff at college; put on a
couple of frat plays and managed the Mask Club two seasons."

"Too bad the Corrugated Trust offers such a limited field for your
talents," says Old Hickory. "Only one annual dinner of the Crab Society.
You organized that, I suppose?"

"Guilty," says Brink.

"And I understand you were responsible for the Corrugated baseball team,
and are now conducting a pool tournament?" goes on Old Hickory.

"Oh, yes," says Brink, sort of weary. "I'm not denying a thing. I was
even planning a little noonday dancing club for the stenographers. You
may put that in the indictment if you like."

"H-m-m-m!" says Old Hickory, scratchin' his ear. "I think that will be
all, young man."

Brink starts for the door but comes back. "Not that I mind being fired,
Mr. Ellins," says he. "I don't blame you a bit for that, for I suppose
I'm about the worst bond clerk in the business. I did try at first to
get into the work, but it was no good. Guess I wasn't cut out for that
particular line. So we'll both be better off. But about that He-Crab act
of mine. Sounds a bit raw, doesn't it? I expect it was, too. I'd like to
say, though, that all I meant by it was to make a little fun for the
boys. No personal animosity behind it, sir, even if----"

Old Hickory waves his hand careless. "I'm beginning to get your point of
view, Hollis," says he. "The boss is always fair game, eh?"

"Something like that," says Brink. "Still, I hate to leave with you
thinking----"

"You haven't been asked to leave--as yet," says Old Hickory. "I did have
you slated for dismissal a half hour ago, and I may stick to it. Only my
private secretary seemed to think I didn't know what I was doing.
Perhaps he was right. I'm going to let your case simmer for a day or so.
Now clear out, both of you."

We slid through the door. "Much obliged for making the try, Torchy,"
says Brink. "You had your nerve with you, I'll say."

"Easiest thing I do, old son," says I. "Besides, his ain't a case of
ingrowin' grouch, you know."

"I was just getting that hunch myself," says Brink. "Shouldn't wonder
but he was quite a decent old boy when you got under the crust. If I was
only of some use around the place I'll bet we'd get along fine. As it
is----" He spreads out his hands.

"Trust Old Hickory Ellins to find out whether you're any use or not,"
says I. "He don't miss many tricks. If you do get canned, though, you
can make up your mind that finance is your short suit."

Nearly a week goes by without another word from Mr. Ellins. And every
night as Brink streamed out with the advance guard at 5 o'clock he'd
stop long enough at my desk to swap a grin with me and whisper: "Well, I
won't have to break the news to Dad tonight, anyway."

"Nor to the young lady, either," says I.

"Oh, I had to spill it to Marjorie, first crack," says he. "She's
helping me hold my breath."

And then here yesterday mornin', as I'm helping Old Hickory sort the
mail, he picks out a letter from our Western manager and slits it open.

"Hah!" says he, through his cigar. "I think this solves our problem,
Torchy."

"Yes, sir?" says I, gawpin'.

"Call in that young humorist of yours from the bond room," says he.

And I yanks Brink Hollis off the high stool impetuous.

"Know anything about industrial welfare work, young man?" demands Old
Hickory of him.

"I've seen it mentioned in magazine articles," says Brink, "but that's
about all. Don't think I ever read one."

"So much the better," says Mr. Ellins. "You'll have a chance to start in
fresh, with your own ideas."

"I--I beg pardon?" says Brink, starin' puzzled.

"You're good at play organizing, aren't you," goes on Old Hickory.
"Well, here's an opportunity to spread yourself. One of the
manufacturing units we control out in Ohio. Three thousand men, in a
little one-horse town where there's nothing better to do in their spare
time than go to cheap movies and listen to cheaper walking delegates. I
guess they need you more than we do in the bond room. Organize 'em as
much as you like. Show 'em how to play. Give that He-Crab act if you
wish. We'll start you in at a dollar a man. That satisfactory?"

I believe Brink tried to say it was, only what he got out was so choky
you could hardly tell. But he goes out beamin'.

"Well!" says Old Hickory, turnin' to me. "I suppose he'll call that
coming safely out of a nose dive, eh?"

"Or side-slippin' into success," says I. "I think you've picked another
winner, Mr. Ellins."

"Huh!" he grunts. "You mean you think you helped me do it. But I want
you to understand, young man, that I learned to be tolerant of other
people's failings long before you were born. Toleration. It's the
keystone of every big career. I've practiced it, too, except--well,
except after a bad night."

And then, seein' that rare flicker in Old Hickory's eyes, I gives him
the grin. Oh, sure you can. It's all in knowin' when.



CHAPTER X

'IKKY-BOY COMES ALONG


Being a parent grows on you, don't it? Course, at first, when it's
sprung on you so kind of sudden, you hardly know how to act. That is, if
you're makin' your debut in the part. And I expect for a few months
there, after young Richard Hemmingway Ballard came and settled down with
Vee and me, I put up kind of a ragged amateur performance as a fond
father. All I can say about it now is I hope I didn't look as foolish as
I felt.

As for Vee, she seemed to get her lines and business perfect from the
start. Somehow young mothers do. She knew how to handle the youngster
right off; how to hold him and what to say to him when he screwed up his
face and made remarks to her that meant nothing at all to me. And she
wasn't fussed or anything when company came in and caught her at it.
Also young Master Richard seemed to be right at home from the very
first. Didn't seem surprised or strange or nervous in the presence of
a pair of parents that he found wished on him without much warnin'. Just
gazed at us as calm and matter-of-fact as if he'd known us a long time.
While me, well it must have been weeks before I got over feelin' kind of
panicky whenever I was left alone with him.

But are we acquainted now? I'll say we are. In fact, as Harry Lander
used to put it, vurra well acquainted. Chummy, I might say. Why not,
after we've stood two years of each other without any serious dispute?
Not that I'm claimin' any long-distance record as a model parent. No. I
expect I do most of the things I shouldn't and only a few of them that I
should. But 'Ikky-boy ain't a critical youngster. That's his own way of
sayin' his name and mostly we call him that. Course, he answers to
others, too; such as Old Scout, and Snoodlekins, and young Rough-houser.
I mean, he does when he ain't too busy with important enterprises; such
as haulin' Buddy, the Airedale pup, around by the ears; or spoonin' in
milk and cereal, with Buddy watchin' hopeful for sideslips; or pullin'
out the spool drawer of Vee's work table.

It's been hinted to us by thoughtful friends who have all the scientific
dope on bringin' up children, although most of 'em never had any of
their own, that this is all wrong. Accordin' to them we ought to start
right in makin' him drop whatever he's doin' and come to us the minute
we call. Maybe we should, too. But that ain't the way it works out, for
generally, we don't want anything special, and he seems so wrapped up in
his private little affairs that it don't seem worth while breakin' in
on his program. Course, maulin' Buddy around may seem to us like a
frivolous pastime, but how can you tell if it ain't the serious business
in life to 'Ikky-boy just then? Besides, Buddy seems to like it. So as a
rule we let 'em finish the game.

But there is one time each day when he's always ready to quit any kind
of fun and come toddlin' with his hands stretched out and a wide grin on
his chubby little face. That's along about 6:15 when I blow in from
town. Then he's right there with the merry greetin' and the friendly
motions. Also his way of addressin' his male parent would give another
jolt to a lot of people, I suppose.

"Hi, Torchy!" That's his favorite hail.

"Reddy yourself, you young freshy," I'm apt to come back at him.

Followin' which I scooch to meet his flyin' tackle and we roll on the
rug in a clinch, with Buddy yappin' delighted and mixin' in
promiscuously. Finally we end up on the big davenport in front of the
fireplace and indulge in a few minutes of lively chat.

"Well, 'Ikky-boy, how you and Buddy been behavin' yourselves, eh?" I'll
ask. "Which has been the worst cut-up today, eh?"

"Buddy bad dog," he'll say, battin' him over the head with a pink fist.
"See?" And he'll exhibit a tear in his rompers or a chewed sleeve.

"Huh! I'll bet it's been fifty-fifty, you young rough-houser," I'll
say. "Who do you like best around this joint, anyway?"

"Buddy," is always the answer.

"And next?" I'll demand.

"Mamma," he'll say.

"Hey, where do I come in?" I'll ask, shakin' him.

Then he'll screw up his mouth mischievous and say: "Torchy come in door.
Torchy, Torchy!"

I'll admit Vee ain't so strong for all this. His callin' me Torchy, I
mean. She does her best, too, to get him to change it to Daddy. But that
word don't seem to be on 'Ikky-boy's list at all. He picked up the
Torchy all by himself and he seems to want to stick to it. I don't mind.
Maybe it ain't just the thing for a son and heir to spring on a
perfectly good father, chucklin' over it besides, but it sounds quite
all right to me. Don't hurt my sense of dignity a bit.

And it looks like he'll soon come to be called young Torchy himself.
Uh-huh. For a while there Vee was sure his first crop of hair, which was
wheat colored like hers, was goin' to be the color scheme of his
permanent thatch. But when the second growth begun to show up red she
had to revise her forecast. Now there's no doubt of his achievin' a
pink-plus set of wavy locks that'll make a fresh-painted fire hydrant
look faded. They're gettin' brighter and brighter and I expect in time
they'll show the same new copper kettle tints that mine do.

"I don't care," says Vee "I rather like it."

"That's the brave talk, Vee!" says I. "It may be all he'll inherit from
me, but it ain't so worse at that. With that hair in evidence there
won't be much danger of his being lost in a crowd. Folks will remember
him after one good look. Besides, it's always sort of cheerin' on a
rainy day. He'll be able to brighten up the corner where he is without
any dope from Billy Sunday. Course, he'll be joshed a lot about it, but
that'll mean he'll either have to be a good scrapper or develop an
easy-grin disposition, so he wins both ways."

The only really disappointed member of the fam'ly is Vee's Auntie. Last
time she was out here she notices the change in 'Ikky-boy's curls and
sighs over it.

"I had hoped," says she, "that the little fellow's hair would be--well,
of a different shade."

"Sort of a limousine body-black, eh?" says I. "Funny it ain't, too."

"But he will be so--so conspicuous," she goes on.

"There are advantages," says I, "in carryin' your own spotlight with
you. Now take me."

But Auntie only sniffs and changes the subject.

She's a grand old girl, though. A little hard to please, I'll admit.
I've been at it quite some time, but it's only now and then I can do
anything that seems to strike her just right. Mostly she disapproves of
me, and she's the kind that ain't a bit backward about lettin' you know.
Her remarks here the other day when she arrives to help celebrate Master
Richard's second birthday will give you an idea.

You see, she happens to be in the living room when me and 'Ikky-boy has
our reg'lar afternoon reunion. Might be we went at it a little stronger
and rougher than usual, on account of the youngster's havin' been held
quiet in her lap for a half hour or so.

"Hi, hi, ol' Torchy, Torchy!" he shouts, grippin' both hands into my
hair gleeful.

"Burny burn!" says I makin' a hissin' noise.

"Yah, yah! 'Ikky-boy wanna ride hossy," says he.

"And me with my trousers just pressed!" says I. "Say, where do you get
that stuff?"

"I must say," comes in Auntie, "that I don't consider that the proper
way to talk to a child."

"Oh, he don't mind," says I.

"But he is so apt to learn such expressions and use them himself," says
she.

"Yes, he picks up a lot," says I. "He's clever that way. Aren't you, you
young tarrier?"

"Whe-e-e!" says 'Ikky-boy, slidin' off my knee to make a dive at Buddy
and roll him on the floor.

"One should speak gently to a child," says Auntie, "and use only the
best English."

"I might be polite to him," says I, "if he'd be polite to me, but that
don't seem to be his line."

Auntie shrugs her shoulders and gives us up as hopeless. We're in bad
with her, both of us, and I expect if there'd been a lawyer handy she'd
revised her will on the spot. Honest, it's lucky the times she's decided
to cross me off as one of her heirs don't show on me anywhere or I'd be
notched up like a yardstick, and if I'd done any worryin' over these
spells of hers I'd be an albino from the ears up. But when she starts
castin' the cold eye at Richard Hemmingway I almost works up that guilty
feelin' and wonders if maybe I ain't some to blame.

"You ain't overlookin, the fact, are you, Auntie," I suggests, "that
he's about 100 per cent. boy? He's full of pep and jump and go, same as
Buddy, and he's just naturally got to let it out."

"I fail to see," says Auntie, "how teaching him to use slang is at all
necessary. As you know, that is something of which I distinctly
disapprove."

"Now that you remind me," says I, "seems I have heard you say something
of the kind before. And take it from me I'm going to make a stab at
trainin' him different. Right now. Richard, approach your father."

'Ikky-boy lets loose of Buddy's collar and stares at me impish.

"Young man," says I severe, "I want you to lay off that slang stuff.
Ditch it. It ain't lady like or refined. And in future when you converse
with your parents see that you do it respectful and proper. Get me?"

At which 'Ikky-boy looks bored. "Whee!" he remarks boisterous, makin' a
grab for Buddy's stubby tail and missin' it.

"Perfectly absurd!" snorts Auntie, retirin' haughty to the bay window.

"Disqualified!" says I, under my breath. "Might as well go the limit,
Snoodlekins. We'll have to grow up in our own crude way."

That was the state of affairs when this Mrs. Proctor Butt comes crashin'
in on the scene of our strained domestic relations. Trust her to appear
at just the wrong time. Mrs. Buttinski I call her, and she lives up to
the name.

She's a dumpy built blond party, Mrs. Proctor Butt, with projectin'
front teeth, bulgy blue eyes and a hurried, trottin' walk like a duck
makin' for a pond. Her chief aim in life seems to be to be better posted
on your affairs than you are yourself, and, of course, that keeps her
reasonably busy. Also she's a lady gusher from Gushville. Now, I don't
object to havin' a conversational gum drop tossed at me once in a while,
sort of offhand and casual. But that ain't Mrs. Buttinski's method. She
feeds you raw molasses with a mixin' spoon. Just smears you with it.

"Isn't it perfectly wonderful," says she, waddlin' in fussy, "that your
dear darling little son should be two years old? Do you know, Mrs.
Robert Ellins just told me of what an important day it was in the lives
of you two charming young people, so I came right over to congratulate
you. And here I discover you all together in your beautiful little home,
proud father and all. How fortunate!"

As she's beamin' straight at me I has to give her some comeback. "Yes,
you're lucky, all right," says I. "Another minute and you wouldn't found
me here, for I was just----"

Which is where I gets a frown and a back-up signal from Vee. She don't
like Mrs. Proctor Butt a bit more'n I do but she ain't so frank about
lettin' her know it.

"Oh, please don't run away," begs Mrs. Butt. "You make such an ideal
young couple. As I tell Mr. Butt, I just can't keep my eyes off you two
whenever I see you out together."

"I'm sure that's nice of you to say so," says Vee, blushin'.

"Oh, every one thinks the same of you, my dear," says the lady. "Only I
simply can't keep such things to myself. I have such an impulsive
nature. And I adore young people and children, positively adore them.
And now where is the darling little baby that I haven't seen for months
and months? You'll forgive my running in at this unseasonable hour, I
know, but I just couldn't wait another day to--oh, there he is, the
darling cherub! And isn't that a picture for an artist?"

He'd have to be some rapid-fire paint slinger if he was to use 'Ikky-boy
as a model just then for him and Buddy was havin' a free-for-all mix-up
behind the davenport that nothing short of a movie camera would have
done justice to.

"Oh, you darling little fellow!" she gurgles on. "I must hold you in my
arms just a moment. Please, mother mayn't I?"

"I--I'm afraid you would find him rather a lively armful just now,"
warns Vee. "You see, when he gets to playing with Buddy he's apt to----"

"Oh, I sha'n't mind a bit," says Mrs. Butt. "Besides, the little dears
always seem to take to me. Do let me have him for a moment?"

"You get him, Torchy," says Vee.

So after more or less maneuverin' I untangles the two, shuts Buddy in
another room, and deposits 'Ikky-boy, still kickin' and strugglin'
indignant, in whatever lap Mrs. Butt has to offer.

Then she proceeds to rave over him. It's enough to make you seasick.
Positively. "Oh, what exquisite silky curls of spun gold!" she gushes.
"And such heavenly big blue eyes with the long lashes, and his 'ittle
rosebud mousie. O-o-o-o-o!"

From that on all she spouts is baby talk, while she mauls and paws him
around like he was a sack of meal. I couldn't help glancin' at Auntie,
for that's one thing she and Vee have agreed on, that strangers wasn't
to be allowed to take any such liberties with baby. Besides, Auntie
never did have any use for this Mrs. Butt anyway and hardly speaks to
her civil when she meets her. Now Auntie is squirmin' in her chair and I
can guess how her fingers are itchin' to rescue the youngster.

"Um precious 'ittle sweetums, ain't oo?" gurgles Mrs. Butt, rootin' him
in the stomach with her nose. "Won't um let me tiss um's tweet 'ittle
pinky winky toes?"

She's just tryin' to haul off one of his shoes when 'Ikky-boy cuts loose
with the rough motions, fists and feet both in action, until she has to
straighten up to save her hat and her hair.

"Dess one 'ittle toe-tiss?" she begs.

"Say," demands 'Ikky-boy, pushin' her face away fretful, "where oo get
'at stuff?"

"Wha-a-at?" gasps Mrs. Butt.

"Lay off 'at, tant you?" says he "Oo--oo give 'Ikky-boy a big pain, Oo
does. G'way!"

"Why, how rude!" says Mrs. Butt, gazin' around bewildered; and then, as
she spots that approvin' smile on Auntie's face, she turns red in the
ears.

Say, I don't know when I've seen the old girl look so tickled over
anything. What she's worked up is almost a grin. And there's no doubt
that Mrs. Butt knows why it's there.

"Of course," says she, "if you approve of such language----" and handin'
the youngster over to Vee she straightens her lid and makes a quick
exit.

"Bing!" says I. "I guess we got a slap on the wrist that time."

"I don't care a bit," says Vee, holdin' her chin well up. "She had no
business mauling baby in that fashion."

"I ain't worryin' if she never comes back," says I, "only I'd just
promised Auntie to train 'Ikky-boy to talk different and----"

"Under similar provocation," says Auntie, "I might use the same
expressions--if I knew how."

"Hip, hip, for Auntie!" I sings out. "And as for your not knowin' how,
that's easy fixed. 'Ikky-boy and I will give you lessons."

And say, after he'd finished his play and was about ready to be tucked
into his crib, what does the young jollier do but climb up in Auntie's
lap and cuddle down folksy, all on his own motion.

"Do you like your old Auntie, Richard?" she asks, smoothin' his red
curls gentle.

"Uh-huh," says 'Ikky-boy, blinkin' up at her mushy. "Oo's a swell
Auntie."

Are we back in the will again? I'll guess we are.



CHAPTER XI

LOUISE REVERSES THE CLOCK


It was one of Mr. Robert's cute little ideas, you might know. He's an
easy boss in a good many ways and I have still to run across a job that
I'd swap mine for, the pay envelopes being fifty-fifty. But say, when it
comes to usin' a private sec. free and careless he sure is an ace of
aces.

Maybe you don't remember, but I almost picked out his wife for him, and
when she'd set the date he turns over all the rest of the details to me,
even to providin' a minister and arrangin' his bridal tour. Honest I
expect when the time comes for him to step up and be measured for a set
of wings and a halo he'll look around for me to hold his place in the
line until his turn comes. And he won't be quite satisfied with the
arrangements unless I'm on hand.

So I ought to be prepared for 'most any old assignment to be hung on the
hook. I must say, though, that in the case of this domestic mix-up of
Mrs. Bruce Mackey's I was caught gawpin' on and unsuspectin'. In fact, I
was smotherin' a mild snicker at the situation, not dreamin' that I'd
ever get any nearer to it than you would to some fool movie plot you
might be watchin' worked out on the screen.

We happens to crash right into the middle of it, Vee and me, when we
drops in for our usual Sunday afternoon call on the Ellinses and finds
these week-end guests of theirs puttin' it up to Mr. and Mrs. Robert to
tell 'em what they ought to do. Course, this Mrs. Mackey is an old
friend of Mrs. Robert's and we'd seen 'em both out there before; in
fact, we'd met 'em when she was Mrs. Richard Harrington and Bruce was
just a sympathetic bachelor sort of danglin' around and makin' himself
useful. So it wasn't quite as if they'd sprung the thing on total
strangers.

And, anyway, it don't rate very rank as a scandal. Not as scandals run.
This No. 1 hubby, Harrington, had simply got what was coming to him,
only a little late. Never was cut out to play the lead in a quiet
domestic sketch. Not with his temperament and habits. Hardly. Besides,
he was well along in his sporty career when he discovered this
19-year-old pippin with the trustin' blue eyes and the fascinatin' cheek
dimples. But you can't tell a bad egg just by glancin' at the shell, and
she didn't stop to hold him in front of a candle. Lucky for the
suspender wearin' sex there ain't any such pre-nuptial test as that, eh?
She simply tucked her head down just above the top pearl stud, I
suppose, and said she would be his'n without inquirin' if that cocktail
breath of his was a regular thing or just an accident.

But she wasn't long in findin' out that it was chronic. Oh yes. He
wasn't known along Broadway as Dick Harry for nothing. He might be more
or less of a success as a corporation lawyer between 10:30 and 5 p. m.
in the daytime, but after the shades of night was well tied down and the
cabarets begun takin' the lid off he was apt to be missin' from the
fam'ly fireside. Wine, women and the deuces wild was his specialties,
and when little wifie tried to read the riot act to him at 3 a. m. he
just naturally told her where she got off. And on occasions, when the
deuces hadn't been runnin' his way, or the night had been wilder than
usual, he was quite rough about it.

Yet she'd stood for that sort of thing nine long years before applyin'
for a decree. She got it, of course, with the custody of the little girl
and a moderate alimony allowance. He didn't even file an answer, so it
was all done quiet with no stories in the newspapers. And then for eight
or ten years she'd lived by herself, just devotin' all her time to
little Polly, sendin' her to school, chummin' with her durin' vacations,
and tryin' to make her forget that she had a daddy in the discards.

Must have been several tender-hearted male parties who was sorry for a
lonely grass widow who was a perfect 36 and showed dimples when she
laughed, but none of 'em seemed to have the stayin' qualities of Bruce
Mackey. He had a little the edge on the others, too, because he was an
old fam'ly friend, havin' known Dick Harry both before and after he got
the domestic dump. At that, though, he didn't win out until he'd almost
broken the long distance record as a patient waiter, and I understand it
was only when little Miss Polly got old enough to hint to Mommer that
Uncle Bruce would suit her first rate as a stepdaddy that the match was
finally pulled off.

And now Polly, who's barely finished at boardin' school, has announced
that she intends to get married herself. Mommer has begged her weepy not
to take the high dive so young, and pointed out where she made her own
big mistake in that line. But Polly comes back at her by declarin' that
her Billy is a nice boy. There's no denyin' that. Young Mr. Curtis seems
to be as good as they come. He'd missed out on his last year at college,
but he'd spent it in an aviation camp and he was just workin' up quite a
rep. as pilot of a bombin' plane when the closed season on Hun towns was
declared one eleventh of November. Then he'd come back modest to help
his father run the zinc and tinplate trust, or something like that, and
was payin' strict attention to business until he met Polly at a football
game. After that he had only one aim in life, which was leadin' Polly up
the middle aisle with the organ playin' that breath of Eden piece.

Well, what was a fond mommer to do in a case like that? Polly admits
being a young person, but she insists that she knows what she wants. And
one really couldn't find any fault with Billy. She had had Bruce look up
his record and, barrin' a few little 9 a. m. police court dates made for
him by grouchy traffic cops, it was as clean as a new shirt front. True,
he had been born in Brooklyn, but his family had moved to Madison Avenue
before he was old enough to feel the effects.

So at last Mrs. Mackey had given in. Things had gone so far as settlin'
the date for the weddin'. It was to be some whale of an affair, too, for
both the young folks had a lot of friends and on the Curtis side
especially there was a big callin' list to get invitations. Nothing but
a good-sized church would hold 'em all.

Which was where Bruce Mackey, usually a mild sort of party and kind of
retirin', had come forward with the balky behavior.

"What do you think?" says Mrs. Bruce. "He says he won't go near the
church."

"Eh?" demands Mr. Robert, turnin' to him. "What do you mean by that,
Bruce?"

Mr. Mackey shakes his head stubborn. "Think I can stand up there before
a thousand or more people and give Polly away?" says he. "No. I--I
simply can't do it."

"But why not?" insists Mrs. Robert.

"Well, she isn't my daughter," says he, "and it isn't my place to be
there. Dick should do it."

"But don't you see, Bruce," protests Mrs. Mackey, "that if he did I--I
should have to--to meet him again?"

"What of it?" says Bruce. "It isn't likely he'd beat you in church. And
as he is Polly's father he ought to be the one to give her away. That's
only right and proper, as I see it."

And there was no arguin' him out of that notion. He came from an old
Scotch Presbyterian family. Bruce Mackey did, and while he was easy
goin' about most things now and then he'd bob up with some hard-shell
ideas like this. Principles, he called 'em. Couldn't get away from 'em.

"But just think, Bruce," goes on Mrs. Mackey, "we haven't seen each
other for ever so many years. I--I wouldn't like it at all."

"Hope you wouldn't," says Bruce. "But I see no other way. You ought to
go to the church with him, and he ought to bring you home afterwards. He
needn't stay for the reception unless he wants to. But as Polly's
father----"

"Oh, don't go over all that again," she breaks in. "I suppose I must do
it. That is, if he's willing. I'll write him and ask if he is."

"No," says Bruce. "I don't think you ought to write. This is such a
personal matter and a letter might seem--well, too formal."

"What shall I do, then?" demands Mrs. Mackey. "Telephone?"

"I hardly think one should telephone a message of that sort," says
Bruce. "Someone ought to see him, explain the situation, and get his
reply directly."

"Then you go, Bruce, dear," suggests Mrs. Mackey.

No, he shies at that. "Dick would resent my coming on such an errand,"
says Bruce. "Besides, I should feel obliged to urge him that it was his
duty to go, and if he feels inclined to refuse---- Well, of course, we
have done our part."

"Then you rather hope he'll refuse to come?" she asks.

"I don't allow myself to think any such thing," says Bruce. "It wouldn't
be right. But if he should decide not to it would be rather a relief,
wouldn't it? In that ease I suppose I should be obliged to act in his
stead. He ought to be asked, though."

Mr. Robert chuckles. "I wish I had an acrobatic conscience such as
yours, Bruce," says he. "I could amuse myself for hours watching it turn
flip-flops."

"Too bad yours died so young," Bruce raps back at him.

"Oh, I don't know," says Mr. Robert. "There are compensations. I don't
grow dizzy trying to follow it when it gets frisky. To get back to the
main argument, however; just how do you think the news should be broken
to Dick Harrington?"

"Someone ought to go to see him," says Bruce; "a--a person who could
state the circumstances fairly and sound him out to see how he felt
about it. You know? Someone who would--er----"

"Do the job like a Turkish diplomat inviting an Armenian revolutionist
to come and dine with him in some secluded mosque at daybreak, eh?" asks
Mr. Robert. "Polite, but not insistent, I suppose?"

"Oh, something like that," says Bruce.

"He's right here," says Mr. Robert.

"I beg pardon?" says Bruce, starin'.

"Torchy," says Mr. Robert. "He'll do it with finesse and finish, and if
there's any way of getting Dick to hang back by pretending to push him
ahead our young friend who cerebrates in high speed will discover the
same."

"Ah, come, Mr. Robert!" says I.

"Oh, we shall demand no miracles," says he. "But you understand the
situation. Mr. Mackey's conscience is on the rampage and he's making
this sacrifice as a peace offering. If the altar fires consume it,
that's his look out. You get me, I presume?"

"Oh, sure!" says I. "Sayin' a piece, wasn't you?"

Just the same, I'm started out at 2:30 Monday afternoon to interview Mr.
Dick Harrington on something intimate and personal. Mr. Robert has been
'phonin' his law offices and found that Mr. Harrington can probably be
located best up in the Empire Theatre building, where they're havin' a
rehearsal of a new musical show that he's interested in financially.

"With a sentimental interest, no doubt, in some sweet young thing who
dances or sings, or thinks she does," comments Mr. Robert. "Anyway, look
him up."

And by pushin' through a lot of doors that had "Keep Out" signs on 'em,
and givin' the quick back up to a few fresh office boys, I trails Mr.
Dick Harrington into the dark front of a theatre where he's sittin' with
the producer and four of the seven authors of the piece watchin' a stage
full of more or less young ladies in street clothes who are listenin'
sort of bored while a bald-headed party in his shirt sleeves asks 'em
for the love of Mike can't they move a little less like they was all
spavined.

Don't strike me as just the place to ask a man will he stand up in
church and help his daughter get married, but I had my orders. I slips
into a seat back of him, taps him on the shoulder, and whispers how I
have a message for him from his wife as was.

"From Louise?" says he. "The devil you say!"

"I could put it better," I suggests, "if we could find a place where
there wasn't quite so much competition."

"Very well," says he. "Let's go back to the office. And by the way,
Marston, when you get to that song of Mabel's hold it until I'm through
with this young man."

And when he's towed me to the manager's sanctum he demands: "Well,
what's gone wrong with Louise?"

"Nothing much," says I, "except that Miss Polly is plannin' to be
married soon."

"Married!" he gasps. "Polly? Why, she's only a child!"

"Not at half past nineteen," says I. "I should call her considerable
young lady."

"Well, I'll be blanked!" says he. "Little Polly grown up and wanting to
be married! She ought to be spanked instead. What are they after; my
consent, eh?"

"Oh, no," says I. "It's all settled. Twenty-fifth of next month at St.
Luke's. You're cast for the giving away act."

"Wh-a-at?" says he, his heavy under jaw saggin' astonished. "Me?"

"Fathers usually do," says I, "when they're handy."

"And in good standing," he adds. "You--er--know the circumstances, I
presume?"

"Uh-huh," says I. "Don't seem to make any difference to them, though.
They've got you down for the part. Church weddin', you know; big mob,
swell affair. I expect that's why they think everything ought to be
accordin' to Hoyle."

"Just a moment, young man," says he, breathin' a bit heavy. "I--I
confess this is all rather disturbing."

It was easy to see that. He's fumblin' nervous with a gold cigarette
case and his hand trembles so he can hardly hold a match. Maybe some of
that was due to his long record as a whiteway rounder. The puffy bags
under the eyes and the deep face lines couldn't have been worked up
sudden, though.

"Can you guess how long it has been since I have appeared in a church?"
he goes on. "Not since Louise and I were married. And I imagine I wasn't
a particularly appropriate figure to be there even then. I fear I've
changed some, too. Frankly now, young man, how do you think I would look
before the altar?"

"Oh, I'm no judge," says I. "And I expect that with a clean shave and in
a frock coat----"

"No," he breaks in, "I can't see myself doing it. Not before all that
mob. How many guests did you say?"

"Only a thousand or so," says I.

He shudders. "How nice!" says he. "I can hear 'em whispering to each
other: 'Yes that's her father--Dick Harry, you know. She divorced him,
and they say----' No, no, I--I couldn't do it. You tell Louise that----
Oh, by the way! What about her? She must have changed, too. Rather stout
by this time, I suppose?"

"I shouldn't say so," says I. "Course I don't know what she used to be,
but I'd call her more or less classy."

"But she is--let me see--almost forty," he insists.

"You don't mean it?" says I, openin' my mouth to register surprise. This
looked like a good line to me and I thought I'd push it. "Course," I
goes on, "with a daughter old enough to wear orange blossoms, I might
have figured that for myself. But I'll be hanged if she looks it. Why,
lots of folks take her and Polly for sisters."

He's eatin' that up, you can see. "Hm-m-m!" says he, rubbin' his chin.
"I suppose I would be expected to--er--meet her there?"

"I believe the program is for you to take her to the church and bring
her back for the reception," says I. "Yes, you'd have a chance for quite
a reunion."

"I wonder how it would seem, talking to Louise again," says he.

"Might be a little awkward at first," says I, "but----"

"Do you know," he breaks in, "I believe I should like it. If you think
she's good looking now, young man, you should have seen her at 19, at
22, or at 25. What an ass I was! And now I suppose she's like a full
blown rose, perfect, exquisite?"

"Oh, I don't mean she's any ravin' beauty," says I, hedgin'.

"You don't, eh?" says he. "Well, I'd just like to see. You may tell her
that I will----No, I'll 'phone her myself. Where is she?"

And all the stallin' around I could do didn't jar him away from that
idea. He seems to have forgotten all about this Mabel person who was
going to sing. He wanted to call up Louise right away. And he did.

So I don't have any chesty bulletin to hand Mr. Robert when I gets back.

"Well?" says he. "Did you induce him to give the right answer?"

"Almost," says I. "Had him panicky inside of three minutes."

"And then?" asks Mr. Robert.

"I overdid the act," says I. "Talked too much. He's coming."

Mr. Robert shrugs his shoulders. "Serves Bruce right," says he. "I
wonder, though, how Louise will take it."

For a couple of days she took it hard. Just talking over the 'phone with
Dick Harrington left her weak and nervous. Said she couldn't sleep all
that night for thinking what it would be like to meet an ex-hubby that
she hadn't seen for so long. She tried to picture how he would look, and
how she would look to him. Then she braced up.

"If I must go through it," she confides to Mrs. Robert, "I mean to look
my best."

Isn't that the female instinct for you?

As a matter of fact I'd kind of thrown it into him a bit strong about
what a stunner she was. Oh, kind of nice lookin', fair figure, and
traces of a peaches and cream complexion. There was still quite a high
voltage sparkle in the trustin' blue eyes and the cheek dimples was
still doin' business. But she was carryin' more or less excess weight
for her height and there was the beginnings of a double chin. Besides,
she always dressed quiet and sort of matronly.

From the remarks I heard Vee make, though, just before the weddin', I
judge that Louise intended to go the limit. While she was outfittin'
Polly with the snappiest stuff to be found in the Fifth Avenue shops she
picked some for herself. I understand, too, that she was makin' reg'lar
trips to a beauty parlor, and all that.

"How foolish!" I says to Vee. "I hope when you get to be forty you won't
try to buy your way back to 25. It simply can't be done."

"Really?" says Vee, givin' me one of them quizzin' looks.

And, say, that's my last stab at givin' off the wise stuff about the
nose powderin' sex. Pos-itively. For I've seen Louise turn the clock
back. Uh-huh! I can't tell how it was done, or go into details of the
results, but when she sails into that front pew on the big day, with
Dick Harrington trailin' behind, I takes one glance at her and goes
bug-eyed. Was she a stunner? I'll gurgle so. What had become of that
extra 20 pounds I wouldn't even try to guess. But she's right there with
the svelte figure, the school girly flush, and the sparklin' eyes.
Maybe it was the way the gown was built. Fits like the peel on a banana.
Or the pert way she holds her head, or the general excitement of the
occasion. Anyway, mighty few 20-year-old screen favorites would have had
anything on her.

As for Dick Harry--Well, he's spruced up quite a bit himself, but you'd
never mistake him for anything but an old rounder who's had a clean
shave and a face massage. And he just can't seem to see anything but
Louise. Even when he has to leave and join the bridal procession his
eyes wander back to that front pew where she was waitin'. And after it's
all over I sees him watchin' her fascinated while she chatters along
lively.

I wasn't lookin' to get his verdict at all, but later on, as I'm makin'
myself useful at the reception, I runs across him just as he's slippin'
away.

"I say, young man," says he, grabbin' me by the elbow. "Wasn't I right
about Louise?"

"You had the dope," says I. "Some queen, even if she is near the forty
mark."

"And only imagine," he adds, "within a year or so she may be a
grandmother!"

"That don't count these days," says I. "It's gettin' so you can hardly
tell the grandmothers from the vamps."

And when I said that I expect I unloaded my whole stock of wisdom about
women.



CHAPTER XII

WHEN THE CURB GOT GYPPED


It was what you might call a session of the big four. Anyway, that's the
way I'd put it; for besides Old Hickory, planted solid in his mahogany
swing chair with his face lookin' more'n ever like a two-tone cut of the
Rock of Gibraltar, there was Mr. Robert, and Piddie and me. Some
aggregation, I'll say. And it didn't need any jiggly message from the
ouija board to tell that something important in the affairs of the
Corrugated Trust might happen within the next few minutes. You could
almost feel it in the air. Piddie did. You could see that by the nervous
way he was twitchin' his lips.

Course it was natural the big boss should turn first to me. "Torchy," he
growls, "shut that door."

And as I steps around to close the only exit from the private office I
could watch Piddie's face turn the color of a piece of cheese. Mr.
Robert looks kind of serious, too.

"Gentlemen," goes on Old Hickory, tossin' the last three inches of a
double Corona reckless into a copper bowl, "there's a leak somewhere in
this office."

That gets a muffled gasp out of Piddie which puts him under the
spotlight at once, and when he finds we're all lookin' at him he goes
through all the motions of a cabaret patron tryin' to sneak past one of
Mr. Palmer's agents with something on the hip. If he'd been caught in
the act of borin' into the bond safe he couldn't have looked any
guiltier.

"I--er--I assure you, Mr. Ellins," he begins spluttery, "that
I--ah--I----"

"Bah!" snorts Old Hickory impatient. "Who is implying that you do? If
you were under suspicion in the least you wouldn't have been called in
here, Mr. Piddie. So your panic is quite unnecessary."

"Of course," puts in Mr. Robert. "Don't be absurd, Piddie. Anything new
this morning, Governor?"

"Rather," says Old Hickory, pointin' to a Wall Street daily that has
broke loose on its front page with a three-column headline. "See what
the Curb crowd did to G. L. T. common yesterday? Traded nearly one
hundred thousand shares and hammered the opening quotations for a
twenty-point loss. All on a rumor of a passed dividend. Well, you know
that at three o'clock the day before we tabled a motion to pass that
dividend and that an hour later, with a full board present, we decided
to pay the regular four per cent semi-annual. But the announcement was
not to be made until next Monday. Yet during that hour someone from
this office must have carried out news of that first motion. True, it
was a false tip; but I propose, gentlemen, to find out where that leak
came from."

There's only one bet I'd be willin' to make on a proposition of that
kind. If Old Hickory had set himself to trail down anything he'd do it.
And we'd have to help.

Course, this Great Lakes Transportation is only one of our side lines
that we carry on a separate set of books just to please the Attorney
General. And compared to other submerged subsidiaries, as Mr. Robert
calls 'em, it don't amount to much. But why its outstanding stock should
be booted around Broad Street was an interestin' question. Also who the
party was that was handin' out advance dope on such confidential details
as board meetin' motions--Well, that was more so. Next time it might be
a tip on something important. Mr. Robert suggests this.

"There is to be no next time," says Old Hickory, settin' his jaw.

So we starts the drag-net. First we went over the directors who had been
present. Only five, includin' Old Hickory and Mr. Robert. And of the
other three there was two that it would have been foolish to ask.
Close-mouthed as sea clams after being shipped to Kansas City. The third
was Oggie Kendall, a club friend of Mr. Robert's, who'd been dragged
down from luncheon to make up a quorum.

"Oggie might have chattered something through sheer carelessness," says
Mr. Robert. "I'll see if I can get him on the 'phone."

He could. But it takes Mr. Robert nearly five minutes to explain to
Oggie what he's being queried about. Finally he gives it up.

"Oh, never mind," says he, hangin' up. Then, turnin' to us, he shrugs
his shoulders. "It wasn't Oggie. Why, he doesn't even know which board
he was acting on, and says he doesn't remember what we were talking
about. Thought it was some sort of committee meeting."

"Then that eliminates all but some member of the office staff," says Old
Hickory. "Torchy, you acted as secretary. Do you remember that anyone
came into the directors' room during our session?"

"Not a soul," says I.

"Except the boy Vincent," suggests Piddie.

"Ah, he wasn't in," says I. "Only came to the door with some telegrams;
I took 'em myself."

"But was not a letter sent to our Western manager," Piddie goes on,
"hinting that the G. L. T. dividend might be passed, and doesn't the boy
have access to the private letter book?"

"Carried it from my desk to the safe, that's all," says I.

"Still," insists Piddie, "that would give him time enough to look."

"Oh, sure!" says I. "And since he's been here he's had a chance to
snitch, off a barrel full of securities, or drop bombs down the elevator
well; but somehow he hasn't."

"Well, we might as well have him in," says Old Hickory, pushin' the
buzzer.

Seemed kind of silly to me, givin' fair-haired Vincent the third degree
on sketchy hunch like that. Vincent! Why, he's been with the Corrugated
four or five years, ever since they took me off the gate. And when he
went on the job he was about the most innocent-eyed office boy, I
expect, that you could find along Broadway. Reg'lar mommer's boy. Was
just that, in fact. Used to tell me how worried his mother was for fear
he'd get to smokin' cigarettes, or shootin' craps, or indulgin' in other
big-town vices. Havin' seen mother, I could well believe it. Nice,
refined old girl, still wearin' a widow's bonnet. Shows up occasionally
on a half-holiday and lets Vincent take her to the Metropolitan Museum,
or to a concert.

Course, Vincent hadn't stayed as green as when he first came. Couldn't.
For it's more or less of a liberal education, being on the gate in the
Corrugated General Offices, as I used to tell him. You simply gotta get
wise to things or you don't last. And Vincent has wised up. Oh, yes.

Why, here only this last week, for instance, he makes a few plays that I
couldn't have done any better myself. One was when I turns over to him
the job of gettin' Pullman reservations on the Florida Limited for
Freddie, the chump brother-in-law of Mr. Robert. Marjorie--that's the
sister--had complained how all she could get was uppers, although they'd
had an application in for six weeks. And as she and Freddie was taking
both youngsters and two maids along they were on the point of givin' up
the trip.

"Bah!" says Mr. Robert. "Freddie doesn't know how to do it, that's all.
We'll get your reservations for you."

So he passes it on to me, and as I'm too busy just then to monkey with
Pullman agents I shoots it on to Vincent. And inside of an hour he's
back with a drawin' room and a section.

"Have to buy somebody; eh, Vincent?" I asks.

"Oh, yes, sir," says he cheerful.

"Just how did you work it?" says I.

"Well," says Vincent, "there was the usual line, of course. And the
agent told three people ahead of me the same thing. 'Only uppers on the
Limited.' So when it came my turn I simply shoved a five through the
grill work and remarked casual: 'I believe you are holding a
drawing-room and a section for me, aren't you?' 'Why, yes,' says he.
'You're just in time, too.' And a couple of years ago he would have done
it for a dollar. Not now, though. It takes a five to pull a drawing-room
these days."

"A swell bunch of grafters Uncle Sam turned back when he let go of the
roads, eh?" says I.

"It's the same in the freight department," says Vincent. "You know that
carload of mill machinery that had been missing for so long? Well, last
week Mr. Robert sent me to the terminal offices for a report on their
tracer. I told him to let me try a ten on some assistant general freight
agent. It worked. He went right out with a switch engine and cut that
car out of the middle of a half-mile long train on a siding, and before
midnight it was being loaded on the steamer."

Also it was Vincent who did the rescue act when we was entertainin' that
bunch of government inspectors who come around once a year to see that
we ain't carryin' any wildcat stocks on our securities list, or haven't
scuttled our sinking fund, or anything like that. Course, our books are
always in such shape that they're welcome to paw 'em over all they like.
That's easy enough. But, still, there's no sense in lettin' 'em nose
around too free. Might dig up something they could ask awkward questions
about. So Old Hickory sees to it that them inspectors has a good time,
which means a suite of rooms at the Plutoria for a week, with dinners
and theatre parties every night. And now with this Volstead act being
pushed so hard it's kind of inconvenient gettin' a crowd of men into the
right frame of mind. Has to be done though, no matter what may have
happened to the constitution.

But this time it seems someone tip at the Ellins home had forgot to
transfer part of the private cellar stock down to the hotel and when Old
Hickory calls up here we has to chase Vincent out there and have him
load two heavy suitcases into a taxi and see that the same are delivered
without being touched by any bellhops or porters. Knew what he was
carryin', Vincent did, and the chance he was taking; but he put over the
act off hand, as if he was cartin' in a case of malted milk to a
foundling hospital. They do say it was some party Old Hickory gave 'em.

I expect if a lot of folks out in the church sociable belt knew of that
they'd put up a big howl. But what do they think? As I was tellin'
Vincent: "You can't run big business on grape juice." That is, not our
end of it. Oh, it's all right to keep the men in the plants down to one
and a half per cent stuff. Good for 'em. We got the statistics to prove
it. But when it comes to workin' up friendly relations with federal
agents you gotta uncork something with a kick to it. Uh-huh. What would
them Rubes have us do--say it with flowers? Or pass around silk socks,
or scented toilet soap?

And Vincent, for all his innocent big eyes and parlor manners, has come
to know the Corrugated way of doing things. Like a book. Yet when he
walks in there on the carpet in front of Old Hickory and the
cross-questionin' starts he answers up as straight and free as if he
was being asked to name the subway stations between Wall Street and the
Grand Central. You wouldn't think he'd ever gypped anybody in all his
young career.

Oh, yes, he'd known about the G. L. T. board meetin'. Surely. He'd been
sent up to Mr. Robert's club with the message for Oggie Kendall to come
down and do his director stunt. The private letter book? Yes, he
remembered putting that away in the safe. Had he taken a look at it? Why
should he? Vincent seems kind of hurt that anyone should suggest such a
thing. He stares at Old Hickory surprised and pained. Well, then, did he
happen to have any outside friends connected with the Curb; anybody that
he'd be apt to let slip little things about Corrugated affairs to?

"I should hope, sir, that if I did have such friends I would know enough
to keep business secrets to myself," says Vincent, his lips quiverin'
indignant.

"Yes, yes, to be sure," says Old Hickory, "but----"

Honest, he was almost on the point of apologizin' to Vincent when there
comes this knock on the private office door and I'm signalled to see who
it is. I finds one of the youths from the filin' room who's subbin' in
on the gate for Vincent. He grins and whispers the message and I
tells-him to stay there a minute.

"It's a lady to see you, Mr. Ellins," says I. "Mrs. Jerome St Claire."

"Eh?" grunts Old Hickory. "Mrs. St. Claire? Who the syncopated Sissyphus
is she?"

"Vincent's mother, sir," says I.

This time he lets out a snort like a freight startin' up a grade. "Well,
what does she want with----?" Here he breaks off and fixes them chilled
steel eyes of his on Vincent.

No wonder. The pink flush has faded out of Vincent's fair young cheeks,
his big blue eyes are rolled anxious at the door, and he seems to be
tryin' to swallow something like a hard-boiled egg.

"Your mother, eh?" says Old Hickory. "Perhaps we'd better have her in."

"Oh, no, sir! Please. I--I'd rather see her first," says Vincent choky.

"Would you?" says Old Hickory. "Sorry, son, but as I understand it she
has called to see me. Torchy, show the lady in."

I hated to do it, but there was no duckin'. Such a nice, modest little
old girl, too. She has the same innocent blue eyes as Vincent, traces of
the same pink flush in her cheeks, and her hair is frosted up genteel
and artistic.

She don't make any false motions, either. After one glance around the
group she picks out Old Hickory, makes straight for him, and grabs one
of his big paws in both hands.

"Mr. Ellins, is it not?" says she. "Please forgive my coming in like
this, but I did want to tell you how grateful I am for all that you
have done for dear Vincent and me. It was so generous and kind of you?"

"Ye-e-es?" says Old Hickory, sort of draggy and encouragin'.

"You see," she goes on, "I had been so worried over that dreadful
mortgage on our little home, and when Vincent came home last night with
that wonderful check and told me how you had helped him invest his
savings so wisely it seemed perfectly miraculous. Just think! Twelve
hundred dollars! Exactly what we needed to free our home from debt. I
know Vincent has told you how happy you have made us both, but I simply
could not resist adding my own poor words of gratitude."

She sure was a weak describer. Poor words! If she hadn't said a whole
mouthful then my ears are no good. Less'n a minute and a half by the
clock she'd been in there, but she certainly had decanted the beans. She
had me tinted up like a display of Soviet neckwear, Piddie gawpin' at
her with his face ajar, and Vincent diggin' his toes into the rug. Lucky
she had her eyes fixed on Old Hickory, whose hand-hewn face reveals just
as much emotion as if he was bettin' the limit on a four-card flush.

"It is always a great pleasure, madam, to be able to do things so
opportunely," says he; "and, I may add, unconsciously."

"But you cannot know," she rushes on, "how proud you have made me of my
dear boy." With that she turns to Vincent and kisses him impetuous. "He
does give promise of being a brilliant business man, doesn't he?" she
demands.

"Yes, madam," says Old Hickory, indulgin' in one of them grim smiles of
his, "I rather think he does."

"Ah-h-h!" says she. Another quick hug for Vincent, a happy smile tossed
at Old Hickory, and she has tripped out.

For a minute or so all you could hear in the private office was Piddie's
heart beatin' on his ribs, or maybe it was his knees knockin' together.
He hasn't the temperament to sit in on deep emotional scenes, Piddie. As
for Old Hickory, he clips the end off a six-inch brunette cigar, lights
up careful, and then turns slow to Vincent.

"Well, young man," says he, "so you did know about that motion to pass
the dividend, after all, eh!"

Vincent nods, his head still down.

"Took a look at the letter book, did you!" asks Old Hickory.

Another weak nod.

"And 'phoned a code message to someone in Broad Street, I suppose?"
suggests Old Hickory.

"No, sir," says Vincent. "He--he was waiting in the Arcade. I slipped
out and handed him a copy of the motion--as carried. But not until after
the full board had reversed it."

"Oh!" says Old Hickory. "Gave your friend the double cross, as I believe
you would state it?"

"He wasn't a friend," protests Vincent. "It was Izzy Goldheimer, who
used to work in the bond room before I came. He's with a Curb firm now
and has been trying for months to work me for tips on Corrugated
holdings. Promised me a percentage. But he was a welcher, and I knew it.
So when I did give him a tip it--it was that kind."

"Hm-m-m!" says Old Hickory, wrinklin' his bushy eyebrows. "Still, I fail
to see just where you would have time to take advantage of such
conditions."

"I had put up my margins on G. L. T. the day before," explains Vincent.
"Taking the short end, sir. If the dividend had gone through at first I
would have 'phoned in to change my trade to a buying order before Izzy
could get down with the news. As it didn't, I let it stand. Of course, I
knew the market would break next morning and I closed out the deal for a
15-point gain."

"Fairly clever manipulation," comments Old Hickory. "Then you cleared
about----"

"Fifteen hundred," says Vincent. "I could have made more by pyramiding,
but I thought it best to pull out while I was sure."

"What every plunger knows--but forgets," says Old Hickory. "And you
still have a capital of three hundred for future operations, eh?"

"I'm through, sir," says Vincent. '"I--I don't like lying to mother.
Besides after next Monday I don't think Izzy will bother me for any more
tips. I--I suppose I'm fired, sir?"

"Eh?" says Old Hickory, scowlin' at him fierce. "Fired? No. Boys who
have a dislike for lying to mother are too scarce. Besides, anyone who
can beat a curb broker at his own game ought to be valuable to the
Corrugated some day. Mr. Piddie, see that this young man is promoted as
soon as there's an opening. And--er--I believe that is all, gentlemen."

As me and Piddie trickle out into the general offices Piddie whispers
awed: "Wonderful man, Mr. Ellins! Wonderful!"

"How clever of you to find it out, Piddie," says I. "Did you get the
hunch from Vincent's mother?"



CHAPTER XIII

THE MANTLE OF SANDY THE GREAT


"Vincent," says I, as I blows in through the brass gate from lunch,
"who's the poddy old party you got parked on the bench out in the
anteroom?"

"He's waiting to see Mr. Ellins," says Vincent. "This is his third try.
Looks to me like some up-state stockholder who wants to know when
Corrugated common will strike 110."

"Well, that wouldn't be my guess exactly," says I. "What's the name?"

"Dowd," says Vincent, reachin' for a card. "Matthew K"

"Eh," says I. "Mesaba Matt. Dowd? Say, son, your guesser is way out of
gear. You ought to get better posted on the Order of Who-Who's."

"I'm sorry," says Vincent, pinkin' up in the ears. "Is--is he somebody
in particular?"

"Only one of the biggest iron ore men in the game," says I. "That is, he
was until he unloaded that Pittsburgh syndicate a few years ago. Also he
must be a special crony of Old Hickory's. Anyway, he was playin' around
with him down South last month. And here we let him warm a seat out in
the book-agent pen! Social error, Vincent."

"Stupid of me," admits Vincent. "I will--"

"Better let me soothe him down now," says I. "Then I'll get Old Hickory
on the 'phone and tell him who's here."

I will say that I did it in my best private sec. style, too, urgin' him
into the private office while I explains how the boy on the gate
couldn't have read the name right and assurin' him I'd get word to Mr.
Ellins at once.

"He's only having a conference with his attorneys," says I. "I think
he'll be up very, soon. Just a moment while I get him on the wire, Mr.
Dowd."

"Thank you, young man," says Matthew K. "I--I rather would like to see
Ellins today, if I could."

"Why, sure!" says I, easin' him into Old Hickory's swing chair.

But somehow when I'd slipped out to the 'phone booth and got in touch
with the boss he don't seem so anxious to rush up and meet his old side
kick. No. He's more or less calm about it.

"Eh?" says he. "Dowd? Oh, yes! Well, you just tell him, Torchy, that I'm
tied up here and can't say when I'll be through. He'd better not wait."

"Excuse me, Mr. Ellins," says I, "but he's been here twice before. Seems
to have something on his mind that--well, might be important, you
know."

"Yes, it might be," says Old Hickory, and I couldn't tell whether he
threw in a snort or a chuckle right there. "And since you think it is,
Torchy, perhaps you'd better get him to sketch it out to you."

"All right," says I. "That is, if he'll loosen up."

"Oh, I rather think he will," says Old Hickory.

It was a good guess. For when I tells Dowd how sorry Mr. Ellins is that
he can't come just then, and suggests that I've got power of attorney to
take care of anything confidential he might spill into my nigh ear, he
opens right up.

Course, what I'm lookin' for is some big business stuff; maybe a
straight tip on how this new shift in Europe is going to affect foreign
exchange, or a hunch as to what the administration means to put over in
regard to the railroad muddle. He's a solemn-faced, owl-eyed old party,
this Mesaba Matt. Looks like he was thinkin' wise and deep about weighty
matters. You know. One of these slow-movin', heavy-lidded,
double-chinned old pelicans who never mention any sum less than seven
figures. So I'm putting up a serious secretarial front myself when he
starts clearin' his throat.

"Young man," says he, "I suppose you know something about golf!"

"Eh?" says I. "Golf? Oh, yes. That is. I've seen it played some. I was
on a trip with Mr. Ellins down at Pinehurst, five or six years back,
when he broke into the game, and I read Grant Rice's dope on it more or
less reg'lar."

"But you haven't played golf yourself, have you?" he goes on.

"No," says I, "I've never indulged in the Scottish rite to any extent.
Just a few swipes with a club."

"Then I'm afraid," he begins, "that you will hardly----"

"Oh, I'm a great little understander," says I, "unless you mean to go
into the fine points, or ask me to settle which is the best course. I've
heard some of them golf addicts talk about Shawnee or Apawamis or
Ekwanok like--well, like Billy Sunday would talk about heaven. But I've
stretched a willing ear for Mr. Ellins often enough so I can----"

"I see," breaks in Dowd. "Possibly you will do. At any rate, I must tell
this to someone."

"I know," says I. "I've seen 'em like that. Shoot."

"As you are probably aware," says he, "Ellins was in Florida with me
last month. In fact, we played the same course together, day in and day
out, for four weeks. He was my partner in our foursome. Rather a helpful
partner at times, I must admit, although he hasn't been at the game long
enough to be a really experienced golfer. Fairly long off the tee, but
erratic with the brassie, and not all dependable when it came to short
iron work. However, as a rule we held them. Our opponents, I mean."

I nods like I'd taken it all in.

"A quartette of bogey hounds, I expect," says I.

Dowd shakes his head modest. No, he confesses that wasn't an exact
description of their ratin'. "We usually qualified, when we got in at
all," says he, "in the fourth flight for the Seniors' tournament. But as
a rule we did not attempt the general competitions. We stuck to our
daily foursome. Staples and Rutter were the other two. Rutter's in
steel, you know; Staples in copper. Seasoned golfers, both of them.
Especially Rutter. Claims to have turned in a card of 89 once at Short
Hills. That was years ago, of course, but he has never forgotten it.
Rather an irritating opponent, Rutter. Patronizing. Fond of telling you
what you did when you've dubbed a shot. And if he happens to win--" Dowd
shrugs his shoulders expressive.

"Chesty, eh?" says I.

"Extremely so," says Dowd. "Even though his own medal score wasn't
better than 115. Mine was a little worse, particularly when I chanced to
be off my drive. Yes, might as well be honest. I was the lame duck of
the foursome. They usually gave my ball about four strokes. Thought they
could do it, anyway. And I accepted."

"Uh-huh," says I, grinnin' intelligent--I hope. I sure was gettin' an
earful of this golf stuff, but I was still awake.

Dowd goes on to tell how reg'lar the old foursome got under way every
afternoon at 2:30. That is, every day but Sunday.

"Oh, yes," says I. "Church?"

"No," says Dowd. "Sandy the Great."

"Eh?" says I, gawpin'.

"Meaning," says Dowd, "Alexander McQuade, to my mind the best all around
golf professional who ever came out of Scotland. He was at our
Agapoosett course in summer, you know, and down there in the winter. And
Sunday afternoons he always played an exhibition match with visiting
pro's, or some of the crack amateurs. I never missed joining the gallery
for those matches. I was following the day he broke the course record
with a 69. Just one perfect shot after another. It was an inspiration.
Always was to watch Sandy the Great play. Such a genial, democratic
fellow, too. Why, he has actually talked to me on the tee just before
taking his stand for one of those 275-yard drives of his. 'Watch this
one, me laddie buck,' he'd say, or 'Weel, mon, stand a bit back while I
gie th' gutty a fair cr-r-rack.' He was always like that with me. Do you
wonder that I bought all my clubs of him, had a collection of his best
scores, and kept a large 'photo of him in my room? I've never been much
of a hero worshiper, but when it came to Sandy the Great--well, that
was different. You've heard of him, of course?"

"I expect I have," says I, "but just how does he fit into this--"

"I am coming to that," says Dowd. "It was a remarkable experience.
Weird, you might say. You see, it was the last day of our stay in
Florida; our last foursome of the season. We had been losing steadily
for several days, Ellins and I. Not that the stakes were high. Trivial.
Dollar Nassau, with side bets. I'd been off my drive again and Ellins
had been putting atrociously. Anyway, we had settled regularly.

"And Rutter had been particularly obnoxious in his manner. Offered to
increase my handicap to five bisque, advised me to get my wrists into
the stroke and keep my body out. That sort of thing. And from a man who
lunges at every shot and makes a 75-yard approach with a brassie--Well,
it was nothing short of maddening. I kept my temper, though. Can't say
that my friend Ellins did. He had sliced into a trap on his drive, while
I had topped mine short. We started the first hole with our heads down.
Rutter and Staples were a trifle ostentatious with their cheerfulness.

"I will admit that I played the first four holes very badly. A ten on
the long third. Wretched golf, even for a duffer. Ellins managed to hold
low ball on the short fourth, but we were seven points down. I could
have bitten a piece out of my niblick. Perhaps you don't know, young
man, but there is no deeper humiliation than that which comes to a dub
golfer who is playing his worst. I was in the depths.

"At the fifth tee I was last up. I'd begun waggling as usual, body
swaying, shoulders rigid, muscles tense, dreading to swing and wondering
whether the result would be a schlaff or a top, when--well, I simply
cannot describe the sensation. Something came over me; I don't know
what. As if someone had waved a magic wand above my head. I stopped
swaying, relaxed, felt the weight of the club head in my fingers, knew
the rhythm of the swing, heard the sharp crack as the ivory facing met
the ball. If you'll believe it, I put out such a drive as I'd never
before made in all my 12 years of golf. Straight and clean and true past
the direction flag and on and on.

"The others didn't seem to notice. Rutter had hooked into the scrub
palmettos, Staples had sliced into a pit, Ellins had topped short
somewhere in the rough. I waited until they were all out on the fairway.
Some had played three, some four shots. 'How many do you lie?' asked
Rutter. I told him that was my drive. He just stared skeptical. I could
scarcely blame him. As a rule I need a fair drive and two screaming
brassies on this long fifth before I am in position to approach across
the ravine. But this time, with a carry of some 160 yards ahead of me, I
picked my mid-iron from the bag, took a three-quarter swing, bit a
small divot from the turf as I went through, and landed the ball fairly
on the green with a back-spin that held it as though I'd had a string
tied to it. And when the others had climbed out of the ravine or
otherwise reached the green I putted in my four. A par four, mind you,
on a 420-yard hole that I'd never had better than a lucky 5 on, and
usually a 7 or an 8!

"Rutter asked me to count my strokes for him and then had the insolence
to ask how I got that way. I couldn't tell him. I did feel queer. As if
I was in some sort of trance. But my next drive was even better. A
screamer with a slight hook on the end that gave the ball an added roll.
For my second I played a jigger to the green. Another par four. Rutter
hadn't a word to say.

"Well, that's the way it went. Never had any one in our foursome played
such golf as I did for nine consecutive holes. Nothing over 5 and one
birdie 3. I think that Staples and Rutter were too stunned to make any
comment. As for Ellins, he failed to appreciate what I was doing.
Somewhat self-centered, Ellins. He's always counting his own score and
seldom notices what others are making.

"Not until we had finished the 12th, which I won with an easy 3, did
Staples, who was keeping score, seem to realize what had happened.
'Hello!' he calls to Rutter. 'They've got us beaten.' 'No,' says Rutter.
'Can't be possible!' 'But we are,'insists Staples. 'Thirteen points
down and twelve to go. It's all over. Dowd, here, is playing like a
crazy man.'

"And then the spell, or whatever it was, broke. I flubbed my drive,
smothered my brassie shot, and heeled my third into the woods. I
finished the round in my usual style, mostly sevens and eights. But
there was the score to prove that for nine straight holes I had played
par golf; professional golf, if you please. Do you think either Rutter
or Staples gave me credit for that? No. They paid up and walked off to
the shower baths.

"I couldn't account for my performance. It was little short of a
miracle. Actually it was so unusual that I hardly felt like talking
about it. I know that may sound improbable to a golfer, but it is a
fact. Except that I did want to tell Alexander McQuade. But I couldn't
find him. They said at the shop he was laid up with a cold and hadn't
been around for several days. So I took the train north that night
without having said a word to a soul about those wonderful nine holes.
But I've thought a lot about 'em since. I've tried to figure out just
what happened to me that I could make such a record. No use. It was all
beginning to be as unreal as if it was something I had dreamed of doing.

"And then yesterday, while reading a recent golf magazine, I ran across
this item of news which gave me such a shock. It told of the sudden
death from pneumonia of Alexander McQuade. At first I was simply
grieved over this loss to myself and to the golfing profession in
general. Then I noticed the date. McQuade died the very morning of the
day of our last match. Do you see?"

I shook my head. All I could see was a moonfaced, owl-eyed old party who
was starin' at me with an eager, batty look. "No," says I. "I don't get
the connection. McQuade had checked out and you won your foursome."

"Precisely," says Dowd. "The mantle of Elijah."

"Who?" says I.

"To make it plainer," says Dowd, "the mantle of Sandy the Great. It fell
on my shoulders."

"That may be clear enough to you, Mr. Dowd," says I, "but I'll have to
pass it up."

He sighs disappointed. "I wish Ellins would have the patience to let me
tell him about it myself," says he. "He'll not, though, so I must make
you understand in order that you may give him the facts. I want him to
know. Of course, I can't pretend to explain the thing. It was psychic,
that's all; supernatural, if you please. Must have been. For there I
was, a confirmed duffer, playing that course exactly as Alexander
McQuade would have played it had he been in my shoes. And he was, for
the time being. At least, I claim that I was being controlled, or
whatever you want to call it, by the recently departed spirit of Sandy
the Great."

I expect I was gawpin' at him with a full open-face expression. Say, I
thought I'd heard these golf nuts ravin' before, but I'd never been up
against anything quite like this. Honest, it gave me a creepy feelin'
along the spine. And yet, come to look him over close, he's just a
wide-beamed old party with bags under his eyes and heavy common-place
features.

"You grasp the idea now, don't you?" he asks.

"I think so," says I. "Ghost stuff, eh?"

"I'm merely suggesting that as the only explanation which occurs to me,"
says he. "I would like to have it put before Ellins and get his opinion.
That is, if you think you can make it clear."

"I'll make a stab at it, Mr. Dowd," says I.

And of course I did, though Old Hickory aint such an easy listener. He
comes in with snorts and grunts all through the tale, and when I
finishes he simply shrugs his shoulders.

"There's a warning for you, young man," says he. "Keep away from the
fool game. Anyway, if you ever do play, don't let it get to be a disease
with you. Look at Dowd. Five years ago he was a sane, normal person; the
best iron ore expert in the country. He could sniff a handful of red
earth and tell you how much it would run to a ton within a dime's worth.
Knew the game from A to Izzard--deep mining, open pit, low grade
washing, transportation, smelting. He lived with it. Never happier than
when he was in his mining rig following a chief engineer through new
cross-cuts on the twenty-sixth level trying to locate a fault in the
deposit or testing some modern method of hoisting. Those were things he
understood. Then he retired. Said he'd made money enough. And now look
at him. Getting cracked over a sport that must have been invented by
some Scotchman who had a grudge against the whole human race. As though
any game could be a substitute for business. Bah!"

"Then you don't think, Mr. Ellins," says I, "that we ought to have the
boy page Sir Oliver Lodge?"

"Eh?" says he.

"I mean," says I, "that you don't take any stock in that mantle of Sandy
the Great yarn?"

"Tommyrot!" says he. "For once in his life the old fool played his head
off, that's all. Nine holes in par. Huh! I'm liable to do that myself
one of these days, and without the aid of any departed spirits. Yes,
sir. The fact is, Torchy, I am practicing a new swing that ought to have
me playing in the low 90's before the middle of the next season. You
see, it all depends on taking an open stance and keeping a stiff right
knee. Here' pass me that umbrella and I'll show you."

And for the next ten minutes he kept a bank president, two directors and
a general manager waiting while he swats a ball of paper around the
private office with me for an audience. Uh-huh. And being a high ace
private sec. I aint even supposed to grin. Say, why don't some genius
get up an anti-golf serum so that when one of these old plutes found
himself slippin' he could rush to a clinic and get a shot in the arm?



CHAPTER XIV

TORCHY SHUNTS A WIZARD


I'd hardly noticed when Mr. Robert blew in late from lunch until I hears
him chuckle. Then I glances over my shoulder and sees that he's lookin'
my way. Course, that gets me curious, for Mr. Robert ain't the kind of
boss that goes around chucklin' casual, 'specially at a busy private
sec.

"Yes, sir?" says I, shoving back a tray full of correspondence I'm
sortin'.

"I heard something rather good, at luncheon, Torchy," says he.

"On red hair, I expect," says I.

"It wasn't quite so personal as that," says he. "Still, I think you'll
be interested."

"It's part of my job to look so, anyway," says I, givin' him the grin.

"And another item on which you specialize, I believe," he goes on, "is
the detection of book agents. At least, you used to do so when you were
head office boy. Held a record, didn't you?"

"Oh, I don't know," says I tryin' to register modesty. "One got past the
gate; one in five years. That was durin' my first month."

"Almost an unblemished career," says Mr. Robert. "What about your
successor, Vincent?"

"Oh, he's doing fairly well," says I. "Gets stung now and then. Like
last week when that flossy blonde with the Southern accent had him
buffaloed with a tale about having met dear Mr. Ellins at French Lick
and wantin' to show him something she knew he'd be just crazy about. She
did, too. 'Lordly Homes of England,' four volumes, full morocco, at
fifty a volume. And I must say she was nearly right. He wasn't far from
being crazy for the next hour or so. Vincent got it, and then I got it,
although I was downtown at the time it happened. But I'm coachin'
Vincent, and I don't think another one of 'em will get by very soon."

"You don't eh?" says Mr. Robert, indulgin' in another chuckle.

Then he spills what he overheard at lunch. Seems he was out with a
friend who took him to the Papyrus Club, which is where a lot of these
young hicks from the different book publishin' houses get together
noon-times; not Mr. Harper, or Mr. Scribner, or Mr. Dutton, but the
heads of departments, assistant editors, floor salesmen and so on.

And at the next table to Mr. Robert the guest of honor was a loud
talkin' young gent who'd just come in from a tour of the Middle West
with a bunch of orders big enough, if you let him tell it, to keep his
firm's presses on night shifts for a year. He was some hero, I take it,
and for the benefit of the rest of the bunch he was sketchin' out his
methods.

"As I understood the young man," says Mr. Robert, "his plan was to go
after the big ones; the difficult proposition, men of wealth and
prominence whom other agents had either failed to reach or had not dared
to approach. 'The bigger the better,' was his motto, and he referred to
himself, I think, as 'the wizard of the dotted line.'"

"Not what you'd exactly call a shrinkin' violet, eh?" I suggests.

"Rather a shrieking sunflower," says Mr. Robert. "And he concluded by
announcing that nothing would suit him better than to be told the name
of the most difficult subject in the metropolitan district--'the hardest
nut' was his phrase, I believe. He guaranteed to land the said person
within a week. In fact, he was willing to bet $100 that he could."

"Huh," says I.

"Precisely the remark of one of his hearers," says Mr. Robert. "The
wager was promptly made. And who do you suppose, Torchy, was named as
the most aloof and difficult man in New York for a book agent to--"

"Mr. Ellins," says I.

Mr. Robert nods. "My respected governor, none other," says he. "I fancy
he would be rather amused to know that he had achieved such a
reputation, although he would undoubtedly give you most of the credit."

"Or the blame," says I.

"Yes," admits Mr. Robert, "if he happened to be in the blaming mood.
Anyway, young man, there you have a direct challenge. Within the next
week the inner sanctum of the Corrugated Trust is to be assailed by one
who claims that he can penetrate the impenetrable, know the unknowable,
and unscrew the inscrutable."

"Well, that's cute of him," says I. "I'm bettin', though, he never gets
to his man."

"That's the spirit!" says Mr. Robert. "As the French said at Verdun,
'Ils ne passeront pas.' Eh?"

"Meaning 'No Gangway', I expect!" says I.

"That's the idea," says he.

"But say, Mr. Robert, what's he look like, this king of the dotted
line!" says I.

Mr. Robert shakes his head. "I was sitting back to him," says he.
"Besides, to give you his description would be taking rather an unfair
advantage. That would tend to spoil what now stands as quite a neat
sporting proposition. Of course, if you insist--"

"No," says I. "He don't know me and I don't know him. It's fifty-fifty.
Let him come."

I never have asked any odds of book agents, so why begin now? But, you
can bet I didn't lose any time havin' a heart to heart talk with
Vincent.

"Listen, son," says I, "from this on you want to watch this gate like
you was a terrier standin' over a rat hole. It's up to you to see that
no stranger gets through, no matter who he says he is; and that goes for
anybody, from first cousins of the boss to the Angel Gabriel himself.
Also, it includes stray window cleaners, buildin' inspectors and parties
who come to test the burglar alarm system. They might be in disguise. If
their faces ain't as familiar to you as the back of your hand give 'em
the sudden snub and tell 'em 'Boom boom, outside!' In case of doubt keep
'em there until you can send for me. Do you get it?"

Vincent says he does. "I shouldn't care to let in another book agent,"
says he.

"You might just as well resign your portfolio if you do," says I.
"Remember the callin' down, you got from Old Hickory last week."

Vincent shudders. "I'll do my best, sir," says he.

And he's a thorough goin', conscientious youth. Within the next few
hours I had to rescue one of our directors, our first assistant Western
manager, and a personal friend of Mr. Robert's, all of whom Vincent had
parked on the bench in the anteroom and was eyein' cold, and suspicious.
He even holds up the Greek who came luggin' in the fresh towels, and
Tony the spring water boy.

"I feel like old Horatius," says Vincent.

"Never met him," says I, "but whoever he was I'll bet you got him
lookin' like one of the seven sleepers. That's the stuff, though. Keep
it up."

I expect I was some wakeful myself, too. I worked with my eyes ready to
roll over my shoulder and my right ear stretched. I was playin' the part
of right worthy inside guard, and nobody came within ten feet of the
private office door but what I'd sized 'em up before they could reach
the knob. Still, two whole days passed without any attack on the first
line trenches. The third day Vincent and I had a little skirmish with a
mild-eyed young gent who claimed he wanted to see Mr. Ellins urgent, but
he turns out to be only a law clerk from the office of our general
solicitors bringin' up some private papers to be signed.

Then here Friday--and it was Friday the 13th, too--Vincent comes
sleuthin' in to my desk and shows me a card.

"Well," says I, "who does this H. Munson Schott party say he is?"

"That's just it," says Vincent. "He doesn't say. But he has a letter of
introduction to Mr. Ellins from the Belgian Consul General. Rather an
important looking person, too."

"H-m-m-m!" says I, runnin' my fingers through my red hair thoughtful.

You see, we'd been figurin' on some big reconstruction contracts with
the Belgian government, and while I hadn't heard how far the deal had
gone, there was a chance that this might be an agent from the royal
commission.

"If it is," says I, "we can't afford to treat him rough. Let's see, the
Hon. Matt. Dowd, the golf addict, is still in the private office givin'
Old Hickory another earful about the Scotch plague, ain't he?"

"No, sir," says Vincent. "Mr. Ellins asked him to wait half an hour or
so. He's in the director's room."

"Maybe I'd better take a look at your Mr. Schott first then," says I.

But after I'd gone out and given him the north and south careful I was
right where I started. I didn't quite agree with Vincent that he looked
important, but he acted it. He's pacin' up and down outside the brass
rail kind of impatient, and as I appears he's just consultin' his watch.
A nifty tailored young gent with slick putty-colored hair and
Maeterlinck blue eyes. Nothing suspicious in the way of packages about
him. Not even a pigskin document case or an overcoat with bulgy pockets.
He's grippin' a French line steamship pamphlet in one hand, a letter in
the other, and from the crook of his right elbow hangs a heavy
silver-mounted walkin' stick. Also he's wearin' gray spats. Nothing book
agenty about any of them signs.

"Mr. Schott?" says I, springin' my official smile. "To see Mr. Ellins, I
understand. I'm his private secretary. Could I--"

"I wish to see Mr. Ellins personally," breaks in Mr. Schott, wavin' me
off with a yellow-gloved hand.

"Of course," says I. "One moment, please. I'll find out if he's in. And
if you have any letters, or anything like that--"

"I prefer to present my credentials in person," says he.

"Sorry," says I. "Rules of the office. Saves time, you know. If you
don't mind--" and I holds out my hand for the letter.

He gives it up reluctant and I backs out. Another minute and I've shoved
in where Old Hickory is chewin' a cigar butt savage while he pencils a
joker clause into a million-dollar contract.

"Excuse me, sir," says I, "but you were expectin' a party from the
Belgian Commission, were you?"

"No," snaps Old Hickory. "Nor from the Persian Shah, or the Sultan of
Sulu, or the Ahkoond of Swat. All I'm expecting, young man, is a half
hour of comparative peace, and I don't get it. There's Matt. Dowd in the
next room waiting like the Ancient Mariner to grip me by the sleeve and
pour out a long tale about what he calls his discovery of psychic golf.
Say, son, couldn't you----"

"I've heard it, you know, sir," says I.

Old Hickory groans. "That's so," says he. "Well then, why don't you find
me a substitute? Suffering Cicero, has that inventive brain of yours
gone into a coma!"

"Not quite, sir," says I. "You don't happen to know a Mr. Schott, do
you?"

"Gr-r-r!" says Old Hickory, as gentle as a grizzly with a sore ear. "Get
out!"

I took the hint and trickled through the door. I was just framin' up
something polite to feed Mr. Schott when it strikes me I might take a
peek at this little note from the Belgian consul. It wasn't much, merely
suggests that he hopes Mr. Ellins will be interested in what Mr. Schott
has to say. There's the consul general's signature at the bottom, too.
Yes. And I was foldin' it up to tuck it back into the envelope
when--well, that's what comes of my early trainin' on the Sunday edition
when the proof readers used to work me in now and then to hold copy.
It's a funny thing, but I notice that the Consul General doesn't spell
his name when he writes it the way he has it printed at the top of his
letterhead.

"Might be a slip by the fool engraver," thinks I. "I'll look it up in
the directory."

And the directory agreed with the letterhead.

"Oh, ho!" says I. "Pullin' the old stuff, eh? Easy enough to drop into
the Consul's office and dash off a note to anybody. Say, lemme at this
Schott person."

No, I didn't call in Pat, the porter, and have him give Mr. Schott a
flyin' start down the stairs. No finesse about that. Besides, I needed a
party about his size just then. I steps back into the directors' room
and rouses Mr. Dowd from his trance by tappin' him on the shoulder.

"Maybe you'd be willin', Mr. Dowd," says I, "to sketch out some of that
psychic golf experience of yours to a young gent who claims to be
something of a wizard himself."

Would he? Say, I had to push him back in the chair to keep him from
followin' me right out.

"Just a minute," says I, "and I'll bring him in. There's only one thing.
He's quite a talker himself. Might want to unload a line of his own
first, but after that--"

"Yes, yes," says Dowd. "I shall be delighted to meet him."

"It's goin' to be mutual," says I.

Why, I kind of enjoyed my little part, which consists in hurryin' out to
the gate with my right forefinger up and a confidential smirk wreathin'
my more or less classic features.

"Right this way, Mr. Schott," says I.

He shrugs his shoulders, shoots over a glance of scornful contempt, like
a room clerk in a tourist hotel would give to a guest who's payin' only
$20 or $30 a day, and shoves past Vincent with his chin up. Judgin' by
the name and complexion and all there must have been a lot of noble
Prussian blood in this Schott person, for the Clown Prince himself
couldn't have done the triumphal entry any better. And I expect I put
considerable flourish into the business when I announces him to Dowd,
omittin' careful to call the Hon. Matt, by name.

Schott aint wastin' any precious minutes. Before Dowd can say a word
he's started in on his spiel. As I'm makin' a slow exit I manages to get
the openin' lines. They was good, too.

"As you may know," begins Schott, "I represent the International
Historical Committee. Owing to the recent death of prominent members we
have decided to fill those vacancies by appointment and your name has
been mentioned as----"

Well, you know how it goes. Only this was smooth stuff. It was a shame
to have it all spilled for the benefit of Matthew Dowd, who can only
think of one thing these days--250-yard tee shots and marvelous mid-iron
pokes that always sail toward the pin. Besides, I kind of wanted to see
how a super-book agent would work.

Openin' the private office door easy I finds Old Hickory has settled
back in his swing chair and is lightin' a fresh Fumadora satisfied. So I
slips in, salutes respectful and jerks my thumb toward the directors'
room.

"I've put a sub. on the job, sir," says I.

"Eh?" says he. "Oh, yes. Who did you find?"

"A suspicious young stranger," says I. "I sicced him and Mr. Dowd on
each other. They're at it now. It's likely to be entertainin'."

Old Hickory nods approvin' and a humorous flicker flashes under them
bushy eyebrows of his. "Let's hear how they're getting along," says he.

So I steps over sleuthy and swings the connectin' door half way open,
which not only gives us a good view but brings within hearin' range this
throaty conversation which Mr. Schott is unreelin' at high speed.

"You see, sir," he's sayin', "this monumental work covers all the great
crises of history, from the tragedy on Calvary to the signing of the
peace treaty at Versailles. Each epoch is handled by an acknowledged
master of that period, as you may see by this table of contents."

Here Mr. Schott produces from somewhere inside his coat a half pound or
so of printed pages and shoves them on Dowd.

"The illustrations," he goes on, "are all reproduced in colors by our
new process, and are copies of famous paintings by the world's greatest
artists. There are to be more than three hundred, but I have here a few
prints of these priceless works of art which will give you an idea."

At that he reaches into the port side of his coat, unbuttons the lining,
and hauls out another sheaf of leaves.

"Then we are able to offer you," says Schott, "a choice of bindings
which includes samples of work from the most skilful artisans in that
line. At tremendous expense we have reproduced twelve celebrated
bindings. I have them here."

And blamed if he don't unscrew the thick walkin' stick and pull out a
dozen imitation leather bindings which he piles on Mr. Dowd's knee.

"Here we have," says he, "the famous Broissard binding, made for the
library of Louis XIV. Note the fleur de lis and the bee, and the
exquisite hand-tooling on the doublures. Here is one that was done by
the Rivieres of London for the collection of the late Czar Nicholas, and
so on. There are to be thirty-six volumes in all and to new members of
the Historical Committee we are offering these at practically the cost
of production, which is $28 the volume. In return for this sacrifice all
we ask of you, my dear sir, is that we may use your indorsement in our
advertising matter, which will soon appear in all the leading daily
papers of this country. We ask you to pay no money down. All you need to
do, sir, to become a member of the International Historical Committee
and receive this magnificent addition to your library, is to sign your
name here and----"

"Is--is that all?" breaks in Dowd, openin' his mouth for the first time.

"Absolutely," says Schott, unlimberin' his ready fountain pen.

"Then perhaps you would be interested to hear of a little experience of
mine," says Dowd, "on the golf course."

"Charmed," says Schott.

He didn't know what was comin'. As a book agent he had quite a flow of
language, but I doubt if he ever ran up against a real golf nut before.
Inside of half a minute Dowd was off in high gear, tellin' him about
that wonderful game he played with Old Hickory when he was under the
control of the spirit of the great Sandy McQuade. At first Schott looks
kind of dazed, like a kid who's been foolin' with a fire hydrant wrench
and suddenly finds he's turned on the high pressure and can't turn it
off. Three or four times he makes a stab at breakin' in and urgin' the
fountain pen on Dowd, but he don't have any success. Dowd is in full
swing, describin' his new theory of how all the great golfers who have
passed on come back and reincarnate themselves once more; sometimes
pickin' out a promisin' caddie, as in the case of Ouimet, or now and
again a hopeless duffer, same as he was himself. Schott can't get a word
in edgewise, and is squirmin' in his chair while Old Hickory leans back
and chuckles.

Finally, after about half an hour of this, Schott gets desperate. "Yes,
sir," says he, shoutin' above Dowd's monologue, "but what about this
magnificent set of----"

"Bah!" says Dowd. "Books! Never buy 'em."

"But--but are you sure, sir," Schott goes on, "that you understand what
an opportunity you are offered for----"

"Wouldn't have the junk about the house," says Dowd. "But later on,
young man, if you are interested in the development of my psychic golf,
I shall be glad to tell you----"

"Not if I see you first," growls Schott, gatherin' up his pile of
samples and backin out hasty.

He's in such a hurry to get away that he bumps into Mr. Robert, who's
just strollin' toward the private office, and the famous bindings, art
masterpieces, contents pages and so on are scattered all over the floor.

"Who was our young friend with all the literature?" asks Mr. Robert.

"That's Mr. Schott," says I, "your wizard of the dotted line, who was
due to break in on Mr. Ellins and get him to sign up."

"Eh?" says Old Hickory, starin'. "And you played him off against Matt.
Dowd? You impertinent young rascal! But I say, Robert, you should have
seen and heard 'em. It was rich. They nearly talked each other to a
standstill."

"Then I gather, Torchy," says Mr. Robert, grinnin', "that the king of
book agents now sits on a tottering throne. In other words, the wizard
met a master mind, eh?"

"I dunno," says I. "Guess I gave him the shunt, all right. Just by luck,
though. He had a clever act, I'll say, even if he didn't get it
across."



CHAPTER XV

STANLEY TAKES THE JAZZ CURE


I remember how thrilled Vee gets when she first discovers that these new
people in Honeysuckle Lodge are old friends of hers. I expect some
poetical real estater wished that name on it. Anyway, it's the proper
thing out here in Harbor Hills to call your place after some sort of
shrubbery or tree. And maybe this little stone cottage effect with the
green tiled roof and the fieldstone gate posts did have some honeysuckle
growin' around somewhere. It's a nice enough shack, what there is of it,
though if I'd been layin' out the floor plan I'd have had less cut-under
front porch and more elbow room inside. However, as there are only two
of the Rawsons it looked like it would do. That is, it did at first.

"Just think, Torchy," says Vee. "I haven't seen Marge since we were at
boarding school together. Why, I didn't even know she was married,
although I suppose she must be by this time."

"Well, she seems to have found a male of the species without your help,"
says I. "Looks like a perfectly good man, too."

"Oh, I'm sure he must be," says Vee, "or Marge wouldn't have had him. In
fact, I know he is, for I used to hear more or less about Stanley
Rawson, even when we were juniors. I believe they were half engaged
then. Such a jolly, lively fellow, and so full of fun. Won't it be nice
having them so near?"

"Uh-huh!" says I.

Not that we've been lonesome since we moved out on our four-acre Long
Island estate, but I will say that young married couples of about our
own age haven't been so plenty. Not the real folksy kind. Course, there
are the Cecil Rands, but they don't do much but run a day and night
nursery for those twins of theirs. They're reg'lar Class A twins, too,
and I expect some day they'll be more or less interestin'; but after
they've been officially exhibited to you four or five times, and you've
heard all about the system they're being brought up on, and how many
ounces of Pasteurized cow extract they sop up a day, and at what
temperature they get it, and how often they take their naps and so
on---- Well, sometimes I'm thankful the Rands didn't have triplets. When
I've worked up enthusiasm for twins about four times, and remarked how
cunnin' of them to look so much alike, and confessed that I couldn't
tell which was Cecillia and which Cecil, Jr., I feel that I've sort of
exhausted the subject.

So whenever Vee suggests that we really ought to go over and see the
Rands again I can generally think up an alibi. Honest, I aint jealous
of their twins. I'm glad they've got 'em. Considerin' Cecil, Sr., and
all I'll say it was real noble of 'em. But until I can think up
something new to shoot about twins I'm strong for keepin' away.

Then there are Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Kipp, but they're ouija board addicts
and count it a dull evening when they can't gather a few serious
thinkers around the dinin' room table under a dim light and spell out a
message from Little Bright Wings, who checked out from croup at the age
of six and still wants her Uncle Jerry to know that she thinks of him
out there in the great beyond. I wouldn't mind hearin' from the spirit
land now and then if the folks there had anything worth sayin', but when
they confine their chat to fam'ly gossip it seems to me like a waste of
time. Besides, I always come home from the Kipps feelin' creepy down the
back.

So you could hardly blame Vee for welcomin' some new arrivals in the
neighborhood, or for bein' so chummy right from the start. She asks the
Rawsons over for dinner, tips Mrs. Rawson off where she can get a
wash-lady who'll come in by the day and otherwise extends the glad hand.

Seems to be a nice enough party, young Mrs. Rawson. Kind of easy to look
at and with an eye twinkle that suggests a disposition to cut up
occasionally. Stanley is a good runnin' mate, so far as looks go. He
could almost pose for a collar ad, with that straight nose and clean cut
chin of his. But he's a bit stiff and stand-offish, at first.

"Oh, he'll get over that," says Vee. "You see, he comes from some little
place down in Georgia where the social set is limited to three families
and he isn't quite sure whether we know who our grandfathers were."

"It'll be all off then if he asks about mine," says I.

But he don't. He wants to know what I think of the recent slump in July
cotton deliveries and if I believe the foreign credits situation looks
any better.

"Why, I hadn't thought much about either," says I, "but I've had a good
hunch handed me that the Yanks are goin' to show strong for the pennant
this season."

Stanley just stares at me and after that confines his remarks to statin'
that he don't care for mint sauce on roast lamb and that he never takes
coffee at night.

"Huh!" says I to Vee afterward. "When does he spring that jolly stuff?
Or was that conundrum about July cotton a vaudeville gag that got past
me?"

No, I hadn't missed any cues. Vee explains that young Mr. Rawson has
been sent up to New York as assistant manager of a Savannah firm of
cotton brokers and is taking his job serious.

"That's good," says I, "but he don't need to lug it to the dinner table,
does he?"

We gave the Rawsons a week to get settled before droppin' in on 'em for
an evenin' call, and I'd prepared for it by readin' up on the cotton
market. Lucky I did, too, for we discovers Stanley at his desk with a
green eye-shade draped over his classic brow and a lot of crop reports
spread out before him. Durin' the next hour, while the girls were
chattin' merry in the other corner of the livin' room, Stanley gave me
the straight dope on boll weevils, the labor conditions in Manchester,
and the poor prospects for long staple. I finished, as you might say,
with both ears full of cotton.

"Stanley's going to be a great help--I don't think," says I to Vee.
"Why, he's got cotton on the brain."

"Now let's not be critical, Torchy," says Vee. "Marge told me all about
it, how Stanley is a good deal worried over his business and so on. He's
really doing very well, you know, but he can't seem to leave his office
troubles behind, the way you do. He wants to make a big success, but
he's so afraid something will go wrong----"

"There's no surer way of pullin' down trouble," says I. "Next thing he
knows he'll be tryin' to sell cotton in his sleep, and from that stage
to a nerve sanitarium is only a hop."

Not that I tries to reform Stanley. Nay, nay, Natalia. I may go through
some foolish motions now and then, but regulatin' the neighbors ain't
one of my secret vices. We allows the Rawsons to map out their own
program, which seems to consist in stickin' close to their own fireside,
with Marge on one side readin' letters about the gay doin's of her old
friends at home, and Stanley on the other workin' up furrows in his brow
over what might not happen to spot cotton day after tomorrow. They'd
passed up a chance to join the Country Club, had declined with thanks
when Vee asked 'em to go in on a series of dinner dances with some of
the young married set, and had even shied at taking an evening off for
one of Mrs. Robert Ellins' musical affairs.

"Thanks awfully," says Stanley, "but I have no time for social
frivolities."

"Gosh!" says I. "I hope you don't call two hours of Greig frivolous."

That seems to be his idea, though. Anything that ain't connected with
quotations on carload lots or domestic demands for middlings he looks at
scornful. He tells me he's on the trail of a big foreign contract, but
is afraid its going to get away from him.

"Maybe you'd linger on for a year or so if it did," I suggests.

"Perhaps," says he, "but I intend to let nothing distract me from my
work."

And then here a few days later I runs across him making for the 5:03
with two giggly young sub-debs in tow. After he's planted 'em in a seat
and stowed their hand luggage and wraps on the rack I slips into the
vacant space with him behind the pair.

"Where'd you collect the sweet young things, Stanley?" says I.

He shakes his head and groans. "Think of it!" says he. "Marge's folks
had to chase off to Bermuda for the Easter holidays and so they wish
Polly, the kid sister, onto us for two whole weeks. Not only that, but
Polly has the nerve to bring along this Dot person, her roommate at
boarding school. What on earth we're ever going to do with them I'm sure
I don't know."

"Is Polly the one with the pointed chin and the I-dare-you pout?" I
asks.

"No, that's Dot," says he. "Polly's the one with the cheek dimples and
the disturbing eyes. She's a case, too."

"They both look like they might be live wires," says I. "I see they've
brought their mandolins, also. And what's so precious in the bundle you
have on your knees?"

"Jazz records," says Stanley. "I've a mind to shove them under the seat
and forget they're there."

He don't though, for that's the only bundle Polly asks about when we
unload at our home station. I left Stanley negotiatin' with the
expressman to deliver two wardrobe trunks and went along chucklin' to
myself.

"My guess is that Dot and Polly are in for kind of a pokey vacation," I
tells Vee. "Unless they can get as excited over the cotton market as
Stanley does."

"The poor youngsters!" says Vee. "They might as well be visiting on a
desert island, for Marge knows hardly anyone in the place but us."

She's a great one for spillin' sympathy, and for followin' it up when
she can with the helpin' hand. So a couple of nights later I'm dragged
out on a little missionary expedition over to Honeysuckle Lodge, the
object being to bring a little cheer into the dull gray lives of the
Rawsons' young visitors. Vee makes me doll up in an open face vest and
dinner coat, too.

"The girls will like it, I'm sure," says she.

"Very well," says I. "If the sight of me in a back number Tuck will lift
the gloom from any young hearts, here goes. I hope the excitement don't
prove too much for 'em, though."

I'd kind of doped it out that we'd find the girls sittin' around awed
and hushed; while Stanley indulged in his usual silent struggle with
some great business problem; or maybe they'd be over in a far corner
yawnin' through a game of Lotto. But you never can tell. From two blocks
away we could see that the house was all lit up, from cellar to sleepin'
porch.

"Huh!" says I. "Stanley must be huntin' a burglar, or something."

"No," says Vee. "Hear the music. If I didn't know I should think they
were giving a party."

"Who would they give it to?" I asks.

And yet when the maid lets us in hanged if the place ain't full of
people, mostly young hicks in evenin' clothes, but with a fair sprinklin'
of girls in flossy party dresses. All the livin' room furniture had been
shoved into the dinin' room, the rugs rolled into the corners, and the
music machine is grindin' out the Blitzen Blues, accompanied by the two
mandolins.

In the midst of all this merry scene I finds Stanley wanderin' about
sort of dazed and unhappy.

"Excuse us for crashin' in on a party," says I. "We came over with the
idea that maybe Polly and Dot would be kind of lonesome."

"Lonesome!" says Stanley. "Say, I ask you, do they look it?"

"Not at the present writing," says I.

That was statin' the case mild, too. Over by the music machine Dot and a
youth who's sportin' his first aviation mustache--one of them clipped
eyebrow affairs--are tinklin' away on the mandolins with their heads
close together, while in the middle of the floor Polly and a blond young
gent who seems to be fairly well contented with himslf are practicin'
some new foxtrot steps, with two other youngsters waitin' to cut in.

"Where did you round up all the perfectly good men?" I asks.

"I didn't," says Stanley. "That's what amazes me. Where did they all
come from? Why, I supposed the girls didn't know a soul in the place.
Said they didn't on the way out. Yet before we'd left the station two
youths appeared who claimed they'd met Polly somewhere and asked if they
couldn't come up that evening. The next morning they brought around two
others, and some girls, for a motor trip. By afternoon the crowd had
increased to a dozen, and they were all calling each other by their
first names and speaking of the aggregation as 'the bunch.' I came home
tonight to find a dinner party of six and this dance scheduled. Now tell
me, how do they do it?"

"It's by me," says I. "But maybe this kid sister-in-law of yours and her
chum are the kind who don't have to send out S. O. S. signals. And if
this keeps up I judge you're let in for a merry two weeks."

"Merry!" says Stanley. "I should hardly call it that. How am I going to
think in a bedlam like this?"

"Must you think?" says I.

"Of course," says he. "But if this keeps up we shall go crazy."

"Oh, I don't know," says I. "You may, but I judge that Mrs. Rawson will
survive. She seems to be endurin' it all right," and I glances over
where Marge is allowin' a youngster of 19 or so to lead her out for the
next dance.

"Oh, Marge!" says Stanley. "She's always game for anything. But she
hasn't the business worries and responsibilities that I have. Do you
know, Torchy, the cotton situation is about to reach a crisis and if I
cannot put through a----"

"Come on, Torchy," breaks in Vee. "Let's try this one."

"Sure!" says I. "Although I'm missin' some mighty thrillin' information
about what's going to happen to cotton."

"Oh, bother cotton!" says Vee. "It would do Stanley good to forget about
his silly old business for a little while. Look at him! Why, you would
thing he was a funeral."

"Or that he was just reportin' as chairman of the grand jury," says I.

"And little Polly is having such a good time, isn't she?" goes on Vee.

"I expect she is," says I. "She's goin' through the motions, anyway."

Couldn't have been more than 16 or so, Polly. But she has a face like a
flower, the disposition of a butterfly, and a pair of eyes that
shouldn't be used away from home without dimmers on. I expect she don't
know how high voltage they are or she wouldn't roll 'em around so
reckless. It's entertainin' just to sit on the side lines and watch her
pull this baby-vamp act of hers and then see the victims squirm. Say, at
the end of a dance some of them youths didn't know whether they was
leadin' Polly to a corner or walkin' over a pink cloud with snowshoes
on. And friend Dot ain't such a poor performer herself. Her strong line
seems to be to listen to 'em patient while they tells her all they know,
and remark enthusiastic at intervals: "Oh, I think that's simp-ly
won-n-n-nderful!" After they'd hear her say it about five times most of
'em seemed to agree with her that they were wonderful, and I heard one
young hick confide to another: "She's a good pal, Dot. Understands a
fellow, y'know."

Honest, I was havin' so much fun minglin' with the younger set that way,
and gettin' my dancin' toes limbered up once more, that it's quite a
shock to glance at the livin' room clock and find it pointin' to 1:30.
As we were leavin', though, friend Dot has just persuaded Stanley to try
a one-step with her and I had to snicker when he goes whirlin' off. I
expect either she or Polly had figured out that the only way to keep him
from turnin' off the lights was to get him into the game.

From all the reports we had Polly and Dot got through their vacation
without being very lonesome. Somehow or other Honeysuckle Lodge seems to
have been established as the permanent headquarters of "the bunch," and
most any time of day or night you could hear jazz tunes comin' from
there, or see two or three cars parked outside. And, although the cotton
market was doing flip-flops about that time I don't see any signs of
nervous breakdown about Stanley. In fact, he seems to have bucked up a
lot.

"Well, how about that foreign contract?" I asks reckless one mornin' as
we meets on the train.

"Oh, I have that all sewed up," says Stanley. "One of those young chaps
who came to see Polly so much gave me a straight tip on who to
see--someone who had visited at his home. Odd way to get it, eh? But I
got a lot out of those boys. Rather miss them, you know."

"Eh?" says I, gawpin' at him.

"Been brushing up on my dancing, too," goes on Stanley. "And say, if
there's still a vacancy in that dinner dance club I think Marge and I
would like to go in."

"But I thought you said you didn't dance any more?" says I.

"I didn't think I could," says Stanley, "until Dot got me at it again
the other night. Why, do you know, she quite encouraged me. She
said----"

"Uh-huh!" says I. "I know. She said, 'Oh, I think you're a wonderful
dancer, simp-ly won-n-n-n-derful!' Didn't she now?"

First off Stanley stiffens up like he was goin' to be peeved. But then
he remembers and lets out chuckle. "Yes," says he, "I believe those were
her exact words. Perhaps she was right, too. And if I have such an
unsuspected talent as that shouldn't I exercise it occasionally? I leave
it to you."

"You've said it, Stanley," says I. "And after all, I guess you're goin'
to be a help. You had a narrow call, though."

"From what?" asks Stanley.

"Premature old age," says I, givin' him the friendly grin.



CHAPTER XVI

THE MYSTERY OF THE THIRTY-ONE


If I knew how, you ought to be worked up to the proper pitch for this
scene. You know--lights dimmed, throbby music from the bull fiddle and
kettle drums, and the ushers seatin' nobody durin' the act. Belasco
stuff. The stage showin' the private office of the Corrugated Trust.
It's a case of the big four in solemn conclave.

Maybe you can guess the other three. Uh-huh! Old Hickory Ellins, Mr.
Robert, and Piddie. I forget just what important problem we was
settlin'. But it must have been something weighty and serious. Millions
at stake, most likely. Thousands anyway. Or it might have been when we
should start the Saturday half-holidays.

All I remember is that we was grouped around the big mahogany desk; Old
Hickory in the middle chewin' away at the last three inches of a
Cassadora; Mr. Robert at right center, studyin' the documents in the
case; Piddie standin' respectful at his side weavin' his fingers in and
out nervous; and me balanced on the edge of the desk at the left, one
shoe toe on the floor, the other foot wavin' easy and graceful. Cool
and calm, that's me. But not sayin' a word. Nobody was. We'd had our
turn. It was up to Old Hickory to give the final decision. We was
waitin', almost breathless. He'd let out a grunt or two, cleared his
throat, and was about to open in his usual style when--

Cr-r-rash! Bumpety-bump!

Not that this describes it adequate. If I had a mouth that could imitate
the smashin' of a 4x6 foot plate glass window I'd be on my way out to
stampede the national convention for some favorite son. For that's
exactly what happens. One of them big panes through which Old Hickory
can view the whole southern half of Manhattan Island, not to mention
part of New Jersey, has been shattered as neat as if someone had thrown
a hammer through it. And havin' that occur not more'n ten feet from your
right ear is some test of nerves, I'll say. I didn't even fall off the
desk. All Old Hickory does is set his teeth into the cigar a little
firmer and roll his eyes over one shoulder. Piddie's the only one who
shows signs of shell shock. When he finally lets out a breath it's like
openin' a bottle of home brew to see if the yeast cake is gettin' in its
work.

The bumpety-bump noise comes from something white that follows the crash
and rolls along the floor toward the desk. Naturally I makes a grab for
it.

"Don't!" gasps Piddie. "It--it might be a bomb."

"Yes," says I, "it might. But it looks to me more like a golf ball."

"What?" says Old Hickory. "Golf ball! How could it be?"

"I don't know, sir," says I, modest as usual.

"Let's see," says he. I hands it over. He takes a glance at it and
snorts out: "Impossible, but quite true. It is a golf ball. A Spalldop
31."

"You're right, Governor," says Mr. Robert. "That's just what it is."

Piddie takes a cautious squint and nods his head. So we made it
unanimous.

"But I don't quite see, sir," goes on Piddie, "how a----"

"Don't you?" breaks in Old Hickory. "Well, that's strange. Neither do
I."

"Might it not, sir," adds Piddie, "have been dropped from an airplane?"

"Dropped how?" demands Old Hickory. "Sideways? The law of gravity
doesn't work that way. At least, it didn't when I met it last."

"Certainly!" says Piddie. "I had not thought of that. It couldn't have
been dropped. Then it must have been driven by some careless golfer."

He's some grand little suggester, Piddie is. Old Hickory glares at him
and snorts. "An amazingly careless golfer," he adds, "considering that
the nearest course is in Englewood, N. J., fully six miles away. No, Mr.
Piddie, I fear that even Jim Barnes at his best, relayed by Gil Nichols
and Walter Hagen, couldn't have made that drive."

"They--they never use a--a rifle for such purposes, do they?" asks
Piddie.

"Not in the best sporting circles," says Old Hickory.

"I suppose," puts in Mr. Robert, "that some golf enthusiast might have
taken it into his head to practice a shot from somewhere in the
neighborhood."

"That's logical," admits Old Hickory, "but from where did he shoot? We
are nineteen stories above the sidewalk, remember. I never saw a player
who could loft a ball to that height."

Which gives me an idea. "What if it was some golf nut who'd gone out on
a roof?" I asks.

"Thank you, Torchy," says Old Hickory. "From a roof, of course. I should
have made that deduction myself within the next half hour. The fellow
must be swinging away on the top of some nearby building. Let's see if
we can locate him."

Nobody could, though. Plenty of roofs in sight, from five to ten stories
lower than the Corrugated buildin', but no mashie maniac in evidence.
And while they're scoutin' around I takes another squint at the ball.

"Say, Mr. Ellins," I calls out, "if it was shot from a roof how do you
dope out this grass stain on it?"

"Eh?" says Old Hickory. "Grass stain! Must be an old one. No, by the
green turban of Hafiz, it's perfectly fresh! Even a bit of moist earth
where the fellow took a divot. Young man, that knocks out your roof
practice theory. Now how in the name of the Secret Seven could this
happen? The nearest turf is in the park, across Broadway. But no golfer
would be reckless enough to try out a shot from there. Besides, this
came from a southerly direction. Well, son, what have you to offer?"

"Me?" says I, stallin' around a bit and lookin' surprised. "Oh, I
didn't know I'd been assigned to the case of the mysterious golf ball."

"You have," says Old Hickory. "You seem to be so clever in deducing
things and the rest of us so stupid. Here take another look at the ball.
I presume that if you had a magnifying glass you could tell where it
came from and what the man looked like who hit it. Eh?"

"Oh, sure!" says I, grinnin'. "That is, in an hour or so."

That's the only way to get along with Old Hickory; when he starts
kiddin' you shoot the josh right back at him. I lets on to be examinin'
the ball careful.

"I expect you didn't notice the marks on it?" says I.

"Where?" says he, gettin' out his glasses. "Oh, yes! The fellow has
used an indelible pencil to put his initials on it. I often do that
myself, so the caddies can't sell me my own balls. He's made 'em rather
faint, but I can make out the letters. H. A. And to be sure, he's put
'em on twice."

"Yes," says I, "they might be initials, and then again they might be
meant to spell out something. My guess would be 'Ha, ha!'"

"What!" says Old Hickory. "By the Sizzling Sisters, you're right! A
message! But from whom?"

"Why not from Minnie?" I asks winkin' at Mr. Robert.

"Minnie who?" demands Old Hickory.

"Why, from Minnehaha?" says I, and I can hear Piddie gasp at my pullin'
anything like that on the president of the Corrugated Trust.

Old Hickory must have heard him, too, for he shrugs his shoulders and
remarks to Piddie solemn: "Even brilliant intellects have their dull
spots, you see. But wait. Presently this spasm of third rate comedy will
pass and he will evolve some apt conclusion. He will tell us who sent me
a Ha, ha! message on a golf ball, and why. Eh, Torchy?"

"Guess I'll have to sir," says I. "How much time off do I get, a couple
of hours?"

"The whole afternoon, if you'll solve the mystery," says he. "I am going
out to luncheon now. When I come back----"

"That ought to be time enough," says I.

Course nine-tenths of that was pure bluff. All I had mapped out then was
just a hunch for startin' to work. When they'd all left the private
office I wanders over for another look from the punctured window. The
lower sash had been pushed half-way up when the golf ball hit it, and the
shade had been pulled about two-thirds down. It was while I was runnin'
the shade clear to the top that I discovers this square of red cardboard
hung in the middle of the top sash.

"Hah!" says I. "Had the window marked, did he?"

Simple enough to see that a trick of that kind called for an inside
confederate. Who? Next minute I'm dashin' out to catch Tony, who runs
express elevator No. 3.

"Were the window washers at work on our floor this mornin'?" says I.

"Sure!" says Tony, "What you miss?"

"It was a case of direct hit," says I. "Where are they now?"

"On twenty-two," says Tony.

"I'll ride up with you," says I.

And three minutes later I've corralled a Greek glass polisher who's
eatin' his bread and sausage at the end of one of the corridors.

"You lobster!" says I. "Why didn't you hang that blue card in the right
window?"

"Red card!" he protests, sputterin' crumbs. "I hang him right, me."

"Oh, very well," says I, displayin' half a dollar temptin'. "Then you
got some more comin' to you, haven't you?"

He nods eager and holds out his hand.

"Just a minute," says I, "until I'm sure you're the right one. What was
the party's name who gave you the job?"

"No can say him name," says the Greek. "He just tell me hang card and
give me dollar."

"I see," says I. "A tall, thin man with red whiskers, eh?"

"No, no!" says he. "Short thick ol' guy, fat in middle, no whiskers."

"Correct so far," says I. "And if you can tell where he hangs out----"

"That's all," says the Greek. "Gimme half dollar."

"You win," says I, tossin' it to him.

But that's makin' fair progress for the first five minutes, eh? So far I
knew that a smooth faced, poddy party had shot a golf ball with "Ha,
ha!" written on it into Old Hickory's private office. Must have been
done deliberate, too, for he'd taken pains to have the window marked
plain for him with the red card. And at that it was some shot, I'll say.
Couldn't have come from the street, on account of the distance. Then
there was the grass stain. Grass? Now where----

By this time I'm leanin' out over the sill down at the roofs of the
adjoinin' buildings. And after I'd stretched my neck for a while I
happens to look directly underneath. There it was. Uh-huh. A little
green square of lawn alongside the janitor's roof quarters. You know
you'll find 'em here and there on office building roofs, even down in
Wall Street. And this being right next door and six or seven stories
below had been so close that we'd overlooked it at first.

So now I knew what he looked like, and where he stood. But who was he,
and what was the grand idea? It don't take me long to chase down to the
ground floor and into the next building. And, of course, I tackles the
elevator starter. They're the wise boys. Always. I don't know why it is,
but you'll generally find that the most important lookin' and actin'
bird around a big buildin' is the starter. And what he don't know about
the tenants and their business ain't worth findin' out.

On my way through the arcade I'd stopped at the cigar counter and
invested in a couple of Fumadoras with fancy bands on 'em. Tuckin' the
smokes casual into the starter's outside coat pocket I establishes
friendly relations almost from the start.

"Well, son," says he, "is it the natural blond on the seventh, or the
brunette vamp who pounds keys on the third that you want to meet?"

"Ah, come, Captain!" says I. "Do I look like a Gladys-hound? Nay, nay!
I'm simply takin' a sport census."

"Eh!" says he. "That's a new one on me."

"Got any golf bugs in your buildin', Cap?" I goes on.

"Any?" says he. "Nothing but. Say, you'll see more shiny hardware lugged
out of here on a Saturday than----"

"But did you notice any being lugged in today?" I breaks in.

"No," says he. "It's a little early for 'em to start the season, and too
near the first of the week. Don't remember a single bag goin' in today."

"Nor a club, either?" I asks.

He takes off his cap and rubs his right ear. Seems to help, too. "Oh,
yes," says he. "I remember now. There was an old boy carried one in
along about 10 o'clock. A new one that he'd just bought, I expect."

"Sort of a poddy, heavy set old party with a smooth face?" I suggests.

"That was him," says the starter. "He's a reg'lar fiend at it. But,
then, he can afford to be. Owns a half interest in the buildin', I
understand."

"Must be on good terms with the janitor, then," says I. "He could
practice swings on the roof if he felt like it, I expect."

"You've said it," says the starter. "He could do about what he likes
around this buildin', Mr. Dowd could."

"Eh?" says I. "The Hon. Matt?"

"Good guess!" says the starter. "You must know him."

"Rather," says I. "Him and my boss are old chums. Golf cronies, too.
Thanks. I guess that'll be all."

"But how about that sport census?" asks the starter.

"It's finished," says I, makin' a quick exit.

And by the time I'm back in the private office once more I've untangled
all the essential points. Why, it was only two or three days ago that
the Hon. Matt broke in on Old Hickory and gave him an earful about his
latest discovery in the golf line. I'd heard part of it, too, while I
was stickin' around waitin' to edge in with some papers for Mr. Ellins
to sign.

Now what was the big argument? Say, I'll be driven to take up this
Hoot-Mon pastime myself some of these days. Got to if I want to keep in
the swim. It was about some particular club Dowd claimed he had just
learned how to play. A mashie-niblick, that was it. Said it was revealed
to him in a dream--something about gripping with the left hand so the
knuckles showed on top, and taking the turf after he'd hit the ball.
That gave him a wonderful loft and a back-spin.

And I remember how Old Hickory, who was more or less busy at the time,
had tried to shunt him off. "Go on, you old fossil," he told him. "You
never could play a mashie-niblick, and I'll bet twenty-five you can't
now. You always top 'em. Couldn't loft over a bow-legged turtle, much
less a six foot bunker. Yes, it's a bet. Twenty-five even. But you'll
have to prove it, Matt."

And Mr. Dowd, chucklin' easy to himself, had allowed how he would. "To
your complete satisfaction, Ellins," says he, "or no money passes. And
within the week."

As I takes another look down at the little grass plot on the roof I has
to admit that the Hon. Matt knew what he was talkin' about. He sure had
turned the trick. Kind of clever of him, too, havin' the window marked
and all that. And puttin' the "Ha, ha!" message on the ball.

I was still over by the window, sort of smilin' to myself, when Old
Hickory walks in, havin' concluded to absorb only a sandwich and a glass
of milk at the arcade cafeteria instead of goin' to his club.

"Well, young man," says he. "Have you any more wise deductions to
submit?"

"I've got all the dope, if that's what you mean, sir," says I.

"Eh?" says he. "Not who and what and why?"

I nods easy.

"I don't believe it, son," says he. "It's uncanny. To begin with, who
was the man?"

"Don't you remember havin' a debate not long ago with someone who
claimed he could pull some wonderful stunt with a mashie-niblick?" says
I.

"Why," says Old Hickory, "with no one but Dowd."

"You bet him he couldn't, didn't you?" I asks.

"Certainly," says he.

"Well, he can," says I. "And he has."

"Wha-a-at!" gasps Old Hickory.

"Uh-huh!" says I. "It was him that shot in the ball with the Ha, ha!
message on it."

"But--but from where?" he demands.

"Look!" says I, leadin' him to the window.

"The old sinner!" says Mr. Ellins. "Why, that must be nearly one hundred
feet, and almost straight up! Some shot! I didn't think it was in him.
Hagen could do no better. And think of putting it through a window.
That's accuracy for you. Say, if he can do that in a game I shall be
proud to know him. Anyway, I shall not regret handing over that
twenty-five."

"It'll cost him nearly that to set another pane of plate glass," I
suggests.

"No, Torchy, no," says Old Hickory, wavin' his hand. "Any person who can
show such marksmanship with a golf ball is quite welcome to---- Ah, just
answer that 'phone call, will you, son?"

So I steps over and takes down the receiver. "It's the buildin'
superintendent," says I "He wants to speak to you, sir."

"See what he wants," says Old Hickory

And I expect I was grinnin' some when I turns around after gettin' the
message. "He says somebody has been shootin' golf balls at the south
side of the buildin' all the forenoon," says I, "and that seventeen
panes of glass have, been smashed. He wants to know what he shall do."

"Do?" says Old Hickory. "Tell him to send for a glazier."



CHAPTER XVII

NO LUCK WITH AUNTIE


Well, I expect I've gone and done it again. Queered myself with Auntie.
Vee's, of course. You'd most think I'd know how to handle the old girl
by this time, for we've been rubbin' elbows, as you might say, for quite
a few years now. But somehow we seldom hit it off just right.

Not that I don't try. Say, one of the big ambitions of my young life has
been to do something that would please Auntie so much that no matter
what breaks I made later on she'd be bound to remember it. Up to date,
though, I haven't pulled anything of the kind. No. In fact, just the
reverse.

I've often wished there was some bureau I could go to and get the
correct dope on managin' an in-law aunt with a hair-trigger disposition.
Like the Department of Agriculture. You know if it was boll-weevils, or
cattle tick, or black rust, all I'd have to do would be to drop a
postcard to Washington and in a month or so I'd have all kinds of
pamphlets, with colored plates and diagrams, tellin' me just what to do.
But balky aunts on your wife's side seem to have been overlooked.

Somebody ought to write a book on the subject. You can get 'em that will
tell you how to play bridge, or golf, or read palms, or raise chickens,
or bring up babies. But nothin' on aunts who give you the cold eye and
work up suspicions. And it's more or less important, 'specially if
they're will-makin' aunts, with something to make wills about.

Not that I'm any legacy hound. She can do what she wants with her money,
for all of me. Course, there's Vee to be considered. I wouldn't want to
think, when the time comes, if it ever does, that her Auntie is with us
no more, that it was on account of something I'd said or done that the
Society for the Suppression of Jazz Orchestras was handed an unexpected
bale of securities instead of the same being put where Vee could cash in
on the coupons. Also there's Master Richard Hemmingway. I want to be
able to look sonny in the face, years from now, without having to
explain that if I'd been a little more diplomatic towards his mother's
female relations he might he startin' for college on an income of his
own instead of havin' to depend on my financin' his football career.

Besides, our family is so small that it seems to me the least I can do
to be on good terms with all of 'em. 'Specially I'd like to please
Auntie now and then just for the sake of--well, I don't go so far as to
say I could be fond of Auntie for herself alone, but you know what I
mean. It's the proper thing.

At the same time, I wouldn't want to seem to be overdoin' the act. No.
So when it's a question of whether Auntie should be allowed to settle
down for the spring in an apartment hotel in town, or be urged to stop
with us until Bar Harbor opened for the season, I was all for the
modest, retirin' stuff.

"She might think she had to come if she was asked," I suggests to Vee.
"And if she turned us down we'd have to look disappointed and that might
make her feel bad."

"I hadn't considered that, Torchy," says Vee. "How thoughtful of you!"

"Oh, not at all," says I, wavin' my hand careless. "I simply want to do
what is best for Auntie. Besides, you know how sort of uneasy she is in
the country, with so little going on. And later, if we can persuade her
to make us a little visit, for over night maybe, why----" I shrugs my
shoulders enthusiastic. Anyway, that's what I tried to register.

It went with Vee, all right. One of the last things she does is to get
suspicious of my moves. And that's a great help. So we agrees to let
Auntie enjoy her four rooms and bath on East Sixty-umpt Street without
tryin' to drag her out on Long Island where she might be annoyed by the
robins singin' too early in the mornin' or havin' the scent of lilacs
driftin' too heavy into the windows.

"Besides," I adds, just to clinch the case, "if she stays in town she
won't be bothered by Buddy barkin' around, and she won't have to worry
about how we're bringin' up 'Ikky boy. Yep. It's the best thing for
her."

If Auntie had been in on the argument I expect she'd differed with me.
She generally does. It's almost a habit with her. But not being present
maybe she had a hunch herself that she'd like the city better. Anyway,
that's where she camps down, only runnin' out once or twice for
luncheon, while I'm at the office, and havin' nice little chatty visits
with Vee over the long distance.

Honest, I can enjoy an Auntie who does her droppin' in by 'phone. I
almost got so fond of her that I was on the point of suggestin' to Vee
that she tell Auntie to reverse the charges. No, I didn't quite go that
far. I'd hate to have her think I was gettin' slushy or sentimental. But
it sure was comfortin', when I came home after a busy day at the
Corrugated Trust, to reflect that Auntie was settled nice and cozy on
the ninth floor about twenty-five miles due west from us.

I should have knocked on wood, though. Uh-huh. Or kept my fingers
crossed, or something. For here the other night, as I strolls up from
the station I spots an express truck movin' on ahead in the general
direction of our house. I felt kind of a sinkin' sensation the minute I
saw that truck. I can't say why. Psychic, I expect. You know. Ouija
stuff.

And sure enough, the blamed truck turns into our driveway. By the time
I arrives the man has just unloaded two wardrobe trunks and a hat box.
And in the livin' room I finds Auntie.

"Eh?" says I, starin'. "Why, I--I thought you was----"

"How cordial!" says Auntie.

"Yes," says I, catchin' my breath quick. "Isn't it perfectly bully that
you could come? We was afraid you'd be havin' such a good time in town
that we couldn't----"

"And so I was, until last night," says Auntie. "Verona, will tell you
all about it, I've no doubt."

Oh yes, Vee does. She unloads it durin' a little stroll we took out
towards the garden. New York hadn't been behavin' well towards Auntie.
Not at all well. Just got on one of its cantankerous streaks. First off
there was a waiters' strike on the roof-garden restaurant where most of
the tenants took their dinners. It happened between soup and fish. In
fact, the fish never got there at all. Nor the roast, nor the rest of
the meal. And the head waiter and the house manager had a
rough-and-tumble scrap right in plain sight of everybody and some
perfectly awful language was used. Also the striking waiters marched out
in a body and shouted things at the manager as they went. So Auntie had
to put on her things and call a taxi and drive eight blocks before she
could finish her dinner.

Then about 9 o'clock, as she was settling down for a quiet evening in
her rooms, New York pulled another playful little stunt on her. Nothing
unusual. A leaky gas main and a poorly insulated electric light cable
made connection with the well-known results. For half a mile up and down
the avenue that Auntie's apartment faced on the manhole covers were
blown off. They go off with a roar and a bang, you know. One of 'em
sailed neatly up within ten feet of Auntie's back hair, crashed through
the window of the apartment just above her and landed on the floor so
impetuous that about a yard of plaster came rattlin' down on Auntie's
head. Some fell in her lap and some went down the back of her neck.

All of which was more or less disturbin' to an old girl who was tryin'
to read Amy Lowell's poems and had had her nerves jarred only a couple
of hours before. However, she came out of it noble, with the aid of her
smellin' salts and the assurance of the manager that it wouldn't happen
again. Not that same evenin', anyway. He was almost positive it
wouldn't. At least, it seldom did.

But being in on a strike, and a free-for-all fight, and a conduit
explosion hadn't prepared Auntie to hit the feathers early. So at 1:30
A. M. she was still wide awake and wanderin' around in her nightie with
the shades up and the lights out. That's how she happened to be
stretchin' her neck out of the window when this offensive broke loose
on the roof of the buildin' across the way.

Auntie was just wondering why those two men were skylarking around on
the roof so late at night when two more popped out of skylights and
began to bang away at them with revolvers. Then the first two started to
shoot back, and the first thing Auntie knew there was a crash right over
her head where a stray bullet had wandered through the upper pane. Upon
which Auntie screamed and fainted. Of course, she had read about loft
robbers, but she hadn't seen 'em in action. And she didn't want to see
'em at such close range any more. Not her. She'd had enough, thank you.
So when she came to from her faintin' spell she begun packin' her
trunks. After breakfast she'd called Vee on the 'phone, sketched out
some of her troubles, and been invited to come straight to Harbor Hills.

"It was the only thing to be done," says Vee.

"Well, maybe," says I. "Course, she might have tried another apartment
hotel. They don't all have strikes and explosions and burglar hunts
goin' on. Not every night. She might have taken a chance or one or two
more."

"But with her nerves all upset like that," protests Vee, "I don't see
why she should, when here we are with----"

"Yes, I expect there was no dodgin' it," I agrees.

At dinner Auntie is still sort of jumpy but she says it's a great
satisfaction to know that she is out here in the calm, peaceful country.
"It's dull, of course," she goes on, "but at the same time it is all so
restful and soothing. One knows that nothing whatever is going to
happen."

"Ye-e-es," says I, draggy. "And yet, you can't always tell."

"Can't always tell what?" demands Auntie.

"About things not happenin' out here," says I.

"But, Torchy," says Vee, "what could possibly happen here; that is, like
those things in town?"

I shrugs my shoulders and shakes my head.

"How absurd!" says Vee.

Auntie gives me one of them cold storage looks of hers. "I have usually
noticed," says she, "that things do not happen of themselves. Usually
some one is responsible for their happening."

What she meant by that I couldn't quite make out. Oh yes, takin' a
little rap at me, no doubt. But just how or what for I passed up. I
might have forgotten it altogether if she hadn't reminded me now and
then by favorin' me with a suspicious glare, the kind one of Mr.
Palmer's agents might give to a party in a checked suit steppin' off the
train from Montreal with something bulgin' on the hip.

So it was kind of unfortunate that when Vee suddenly remembers the
Airedale pup and asks where he is that I should say just what I did.
"Buddy?" says I. "Oh, he's all right. I shut him up myself."

It was a fact. I had. And I'd meant well by it. For that's one of the
things we have to look out for when Auntie's visitin' us, to keep Buddy
away from her. Not that there's anything vicious about Buddy. Not at
all. But being only a year old and full of pep and affection, and not at
all discriminatin', he's apt to be a bit boisterous in welcomin'
visitors; and while some folks don't mind havin' fifty pounds of dog
bounce at 'em sudden, or bein' clawed, or havin' their faces licked by a
moist pink tongue, Auntie ain't one of that kind. She gets petrified and
squeals for help and insists that the brute is trying to eat her up.

So as soon as I'd come home and had my usual rough-house session with
Buddy, I leads him upstairs and carefully parks him in the south bedroom
over the kitchen wing. Being thoughtful and considerate, I call that.
Not to Buddy maybe, who's used to spendin' the dinner hour with his nose
just inside the dinin' room door; but to Auntie, anyway.

Which is why I'm so surprised, along about 9 o'clock when Auntie has
made an early start for a good night's rest, to hear these loud hostile
woofs comin' from him and then these blood curdlin' screams.

"For the love of Mike!" I gasps. "Where did you put Auntie?"

"Why, in the south bedroom this time," says Vee.

"Hal-lup!" says I. "That's where I put Buddy."

It was a race then up the stairs, with me tryin' to protest on the jump
that I didn't know Vee had decided to shift Auntie from the reg'lar
guest room to this one.

"Surely you didn't," admits Vee. "But I thought the south room would be
so much sunnier and more cheerful. I--I'll explain to Auntie."

"It can't be done," says I. "Stop it, Buddy! All right, boy. It's
perfectly all right."

Buddy don't believe it, though, until I've opened the door and switched
on the light. Young as he is he's right up on the watch-dog act and when
strangers come prowlin' around in the dark that's his cue for goin' into
action. He has cornered Auntie scientific and while turnin' in a general
alarm he has improved the time by tearin' mouthfuls out of her dress. At
that, too, it's lucky he hadn't begun to take mouthfuls out of Auntie.

As for the old girl, she's so scared she can't talk and so mad she can
hardly see. She stands there limp in a tattered skirt with some of her
gray store hair that has slipped its moorin's restin' jaunty over one
ear and her eyes blazin' hostile.

"Oh, Auntie!" begins Vee. "It was all my----"

"Not a word, Verona," snaps Auntie. "I know perfectly well who is
responsible for this--this outrage." With that she glares at me.

Course, we both tells her just how the mistake was made, over and over,
but it don't register.

"Humph!" says she at last. "If I didn't remember a warning I had at
dinner perhaps I might think as you do, Verona. But I trust that nothing
else has been--er--arranged for my benefit."

"That's generous, anyway," says I, indulgin' in a sarcastic smile.

It's an hour before Auntie's nerves are soothed down enough for her to
make another stab at enjoyin' a peaceful night. Even then she demands to
know what that throbbin' noise is that she hears.

"Oh, that?" says I. "Only the cistern pump fillin' up the rain water
tank in the attic. That'll quit soon. Automatic shut-off, you know."

"Verona," she goes on, ignorin' me, "you are certain it is quite all
right, are you?"

"Oh, yes," says Vee. "It's one we had put in only last week. Runs by
electricity, or some thing. Anyway, the plumber explained to Torchy just
how it works. He knows all about it, don't you, Torchy?"

"Uh-huh," says I, careless.

I did, too. The plumber had sketched out the workin's of the thing
elaborate to me, but I didn't see the need of spendin' the rest of the
night passin' an examination in the subject. Besides, a few of the
details I was a little vague about.

"Very well, then," says Auntie. And she consents to make one more stab
at retirin'.

I couldn't help sighin' relieved when we heard her door shut. "Now if
the roosters don't start crowin'," says I, "or a tornado don't hit us,
or an earthquake break loose, all will be well. But if any of them
things do happen, I'll be blamed."

"Nonsense," says Vee. "Auntie is going to have a nice, quiet, restful
night and in the morning she will be herself again."

"Here's hoping," says I.

And if it's good evidence I'd like to submit the fact that within' five
minutes after I'd rolled into my humble little white iron cot out on the
sleepin' porch I was dead to the world. Could I have done that if I'd
had on my mind a fiendish plot against the peace and safety of the only
real aunt we have in the fam'ly? I ask you.

Seemed like I'd been asleep for hours and hours, and I believe I was
dreamin' that I was being serenaded by a drum corps and that the bass
drummer was mistakin' me for the drum and thumpin' me on the ribs, when
I woke up and found Vee proddin' me from the next cot.

"Torchy!" she's sayin'. "Is that rain?"

"Eh?" says I. "No, that's the drum corps."

"What?" says she. "Don't be silly. It sounds like rain."

"Rain nothing," says I, rubbin' my eyes open. "Why, the moon's shining
and--but, it does sound like water drippin'."

"Drippin!" says Vee. "It's just pouring down somewhere. But where,
Torchy?"

"Give it up," says I. "That is, unless it could be that blessed
tank----"

"That's it!" says Vee. "The tank! But--but just where is it?"

"Why," says I, "it's in the attic over--over--Oh, goodnight!" I groans.

"Well?" demands Vee. "Over what?"

"Over the south bedroom," says I. "Quick! Rescue expedition No. 2.
Auntie again!"

It was Auntie. Although she was clear at the other end of the house from
us we heard her moanin' and takin' on even before we got the hall door
open. And, of course, we made another mad dash. Once more I pushes the
switch button and reveals Auntie in a new plight. Some situation, I'll
say, too. Uh-huh!

You see, there's an unfinished space over the kitchen well and the
plumber had located this hundred-gallon tank in the middle of it. As it
so happens the tank is right over the bed. Well, naturally when the fool
automatic shut-off fails to work and the overflow pipe is taxed beyond
its capacity, the surplus water has to go somewhere. It leaks through
the floorin', trickles down between the laths and through the plaster,
and some of it finds its way along the beams and under the eaves until
it splashes down on the roof of the pantry extension. That's what we'd
heard. But the rest had poured straight down on Auntie.

Being in a strange room and so confused to wake up and find herself
treated to a shower bath that she hadn't ordered, Auntie couldn't locate
the light button. All she could remember was that in unpackin' she'd
stood an umbrella near the head of the bed. So with great presence of
mind she's reached out and grabbed that, unfurled it, and is sittin'
there damp and wailin' in a nice little pool of water that's risin'
every minute. She's just as cosy as a settin' hen caught in a flood and
is wearin' about the same contented expression, I judge.

"Why, Auntie, how absurd!" says Vee.

It wasn't just the right thing to say. Natural enough, I'll admit, but
hardly the remark to spill at that precise moment. I could see the
explosion coming, so after one more look I smothers a chuckle on my own
account and beats it towards the cellar where that blamed pump is still
chuggin' away merry and industrious. By turnin' off all the switches and
handles in sight I manages to induce the fool thing to quit. Then I
sneaks back upstairs, puts on a bathrobe and knocks timid on the door of
the reg'lar guest room from which I hears sounds of earnest voices.

"Can I help any?" says I.

"No, no!" calls out Vee. "You--you'd best go away, Torchy."

She's generally right, Vee is. I went. I took a casual look at the
flooded kitchen with an inch or more of water on the linoleum, and
concluded to leave that problem to the help when they showed up in the
mornin'. And I don't know how long Vee spent in tryin' to convince
Auntie that I hadn't personally climbed into the attic, bugged the pump,
and bored holes through the ceilin'. As I couldn't go on the stand in my
own defense I did the next best thing. I finished out my sleep.

In the mornin' I got the verdict. "Auntie's going back to town," says
Vee. "She thinks, after all, that it will be more restful there."

"It will be for me, anyway," says I.

I don't know how Vee and Master Richard still stand with Auntie. They
may be in the will yet, or they may not. As for Buddy and me, I'll bet
we're out. Absolutely. But we can grin, even at that.



CHAPTER XVIII

HARTLEY PULLS A NEW ONE


Looked like kind of a simple guy, this Hartley Tyler. I expect it was
the wide-set, sort of starey eyes, or maybe the stiff way he had of
holdin' his neck. If you'd asked me I'd said he might have qualified as
a rubber-stamp secretary in some insurance office, or as a tea-taster,
or as a subway ticket-chopper.

Anyway, he wasn't one you'd look for any direct action from. Too mild
spoken and slow moving. And yet when he did cut loose with an original
motion he shoots the whole works on one roll of the bones. He'd come out
of the bond room one Saturday about closin' time and tip-toed hesitatin'
up to where Piddie and I was havin' a little confab on some important
business matter--such as whether the Corrugated ought to stand for the
new demands of the window cleaners, or cut the contract to twice a month
instead of once a week. Mr. Piddie would like to take things like that
straight to Old Hickory himself, but he don't quite dare, so he holds me
up and asks what I think Mr. Ellins would rule in such a case. I was
just giving him some josh or other when he notices Hartley standin'
there patient.

"Well?" says Piddie, in his snappiest office-manager style.

"Pardon me, sir," says Hartley, "but several weeks ago I put in a
request for an increase in salary, to take effect this month."

"Oh, did you?" says Piddie, springin' that sarcastic smile of his. "Do I
understand that it was an ultimatum?"

"Why--er--I hadn't thought of putting it in that form, sir," says
Hartley, blinkin' something like an owl that's been poked off his nest.

"Then I may as well tell you, young man," says Piddie, "that it seems
inadvisable for us to grant your request at this time."

Hartley indulges in a couple more blinks and then adds: "I trust that I
made it clear, Mr. Piddie, how important such an increase was to me?"

"No doubt you did," says Piddie, "but you don't get it."

"That is--er--final, is it?" asks Hartley.

"Quite," says Piddie. "For the present you will continue at the same
salary."

"I'll see you eternally cursed if I do," observes Hartley, without
changin' his tone a note.

"Eh?" gasps Piddie.

"Oh, go to thunder, you pin-head!" says Hartley, startin' back for the
bond room to collect his eye-shade, cuff protectors and other tools of
his trade.

"You--you're discharged, young man!" Piddie gurgles out throaty.

"Very well," Hartley throws over his shoulder. "Have it that way if you
like."

Which is where I gets Piddie's goat still further on the rampage by
lettin' out a chuckle.

"The young whipper-snapper!" growls Piddie.

"Oh, all of that!" says I. "What you going to do besides fire him?
Couldn't have him indicted under the Lever act, could you?"

Piddie just glares and stalks off. Having been called a pin-head by a
bond room cub he's in no mood to be kidded. So I follows in for a few
words with Hartley. You see, I could appreciate the situation even
better than Piddie, for I knew more of the facts in the case than he
did. For instance, I had happened to be in Old Hickory's private office
when old man Tyler, who's one of our directors, you know, had wished his
only son onto our bond room staff.

He's kind of a rough old boy, Z. K. Tyler, one of the bottom-rungers who
likes to tell how he made his start as fry cook on an owl lunch wagon.
Course, now he has his Broad Street offices and is one of the big noises
on the Curb market. Operatin' in motor stocks is his specialty, and when
you hear of two or three concerns being merged and the minority holders
howlin' about being gypped, or any little deal like that, you can make a
safe bet that somewhere in the background is old Z. K. jugglin' the
wires and rakin' in the loose shekels. How he gets away with that stuff
without makin' the rock pile is by me, but he seems to do it reg'lar.

And wouldn't you guess he'd be just the one to have finicky ideas as to
how his son and heir should conduct himself. Sure thing! I heard him
sketchin' some of 'em out to Old Hickory.

"The trouble with most young fellows," says he, "is that they're brought
up too soft. Kick 'em out and let 'em rustle for themselves. That's what
I had to do. Made a man of me. Now take Hartley. He's twenty-five and
has had it easy all his life--city and country home, college, cars to
drive, servants to wait on him, and all that. What's it done for him?
Why, he has no more idea of how to make a dollar for himself than a
chicken has of stirring up an omelette.

"Of course, I could take him in with me and show him the ropes, but he
couldn't learn anything worth while that way. He'd simply be a copy-cat.
He'd develop no originality. Besides, I'd rather see him in some other
line. You understand, Ellins? Something a little more substantial. Got
to find it for himself, though. He's got to make good on his own hook
before I'll help him any more. So out he goes.

"Ought to have a year or so to pick up the elements of business, though.
So let's find a place for him here in the Corrugated. No snap job. I
want him to earn every dollar he gets, and to live off what he earns. Do
him good. Maybe it'll knock some of the fool notions out of his head.
Oh, he's got 'em. Say, you couldn't guess what fool idea he came back
from college with. Thought he wanted to be a painter. Uh-huh! An artist!
Asked me to set him up in a studio. All because him and a room mate had
been daubin' some brushes with oil paints at a summer school they went
to during a couple of vacations. Seems a long-haired instructor had been
telling Hartley what great talent he had. Huh! I soon cured him of that.
'Go right to it, son,' says I. 'Paint something you can sell for five
hundred and I'll cover it with a thousand. Until then, not a red cent.'
And inside of twenty-four hours he concluded he wasn't any budding
Whistler or Sargent, and came asking what I thought he should tackle
first. Eh? Think you could place him somewhere?"

So Old Hickory merely shrugs his shoulders and presses the button for
Piddie. I expect he hears a similar tale about once a month and as a
rule he comes across with a job for sonny boy. 'Specially when it's a
director that does the askin'. Now and then, too, one of 'em turns out
to be quite a help, and if they're utterly useless he can always depend
on Piddie to find it out and give 'em the quick chuck.

As a rule this swift release don't mean much to the Harolds and Perceys
except a welcome vacation while the old man pries open another side
entrance in the house of Opportunity, Ltd., which fact Piddie is wise
to. But in this ease it's a different proposition.

"Did you mean it, Tyler, handin' yourself the fresh air that way!" I
asks him.

"Absolutely," says he, snappin' some rubber bands around, a neat little
bundle.

"Who'd have thought you was a self starter!" says I. "What you going to
do now?"

He hunches his shoulders. "Don't know," says he. "I must find something
mighty quick, though."

"Oh, it can't be as desperate a case as that, can if?" I asks. "You know
you'll get two weeks' pay and with that any single-footed young hick
like you ought to----"

"But it happens I'm not single-footed," breaks in Hartley.

"Eh?" says I. "You don't mean you've gone and----"

"Nearly a month ago," says Hartley. "Nicest little girl in the world,
too. You must have noticed her. She was on the candy counter in the
arcade for a month or so."

"What!" says I. "The one with the honey-colored hair and the bashful
behavin' eyes?"

Hartley nods and blushes.

"Say, you are a fast worker when you get going, ain't you?" says I.
"Picked a Cutie-Sweet right away from all that opposition. But I judge
she's no heiress."

"Edith is just as poor as I am," admits Hartley.

"How about your old man?" I goes on. "What did Z. K. have to say when he
heard!"

"Suppose'we don't go into that," says Hartley. "As a matter of fact, I
hung up the 'phone just as he was getting his second wind."

"Then he didn't pull the 'bless you, my children,' stuff, eh?" I
suggests.

"No," says Hartley, grinnin'. "Quite the contrary. Anyway, I knew what
to expect from him. But say, Torchy, I did have a pretty vague notion of
what it costs to run a family these days."

"Don't you read the newspapers?" says I.

"Oh, I suppose I had glanced at the headlines," says Hartley. "And of
course I knew that restaurant prices had gone up, and laundry charges,
and cigarettes and so. But I hadn't shopped for ladies' silk hose, or
for shoes, or--er--robes de nuit, or that sort of thing. And I hadn't
tried to hire a three-room furnished apartment. Honest, it's something
awful."

"Yes, I've heard something like that for quite a spell now," says I.
"Found that your little hundred and fifty a month wouldn't go very far,
did you?"

"Far!" says Hartley. "Why, it was like taking a one-gallon freezer of
ice cream to a Sunday school picnic. Really, it seemed as if there were
a thousand hands reaching out for my pay envelope the moment I got it.
I don't understand how young married couples get along at all."

"If you did," says I, "you'd have a steady job explainin' the miracle to
about 'steen different Congressional committees. How about Edith? Is she
a help--or otherwise?"

"She's a good sport, Edith is," says Hartley. "She keeps me bucked up a
lot. It was her decision that I just passed on to Mr. Piddie. We talked
it all out last night; how impossible it was to live on my present
salary, and what I should say if it wasn't raised. That is, all but the
crude way I put it, and the pin-head part. We agreed, though, that I had
to make a break, and that it might as well be now as later on."

"Well, you've made it," says I. "What now?"

"We've got to think that out," says Hartley.

"The best of luck to you," says I, as he starts toward the elevator.

And with that Hartley drops out. You know how it is here in New York. If
you don't come in on the same train with people you know, or they work
in different buildin's, or patronize some other lunch room, the chances
of your seein' 'em more 'n once in six months are about as good as
though they'd moved to St. Louis or Santa Fe.

I expect I was curious about what was goin' to happen to Hartley and his
candy counter bride, maybe for two or three days. But it must have been
as many weeks before I even heard his name mentioned. That was when old
Z. K. blew into the private office one day and, after a half hour of
business chat, remarks to Old Hickory; "By the way, Ellins, how is that
son of mine getting on?"

"Eh?" says Old Hickory, starin' at him blank. "Son of yours with us? I'd
forgotten. Let's see. Torchy, in what department is young Tyler now?"

"Hartley?" says I. "Oh, he quit weeks ago."

"Quit?" says Z. K. "Do you mean he was fired?"

"A little of both," says I. "Him and Mr. Piddie split about fifty-fifty
on that. They had a debate about him gettin' a raise. No, he didn't
leave any forwardin' address and he hasn't been back since."

"Huh!" says Z. K., scratchin' his left ear. "He'd had the impudence to
go and get himself married, too. Think of that Ellins! A youngster who
never did a stroke of real work in his life loads himself up with a
family in these times. Well, I suppose he's finding out what a fool he
is, and when they both get good and hungry he'll come crawling back. Oh
yes, I'll give him a job this time, a real one. You know I've been
rebuilding my country home down near Great Neck. Been having a deuce of
a time doing it, too--materials held up, workmen going out on strikes
every few days. I'll set Hartley to running a concrete mixer, or
wheeling bricks when he shows up."

But somehow Hartley don't do the homeward crawl quite on schedule. At
any rate, old Z. K. was in the office three or four times after that
without mentionin' it, and you bet he would have cackled some if Hartley
had come back. All he reports is that the house rebuildin' is draggin'
along to a finish and he hopes to be able to move in shortly.

"Want you to drive over and see what you think of it," he remarks to Mr.
Robert, once when Old Hickory happens to be out. "Only a few plasterers
and plumbers and painters still hanging on. How about next Saturday?
I've got to be there about 2 o'clock. What say?"

"I shall be very glad to," says Mr. Robert, who's always plannin' out
ways of revisin' his own place.

If it hadn't been for some Western correspondence that needed code
replies by wire I expect I should have missed out on this tour of
inspection to the double-breasted new Tyler mansion. As it was Mr.
Robert tells me to take the code book and my hat and come along with him
in the limousine. So by the time we struck Jamaica I was ready to file
the messages and enjoy the rest of the drive.

We finds old Z. K. already on the ground, unloadin' a morning grouch on
a landscape architect.

"Be with you in a minute, Robert," says he. "Just wander in and look
around."

That wasn't so easy as it sounded, for all through the big rooms was
scaffolds and ladders and a dozen or more original members of the
Overalls Club splashin' mortar and paint around. I was glancin' at these
horny-handed sons of toil sort of casual when all of a sudden I spots
one guy in a well-daubed suit of near-white ducks who looks strangely
familiar. Walkin' up to the step-ladder for a closer view I has to stop
and let out a chuckle. It's Hartley.

"Well, well!" says I. "So you did have to crawl back, eh?"

"Eh?" says he, almost droppin' a pail of white paint. "Why, hello,
Torchy!"

"I see you're workin' for a real boss now," says I.

"Who do you mean?" says he.

"The old man," says I, grinnin'.

"Not much!" says Hartley. "He's only the owner, and precious little
bossing he can do on this job. I'm working for McNibbs, the contractor."

"You--you mean you're a reg'lar painter?" says I, gawpin'.

"Got to be, or I couldn't handle a brush here," says Hartley. "This is a
union job."

"But--but how long has this been goin' on, Hartley?" I asks.

"I've held my card for nearly three months now," says he. "No, I
haven't been painting here all that time. In fact, I came here only this
morning. The president of our local shifted me down here for--for
reasons. I'm a real painter, though."

"You look it, I must say," says I. "Like it better than being in the
bond room?"

"Oh, I'm not crazy about it," says he. "Rather smelly work. But it pays
well. Dollar an hour, you know, and time and a half for overtime. I
manage to knock out sixty or so a week. Then I get something for being
secretary of the Union."

"Huh!" says I. "Secretary, are you? How'd you work up to that so quick?"

"Oh, they found I could write fairly good English and was quick at
figures," says he. "Besides, I'm always foreman of the gang. Do all the
color mixing, you know. That's where my art school experience comes in
handy."

"That ought to tickle the old man," says I. "Seen him yet?"

"No," says Hartley, "but I want to. Is he here?"

"Sure," says I. "He's just outside. He'll be in soon."

"Fine!" says Hartley. "Say, Torchy, stick around if you want to be
entertained. I have a message for him."

"I'll be on hand," says I. "Here he comes now."

As old Z. K. stalks in, still red in the ears from his debate outside,
Hartley climbs down off the step ladder. For a minute or so the old man
don't seem to see him any more'n he does any of the other workmen that
he's had to dodge around. Not until Hartley steps right up to him and
remarks: "Mr. Tyler, I believe?" does Z. K. stop and let out a gasp.

"Hah!" he snorts. "Hartley, eh? Well, what does this mean--a
masquerade?"

"Not at all," says Hartley. "This is my regular work."

"Oh, it is, eh?" says he. "Well, keep at it then. Why do you knock off
to talk to me?"

"Because I have something to say to you, sir," says Hartley. "You sent a
couple of non-union plumbers down here the other day, didn't you?"

"What if I did?" demands Z. K. "Got to get the work finished somehow,
haven't I?"

"You'll never get it finished with scab labor, Mr. Tyler," says Hartley.
"You have tried that before, haven't you? Well, this is final. Send
those plumbers off at once or I will call out every other man on the
job."

"Wh-a-a-at!" gasps Z. K. "You will! What in thunder have you got to do
with it?"

"I've been authorized by the president of our local to strike the job,
that's all," says Hartley. "I am the secretary. Here are my credentials
and my union card."

"Bah!" snorts Z. K. "You impudent young shrimp. I don't believe a word
of it. And let me tell you, young man, that I'll send whoever I please
to do the work here, unions or no unions."

"Very well," says Hartley. With that he turns and calls out: "Lay off,
men. Pass the word on."

And say, inside of two minutes there isn't a lick of work being done
anywhere about the place. Plasterers drop their trowels and smoothing
boards, painters come down off the ladders, and all hands begin sheddin'
their work clothes. And while Z. K. is still sputterin' and fumin' the
men begin to file out with their tools under their arms. Meanwhile
Hartley has stepped over into a corner and is leisurely peelin' off his
paint-spattered ducks.

"See here, you young hound!" shouts Z. K. "You know I want to get into
this house early next month. I--I've simply got to."

"The prospects aren't good," says Hartley.

Well, they had it back and forth like that for maybe five minutes before
Z. K. starts to calm down a bit. He's a foxy old pirate, and he hates to
quit, but he's wise enough to know when he's beaten.

"Rather smooth of you, son, getting back at me this way," he observes
smilin' sort of grim. "Learned a few things, haven't you, since you've
been knocking around?"

"Oh, I was bound to," says Hartley.

"Got to be quite a man, too--among painters, eh?" adds Z. K.

Hartley shrugs his shoulders.

"Could you call all those fellows back as easily as you sent them off?"
demands Tyler.

"Quite," says Hartley. "I wouldn't, though, until you had fired those
scab plumbers."

"I see," says Z. K. "And if I did fire 'em, do you think you have
influence enough to get a full crew of union men to finish this job by
next Saturday?"

"Oh, yes," says Hartley. "I could put fifty men at work here Monday
morning--if I wanted to."

"H-m-m-m!" says Z. K., caressin' his left ear. "It's rather a big house
for just your mother and me to live in. Plenty of room for another
family. And I suppose a good studio could be fixed up on the third
floor. Well, son, want to call it a trade?"

"I'll have to talk to Edith first," says Hartley. "I think she'll like
it, and I'll bet you'll like her, too."

Uh-huh! From late reports I hear that Hartley was right both ways. A few
days later Mr. Robert tells me that the Tylers are all preparin' to move
out together. He had seen the whole four of 'em havin' a reunion dinner
at the Plutoria, and says they all seemed very chummy.

"Just like they was members of One Big Union, eh?" says I. "But say,
Hartley's right up to date in his methods of handlin' a wrathy parent,
ain't he? Call a strike on 'em. That's the modern style. I wonder if
he's got it patented?"



CHAPTER XIX

TORCHY GETS A HUNCH


Course, I only got my suspicions, and I ain't in position to call for
the real facts in the case, but I'll bet if it came to a show down I
could name the master mind that wished this backache and the palm
blisters on me. Uh-huh! Auntie. I wouldn't put it past her, for when it
comes to evenin' up a score she's generally right there with the goods.
Deep stuff, as a rule, too.

I ain't denyin' either, but what Auntie had grounds for complaint. Maybe
you remember how she came out to spend a quiet week-end with us after a
nerve shatterin' night in town and near got chewed up by Buddy, the
super-watch dog, and then was almost flooded out of bed because the
attic storage tank ran over? Not that I didn't have a perfect alibi on
both counts. I did. But neither registered with Auntie.

Still, this before-breakfast sod-turnin' idea comes straight from Vee.
Ever try that for an appetizer? Go on, give it a whirl. Ought to be
willin' to try anything once, you know. Some wise old guy said that, I
understand. I'd like to find the spot where he's laid away. I think I'd
go plant a cabbage on his grave. Anyway, he's got some little tribute
like that comin' from me.

Just turnin' up sod with a spade in the dewy morn. Listens kind of
romantic, don't it! And you might like it first rate. Might agree with
you. As for me, I've discovered that my system don't demand anything
like that. Posi-tive-ly. I gave it a good try-out and the reactions
wasn't satisfactory.

You see, it was this way: there's a narrow strip down by the road where
our four-acre estate sort of pinches out, and Vee had planned to do some
fancy landscape gardenin' on it--a bed of cannas down the middle, I
believe, and then rows of salvia, and geraniums and other things. She
had it all mapped out on paper. Also the bulbs and potted plants had
arrived and were ready to be put in.

But it happens that Dominick, our official gardener, had all he could
jump to just then, plantin' beans and peas and corn, and the helper he
depended on to break up this roadside strip had gone back on him.

"How provoking!" says Vee. "I am so anxious to get those things in. If
the ground was ready I would do the planting myself. I just wish"--and
then she stops.

"Well, let's have it," says I. "What's your wish?"

"Oh, nothing much Torchy," says she. "But if I were strong enough to
dig up that sod I wouldn't have to wait for any pokey Italian."

"Why couldn't I do it?" I suggests reckless.

"You!" says Vee, and then snickers.

Say, if she'd come poutin' around, or said right out that she didn't see
why I couldn't make myself useful now and then, I'd have announced flat
that gardenin' was way out of my line. But when she snickers--well, you
know how it is.

"Yessum! Me," says I. "It ain't any art, is it, just stirrin' up the
ground with a spade? And how do you know, Vee, but what I'm the grandest
little digger ever was? Maybe it's a talent I've been concealin' from
you all along."

"But it's rather hard work, turning old sod, and getting out all the
grass roots and rocks," says she. "It takes a lot of strength."

"Huh!" says I. "Feel of that right arm."

"Yes," says she, "I believe you are strong, Torchy. But when could you
find the time?"

"I'd make it," says I. "All I got to do is to roll out of the cot an
hour or so earlier in the morning. Wouldn't six hours do the job? Well,
two hours a day for three days, and there you are. Efficiency stuff.
That's me. Lead me to it."

Vee gazes at me admirin'. "Aren't you splendid, Torchy!" says she. "And
I'm sure the exercise will do you a lot of good."

"Sure!" says I. "Most likely I'll get the habit and by the end of the
summer I'll be a reg'lar Sandow. Now where's that kitchen alarm clock?
Let's see. M-m-m-m! About 5:30 will do for a starter, eh?"

Oh, I'm a determined cuss when I get going. Next mornin' the sun and me
punched in at exactly the same time, and I don't know which was most
surprised. But there I was, associatin' with the twitterin' little birds
and the early worms, and to show I was just as happy as they were I hums
a merry song as I swings out through the dewy grass with the spade over
my shoulder.

Say, there's no fake about the grass being dewy at that hour, either. I
hadn't gone more 'n a dozen steps through it before my feet were as
soggy as if I'd been wadin' in a brook. I don't do any stallin' around,
same as these low brow labor gangs. I pitches right in earnest and
impetuous, makin' the dirt fly. Why, I had the busy little bee lookin'
like he was loafin' on a government contract.

I was just about gettin' my second wind and was puttin' in some heavy
licks when I hears somebody tootin' a motor horn out in the road. I
looks up to find that it's that sporty neighbor of mine, Nick Barrett,
who now and then indulges a fad for an early spin in his stripped
roadster. He has collected his particular chum, Norris Bagby, and I
expect they're out to burn up the macadam before the traffic cops go on
duty.

"What's the big idea, Torchy?" sings out Nick. "Going to bury a cat, or
something?"

"Nothing tragic like that," says I. "Just subbin' in for the gardener.
Pulling a little honest toil, such as maybe you've read about but
haven't met."

"Doing it on a bet, I suppose?" suggests Norris.

"Ah, run along and don't get comic," says I.

And with that I tears into the sod again, puttin' both shoulders and my
back into the swing. I don't let up, either, until I think it must be
after 7 o'clock, and then I stops long enough to look at my watch. It's
just 6:20. Well, I expect I slowed up some from then on. No use tryin'
to dig all over that ground in one morning. And at 6:35 I discovers that
I'd raised a water blister on both palms. Ten minutes later I noticed
this ache in my back and arms.

"Oh, well!" says I, "gotta take time to change and wash up."

At that I didn't feel so bad. After a shower and a fresh outfit from the
socks up I was ready to tackle three fried eggs and two cups of coffee.
On the way to the station I glanced proud at what I'd accomplished. But
somehow it didn't look so much. Just a little place in one corner.

Course, goin' in on the 8:03 I had to stand for a lot of kiddin'.
They're a great bunch of humorists, them commuters. Nick and Norrie has
spread the news around industrious about my sunrise spadin' stunt, and
everybody has to pull his little wheeze.

"How's the old back feel about now; eh, Torchy?" asks one.

"Great stuff!" says another. "Everybody does it--once."

"The boy's clever with the spade, I'll say," adds Nick. "Let's all turn
out tomorrow morning and watch him. He does it regular, they tell me."

I grinned back at 'em as convincin' as I could. For somehow I wasn't
just in the mood for grinnin'. My head was achin' more or less, and my
back hurt, and my palms were sore. By noon I was a wreck. Absolutely.
And when I thought of puttin' in two or three more sessions like that I
had to groan. Could I do it? On the other hand, could I renig on the job
after all that brash line of talk I'd given Vee?

Say, it was all I could do to limp out to luncheon. I didn't want much,
but I thought maybe some tea and toast would make me feel better. And it
was in a restaurant that I ran across this grouchy Scotchman, MacGregor
Shinn, who sold me the place here a while back.

"Maybe you don't know it, Mac," says I, "but you're a wise guy."

"Am I, though?" says he. "I hadn't noticed it myself. Just how, now?"

"Unloadin' that country property on me," says I. "I used to wonder why
you let go of it. I don't any more. I've got the right hunch at last.
You got up bright and early one morning and tried digging around with a
spade. Eh?"

Mac stares at me sort of puzzled. "Not me," says he. "Whatever put that
in your mind, me lad?"

"Ah, come!" says I. "With all that land lyin' around you was bound to
get reckless with a spade some time or other. Might not have been flower
beds you was excavatin' for, same as me. Maybe you was specializin' on
spuds, or cabbages. But I'll bet you had your foolish spell."

Mr. Shinn shakes his head. "All the digging I ever did out there," says
he, "was with a niblick in the bunkers of the Roaring Rock golf course.
No, I'm wrong."

"Ha, ha!" says I. "I thought so."

"Yes," he goes on, rubbin' his chin reminiscent, "I mind me of one
little job of digging I did. I had a cook once who had a fondness for
gin that was scandalous. Locking it up was no good, except in my bureau
drawers, so one time when I had an extra case of Gordon come in I
sneaked out at night and buried it. That was just before I sold the
place to you and--By George, me lad!"

Here he has stopped and is gazin' at me with his mouth open.

"Well?" says I.

"I canna mind digging it up again," says he.

"That doesn't sound much like a Scotchman," says I, "being so careless
with good liquor. But you were in such a rush to get back to town maybe
you did forget. Where did you plant it?"

Mac scratches his head. "I canna seem to think," says he.

And about then I begins to get a glimmer of this brilliant thought of
mine. "Would it have been in that three-cornered strip that runs along
by the road?" I asks.

"It might," says he.

I didn't press him for any more details. I'd heard enough. I finished my
invalid's lunch and slid out. But say, when I caught the 5:13 out to
Harbor Hills that afternoon I had something all doped out to slip to
that bunch of comic commuters. I laid for 'em in the smokin' car, and
when Nick Barrett discovers me inspectin' my palm blisters he starts in
with his kidding again.

"Oh, you'll be able to get out and dig again in a week or so," says he.

"I hope so," says I.

"Still strong for it, eh?" says he.

"Maybe if you knew what I was diggin' for," says I, "you'd--well,
there's no tellin'."

"Eh?" says he. "Whaddye mean?"

I shakes my head and looks mysterious.

"Isn't it green corn, or string beans that you're aimin' at, Torchy?" he
asks.

"Not exactly," says I. "Vegetable raisin' ain't in my line. I leave
that to Dominick. But this--oh, well!"

"You don't mean," insists Nick, eyein' me close, "buried treasure!"

"I expect some would call it that--in these days," says I.

Uh-huh! I had him sittin' up by then, with his ear stretched. And I must
say that from then on Nick does some scientific pumpin'. Not that I let
out anything in so many words, but I'm afraid he got the idea that what
I was after was something money couldn't buy. That is, not unless
somebody violated a sacred amendment to the grand old constitution. In
fact, I may have mentioned casually that a whole case of Gordon was
worth riskin' a blister here and there.

As for Nick, he simply listens and gasps. You know how desperate some of
them sporty ginks are, who started out so gay only a year or so ago with
a private stock in the cellar that they figured would last 'em until the
country rose in wrath and undid Mr. Volstead's famous act? Most of 'em
are discoverin' what poor guessers they were. About 90 per cent are
bluffin' along on home brew hooch that has all the delicate bouquet of
embalmin' fluid and produced about the same effect as a slug of liquid
T. N. T., or else they're samplin' various kinds of patent medicines and
perfumes. Why, I know of one thirsty soul who tries to work up a dinner
appetite by rattlin' a handful of shingle nails in the old shaker. And
if Nick Barrett has more 'n half a bottle of Martini mixture left in the
house he sleeps with it under his pillow. So you can judge how far his
tongue hangs out when he gets me to hint that maybe a whole case of
Gordon is buried somewhere on my premises.

"Torchy," says he, shakin' me solemn by the hand, "I wish you the best
of luck. If you'll take my advice, though, you won't mention this to
anyone else."

Oh, no, I didn't. That is, only to Norrie Bagby and one or two others
that I managed to get a word with on the ride home.

Vee was mighty sympathetic about the blisters and the way my back felt.
I was dosed and plastered and put to bed at 8:30 to make up for all the
sleep I'd lost at the other end of the day.

"And we'll not bother any more about the silly old flowers," says she.
"If Dominick can't find time to do the spading we'll just let it go."

"No," says I, firm and heroic. "I'm no quitter, Vee. I said I'd get it
done within three days and I stick to it."

"Torchy," says she, "don't you dare try getting up again at daylight and
working with your poor blistered hands. I--I shall feel dreadfully about
it, if you do."

"Well, maybe I will skip tomorrow mornin'," says I, "but somehow or
other that diggin' has got to be done."

"I only wish Auntie could hear you say that," says Vee, pattin' me
gently on the cheek.

"Why Auntie?" I asks.

"Oh, just because," says Vee.

With that she fixes me up all comfy on the sleepin' porch and tells me
to call her if I want anything.

"I won't," says I. "I'm all set for slumber. It's goin' to be a fine
large night, ain't it!"

"Perfect," says Vee.

"Moon shinin' and everything?" says I.

"Yes," says she.

"Then here's hoping," says I.

"There, there!" says Vee. "I'm afraid you're a little feverish."

Maybe I was, but I didn't hear another thing until more 'n ten hours
later when I woke up to find the sun winkin' in at me through the
shutters.

"Did you have a good night's rest?" asks Vee.

"As good as they come," says I. "How about you!"

"Oh, I slept fairly well," says she. "I was awake once or twice. I
suppose I was worrying a little about you. And then I thought I hear
strange noises."

"What sort of noises?" I asks.

"Oh, like a lot of men walking by," says she. "That must have been
nearly midnight. They were talking low as they passed, and it almost
sounded as if they were carrying tools of some sort. Then along towards
morning I thought I heard them pass again. I'm sure some of them were
swearing."

"Huh!" says I. "I wonder what they could have been peeved about on such
a fine night?"

"Or I might have been simply dreaming," she adds.

"Yes, and then again," says I, smotherin' a chuckle.

I could hardly wait to dress and shave before rushin' out to inspect the
spot where I'd almost ruined myself only the mornin' before. And it was
something worth inspectin'. I'll say. Must be nearly half an acre in
that strip and I expect that sod has been growin' for years untouched by
the hand of man. At 6 P. M. last night it was just a mass of thick grass
and dandelions, but now--say, a tractor plough and a gang of prairie
tamers couldn't have done a more thorough job. If there was a square
foot that hadn't been torn up I couldn't see it with the naked eye.

Course, it aint all smooth and even. There was holes here and there,
some of 'em three feet deep, but about all the land needed now was a
little rakin' and fillin' in, such as Dominick could do in his spare
time. The cheerin' fact remains that the hard part of the work has been
done, silent and miraculous, and without price.

I shouts for Vee to come out and see. It ain't often, either, that I can
spring anything on her that leaves her stunned and bug-eyed.

"Why, Torchy!" says she, gaspy. "How in the world did you ever manage
it? I--I don't understand."

"Oh, very simple!" says I. "It's all in havin' the right kind of
neighbors."

"But you don't mean," says she, "that you persuaded some of our--oh, I'm
sure you never could. Besides, you're grinning. Torchy, I want you to
tell me all about it. Come, now! Exactly what happened last night?"

"Well," says I, "not being present myself I could hardly tell that. But
I've got a good hunch."

"What is it!" she insists.

"From your report of what you heard," says I, "and from the looks of the
ground 'n everything, I should judge that the Harbor Hills Exploring and
Excavating Co. had been making a night raid on our property."

"Pooh!" says Vee. "I never heard of such a company. But if there is one,
why should they come here?"

"Oh, just prospectin', I expect," says I.

"For what?" demands Vee.

"For stuff that the 18th amendment says they can't have," says I.
"Gettin' down to brass tacks, for a case of dry gin."

Even that don't satisfy Vee. She demands why they should dig for any
such thing on our land.

"They might have heard some rumor," says I, "that MacGregor Shinn went
off and left it buried there. As though a Scotchman could ever get as
careless as that. I don't believe he did. Anyway, some of them smart
Alec commuters who were kiddin' me so free yesterday must have worked up
blisters of their own. My guess is that they lost some sleep, too."

You don't have to furnish Vee with a diagram of a joke, you know, before
she sees it. At that she squints her eyes and lets out a snicker.

"I wonder, Torchy," says she, "who could have started such a rumor?"

"Yes, that's the main mystery, ain't it?" says I. "But your flower bed
is about ready, ain't it?"



CHAPTER XX

GIVING 'CHITA A LOOK


I got to admit that there's some drawbacks to being a 100 per cent
perfect private see. Not that I mind making myself useful around the
general offices. I'm always willin' to roll up my sleeves any time and
save the grand old Corrugated Trust from going on the rocks. I'll take a
stab at anything, from meetin' a strike committee of the Amalgamated
Window Washers' Union to subbin' in as president for Old Hickory at the
annual meetin'. And between times I don't object to makin' myself as
handy as a socket wrench. That is, so long as it's something that has to
do with finance, high or low.

But say, when they get to usin' me in strictly fam'ly affairs, I almost
work up a grouch. Notice the almost. Course, with this fair-and-warmer
disposition of mine I can't quite register. Not with Mr. Robert, anyway.
He has such a matey, I-say-old-chap way with him. Like here the other
day when he comes strollin' out from the private office rubbin' his chin
puzzled, stares around for a minute, and then makes straight for my
desk.

"Well," says he, "I presume you noted the arrival of the prodigal son;
eh, Torchy?"

"Meaning Ambrose the Ambler?" says I.

"The same," says he.

"They will come back even from South America," says I. "And you was
figurin', I expect, how that would be a long, wet walk. But then,
nothing was ever too wet for Amby, and the only fear he had of water was
that he might get careless some time and swallow a little."

"Quite so," says Mr. Robert, grinnin'.

You see, this Ambrose Wood party is only an in-law once removed. Maybe
you remember Ferdy, who had the nerve to marry Marjorie Ellins, the
heavyweight sister of Mr. Robert's, here a few years back? Well, that
was when the Ellinses acquired a brunette member of the flock. Ambrose
is a full brother of Ferdy's. In every sense. That is, he was in the
good old days when Mr. Volstead was only a name towards the end of roll
call.

I ought to know more or less about Amby for we had him here in the
general offices for quite some time, tryin' to discover if there wasn't
some sphere of usefulness that would excuse us handin' him a pay
envelope once a week. There wasn't. Course, we didn't try him as a paper
weight or a door stop. But he had a whirl at almost everything else. And
the result was a total loss.

For one thing, time clocks meant no more to Amby than an excursion ad.
would to a Sing Sing lifer. Amby wasn't interested in 'em. He'd drift
in among the file room or bond clerks, or whatever bunch he happened to
be inflicted on that particular month, at any old hour, from 10 A. M. up
to 2:30 P. M. Always chirky and chipper about it, too. And his little
tales about the parties he'd been to on the night before was usually
interestin'. Which was bad for the general morale, as you can guess.
Also his light and frivolous way of chuckin' zippy lady stenogs under
the chin and callin' 'em "Dearie" didn't help his standin' any. Yeauh!
He was some boy, Amby, while he lasted. Three different times Brother
Ferdie was called from his happy home at night to rush down with enough
cash bail to rescue Ambrose from a cold-hearted desk sergeant, and once
he figured quite prominent on the front page of the morning papers when
he insisted on confidin' to the judge that him and the young lady in the
taxi was really the king and queen of Staten Island come over to visit
upper Broadway. I don't doubt that Amby thought he was something of the
kind at the time, too, but you know how the reporters are apt to play up
an item of that kind. And of course they had to lug in the fact that
Ambrose was a near-son-in-law of the president of the Corrugated Trust.

That was where Old Hickory pushed the button for me. "Young man," says
he, chewin' his cigar savage, "what should you say was the longest
steamer trip that one could buy a ticket for direct from New York?"

"Why," says I, "my guess would be Buenos Ayres."

"Very well," says he, "engage a one way passage on the next boat and see
that Mr. Ambrose Wood stays aboard until the steamer sails."

Which I did. Ambrose didn't show any hard feelin's over it. In fact, as
I remember, he was quite cheerful. "Tell the old hard boiled egg not to
worry about me," says he. "He may be able to lose me this way for a
while, but I'm not clear off the map yet. I'll be back some day."

Must have been more 'n three years ago, and as I hadn't heard Amby's
name mentioned in all that time I joined in the general surprise when I
saw him trailin' in dressed so neat and lookin' so fit.

"On his way to hand Ferdy the glad jolt, eh?" I asks.

"No," says Mr. Robert. "Ambrose seems quite willing to postpone meeting
his brother for a day or so. He has just landed, you see, and doesn't
care to dash madly out into the suburbs. What he wishes most, as I
understand, is to take a long, long look at New York."

"Well, after three years' exile," says I, "you can hardly blame him for
that."

Mr. Robert hunches his shoulders. "I suppose one can't," says he. "Only
it leaves him on my hands, as it were. Someone must do the family
honors--dinner, theatre, all that sort of thing. And if I were not tied
up by an important committee meeting out at the country club I should be
very glad to--er--"

"Ye-e-es?" says I, glancin' at him suspicious.

"You've guessed it, Torchy," says he. "I must leave them to you."

"Whaddye mean, them?" says I. "I thought we was talking about Ambrose."

"Oh, certainly," says Mr. Robert. "But Mrs. Wood is with him, he says.
In fact they came up together. Same boat. They would, you know. Charming
young woman. At least, so I inferred from what Ambrose said. One of
those dark Spanish beauties such as--"

"Check!" says I. "That lets me out. All the Spanish I know is 'Multum in
parvo' and I forget just what that means now. I couldn't talk to the
lady a-tall."

But Mr. Robert insists I don't have to be conversational with her, or
with Ambrose, either. All he wants me to do is steer 'em to some nice,
refined place regardless of expense, give 'em a welcome-home feed that
will make 'em forget that the Ellins family is only represented by
proxy, tow 'em to some high-class entertainment, like "The Boudoir
Girls," and sort of see that Ambrose lands back at his hotel without
having got mixed up with any of his old set.

"Oh!" says I. "Kind of a he-chaperone act, eh?"

That seems to be the general idea, and as he promises to stop in at the
house and fix things up for me at home, and pushes a roll of twenties at
me to spray around with as I see fit, of course, I has to take the job.
I trails in with Mr. Robert while he apologizes elaborate to Ambrose and
explains how he's had to ask me to fill in.

"Perfectly all right, old man," says Ambrose. "In fact--well, you get
the idea, eh? The little wife hasn't quite got her bearings yet. Might
feel better about meeting her new relatives after she's been around a
bit. And Torchy will do fine."

He tips me the wink as Mr. Robert hurries off.

"Same old cut-up, eh, Amby?" says I.

"Who me?" says he. "No, no! Nothing like that. Old married man, steady
as a church. Uh-huh! Two years and a half in the harness. You ought to
see the happy hacienda we call home down there. Say, it's forty-eight
long miles out of Buenos Ayres. Can you picture that! El Placida's the
name of the cute little burg. It looks it. They don't make 'em any more
placid anywhere."

"I wonder you picked it then," says I.

"I didn't exactly," says Ambrose. "El Placida rather picked me. Funny
how things work out sometimes. Got chummy with an old boy going down on
the boat, Senor Alvarado. Showed him how to play Canfield and Russian
bank and gave him the prescription for mixing a Hartford stinger. Before
we crossed the line he thought I was an ace. Wanted to know what I was
going to do down in his great country. 'Oh, anything that will keep me
in cigarettes,' says I. 'You come with me and learn the wool business,'
says he. 'It's a bet,' says I. So instead of being stranded in a strange
land and nibbling the shrubbery for lunch, as my dear brother and the
Ellinses had doped out, I lands easy on my feet with a salary that
starts when I walks down the gank plank. Only I have to be in El Placida
to draw my pay."

"But you made good, did you?" I asks.

"I did as long as Senor Alvarado was around to back me up," says Amby,
"but when he slides down to the city for a week's business trip and
turns me over to that Scotch superintendent of his the going got kind of
rough. Mr. McNutt sends me out with a flivver to buy wool around the
country. Looked easy. Buying things used to be my long suit. I bought a
lot of wool. But I expect some of them low-browed rancheros must have
gypped me good and plenty. Anyway, McNutt threw a fit when he looked
over my bargains. He didn't do a thing but fire me, right off the reel.
Honest, I'd never been fired so impetuous or so enthusiastic. He invites
me to get off the place, which means hiking back to Buenos Ayres.

"Well, what can you do with a Scotchman who's mad clear to the marrow?
Especially a rough actor like McNutt. I'd already done a mile from the
village when along comes 'Chita in her roadster. You know, old man
Alvarado's only daughter. Some senorita, 'Chita is. You should have seen
those black eyes of her's flash when she heard how abrupt I'd been
turned loose. 'We shall go straight to papa,' says she. 'He will tell
Senor McNutt where he gets off.' She meant well, 'Chita. But I had my
doubts. I knew that Alvarado was pretty strong for McNutt. I'd heard him
say there wasn't another man in the Argentine who knew more about wool
than McNutt, and if it came to a showdown as to which of us stayed on I
wouldn't have played myself for a look in.

"So while 'Chita is stepping on the gas button and handing out a swell
line of sympathy I begins to hint that there's one particular reason why
I hated to leave El Placida. Oh, we'd played around some before that.
Strictly off stage stuff, though; a little mandolin practice in the
moonlight, a few fox trot lessons, and so on. But before the old man I'd
let on to be skirt shy. It went big with him, I noticed. But there in
the car I decides that the only way to keep in touch with the family
check book is to make a quick bid for 'Chita. So I cut loose with the
best Romeo lines I had in stock. Twice 'Chita nearly ditched us, but
finally she pulls up alongside the road and gives her whole attention
to what I had to say. Oh, they know how to take it, those sonoritas.
She'd had a whole string of young rancheros and caballeros dangling
around her for the past two years. But somehow I must have had a lucky
break, for the next thing I knew we'd gone to a fond clinch and it was
all over except the visit to the church."

"And you married the job, eh?" says I. "Fast work, I'll say. But how did
papa take it?"

"Well, for the first ten minutes," says Ambrose, "I thought I'd been
caught out in a thunderstorm while an earthquake and a sham battle were
being staged. But pretty soon he got himself soothed down, patted me on
the shoulder and remarked that maybe I'd do as well as some others that
he hadn't much use for. And while he didn't make McNutt eat his words or
anything like that, he gave him to understand that a perfectly good
son-in-law wasn't expected to be such a shark at shopping for wool.
Anyway, we've been getting along fairly well ever since. You have to, in
a place like El Placida."

"And this is a little postponed honeymoon tour, eh?" I suggests.

"Hardly," says Ambrose. "I hope it's a clean break away from the
continent of South America in general and El Placida in particular."

"Oh!" says I. "Will Senor Alvarado stake you to that?"

"He isn't staking anybody now," says Ambrose. "Uh-huh! Checked out last
winter. Good old scout. Left everything to 'Chita, the whole works. And
I've been ever since then trying to convince her that the one spot worth
living in anywhere on the map is this little old burg with Broadway
running through the middle."

"That ought to be easy," says I.

"Not with a girl who's been brought up to think that Buenos Ayres is the
last word in cities," says Ambrose. "Why, she's already begun to feel
sorry for the bellhops and taxi drivers and salesladies because she's
discovered that not one of 'em knows a word of Spanish. Asks me how all
these people manage to amuse themselves evenings with no opera to go to,
no band playing on the plaza, and so on. See what I'm up against,
Torchy?"

"I get a glimmer," says I.

"That's why I'm glad you are going to tow us around," he goes on,
"instead of Bob Ellins. He's a back number, Bob. Me, too, from having
been out of it all so long. Why, I've only been scouting about a little,
but I can't find any of the old joints."

"Yes, a lot of 'em have been put out of business," says I.

"Must be new ones just as good though," he insists. "The live wires
have to rally around somewhere."

"I don't know about that," says I. "This prohibition has put a crimp
in--"

"Oh, you can't tell me!" breaks in Ambrose. "Maybe it's dimmed the
lights some in Worcester and Toledo and Waukegan, but not in good old
Manhattan. Not much! I know the town too well. Our folks just wouldn't
stand for any of that Sahara bunk. Not for a minute. Might have covered
up a bit--high sign necessary, side entrances only, and all that. But
you can't run New York without joy water. It's here. And so are the gay
lads and lassies who uncork it. We want to mingle with 'em, 'Chita and
yours truly. I want her to see the lights where they're brightest, the
girls where they're gayest. Want to show her how the wheels go 'round.
You get me; eh, Torchy?"

"Sure!" says I.

What was the use wastin' any more breath? Besides, I'd been hearin' a
lot of these young hicks talk big about spots where the lid could be
pried off. Maybe it was so. Ambrose and 'Chita should have a look,
anyway. And I spent the rest of the afternoon interviewin' sporty
acquaintances over the 'phone, gettin' dope on where to hunt for active
capers and poppin' corks. I must say, too, that most of the steers were
a little vague. But, then, you can't tell who's who these days, with so
many ministers givin' slummin' parties and Federal agents so thick.

When I sails around to the Plutoria to collect Amby and wife about 6:30
I finds 'Chita all gussied up like she was expectin' big doings. Quite a
stunner she is, with them high voltage black eyes, and the gold ear
hoops, and in that vivid colored evening gown. And by the sparkle in her
eyes I can guess she's all primed for a reg'lar party.

"How about the old Bonaparte for the eats?" I says to Ambrose.

"Swell!" says he. "I remember giving a little dinner for four there once
when we opened--"

"Yes, I know," says I. "Here's the taxi."

Did look like kind of a jolly bunch, too, down there in the old
dining-room--orchestra jabbin' away, couple of real Jap girls floatin'
around with cigars and cigarettes, and all kinds of glasses on the
tables. But you should have seen Amby's jaw drop when he grabs the wine
list and starts to give an order.

"What the blazes is a grenadine cocktail or--or a pineapple punch?" he
demands.

"By me," says I. "Why not sample some of it?"

Which he does eager. "Bah!" says he. "Call that a cocktail, do they?
Nothing but sweetened water colored up. Here, waiter! Call the chief."

All Ambrose could get out of the head waiter, though, was shoulder
shrugs and regrets. Nothing doing in the real red liquor line. "The
champagne cider iss ver' fine, sir," he adds.

"Huh!" says Ambrose. "Ought to be at four fifty a quart. Well, we'll
take a chance."

Served it in a silver bucket, too. It had the familiar pop, and the
bubbles showed plain in the hollow stemmed glasses, but you could drink
a gallon of it without feelin' inspired to do anything wilder than call
for a life preserver.

The roof garden girl-show that we went to afterwards was a zippy
performance, after it's kind. Also there was a bar in the lobby. Amby
shoved up to that prompt--and came back with two pink lemonades, at 75
cents a throw.

"Well," says I, "ain't there mint on top and a cherry in the bottom?"

"And weak lemonade in between," grumbles Ambrose. "What do they take me
for, a gold fish?"

"We'll try a cabaret next," says I.

We did. They had the place fixed up fancy, too, blue and green toy
balloons floatin' around the ceilin', a peacock in a big gold cage,
tables ranged around the dancin' space, and the trombone artist puttin'
his whole soul into a pumpin' out "The Alcoholic Blues." And you could
order most anything off the menu, from a poulet casserole to a cheese
sandwich. Amby and 'Chita splurged on a cafe parfait and a grape juice
rickey. Other dissipated couples at nearby tables were indulgin' in
canapes of caviar and frosted sarsaparillas. But shortly after midnight
the giddy revellers begun to thin out and the girl waiters got yawny.

"How about a round of strawb'ry ice cream sodas; eh, Amby?" I suggests.

"No," says he, "I'm no high school girl. I've put away so much of that
sweet slush now that I'll be bilious for a week. But say, Torchy, honest
to goodness, is Broadway like this all the time now?"

"No," says I. "They're goin' to have a Y.W.C.A. convention here next
week and I expect that'll stir things up quite a bit."

"Sorry," says Amby, "but I shan't be here."

"No?" says I.

"Pos-i-tively," says Ambrose. "'Chita and I will be on our way back by
that time; back to good old Buenos Ayres, where there's more doing in a
minute than happens the whole length of Broadway in a month. And listen,
old son; when we open a bottle something besides the pop will come out
of it." "Better hurry," says I. "Maybe Pussyfoot Johnson's down there
now monkeying with the constitution."

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SEWELL FORD'S STORIES

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

SHORTY McCABE. Illustrated by Francis Vaux Wilson.
  A very humorous story. The hero, an independent and vigorous thinker,
  sees life, and tells about it in a very unconventional way.

SIDE-STEPPING WITH SHORTY. Illustrated by Francis Vaux Wilson.
  Twenty skits, presenting people with their foibles. Sympathy with
  human nature and an abounding sense of humor are the requisites for
  "side-stepping with Shorty."

SHORTY McCABE ON THE JOB. Illustrated by Francis Vaux Wilson.
  Shorty McCabe reappears with his figures of speech revamped right up
  to the minute. He aids in the right distribution of a "conscience
  fund," and gives joy to all concerned.

SHORTY McCABE'S ODD NUMBERS. Illustrated by Francis Vaux Wilson.
  These further chronicles of Shorty McCabe tell of his studio for
  physical culture, and of his experiences both on the East side and at
  swell yachting parties.

TORCHY. Illus, by Geo. Biehm and Jas. Montgomery Flagg.
  A red-headed office boy, overflowing with wit and wisdom peculiar to
  the youths reared on the sidewalks of New York, tells the story of his
  experiences.

TRYING OUT TORCHY. Illustrated by F. Foster Lincoln.
  Torchy is just as deliriously funny in these stories as he was in the
  previous book.

ON WITH TORCHY. Illustrated by F. Foster Lincoln.
  Torchy falls desperately in love with "the only girl that ever was,"
  but that young society woman's aunt tries to keep the young people
  apart, which brings about many hilariously funny situations.

TORCHY, PRIVATE SEC. Illustrated by F. Foster Lincoln.
  Torchy rises from the position of office boy to that of secretary tor
  the Corrugated Iron Company. The story is full of humor and infectious
  American slang.

WILT THOU TORCHY. Illus. by F. Snapp and A. W. Brown.
  Torchy goes on a treasure search expedition to the Florida West Coast,
  in company with a group of friends of the Corrugated Trust and with
  his friend's aunt, on which trip Torchy wins the aunt's permission to
  place an engagement ring on Vee's finger.

Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York

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JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD'S STORIES OF ADVENTURE

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

THE RIVER'S END
  A story of the Royal Mounted Police.

THE GOLDEN SNARE
  Thrilling adventures in the Far Northland.

NOMADS OF THE NORTH
  The story of a bear-cub and a dog.

KAZAN
  The tale of a "quarter-strain wolf and three-quarters husky" torn
  between the call of the human and his wild mate.

BAREE, SON OF KAZAN
  The story of the son of the blind Grey Wolf and the gallant part he
  played in the lives of a man and a woman.

THE COURAGE OF CAPTAIN PLUM
  The story of the King of Beaver Island, a Mormon colony, and his
  battle with Captain Plum.

THE DANGER TRAIL
  A tale of love, Indian vengeance, and a mystery of the North.

THE HUNTED WOMAN
  A tale of a great fight in the "valley of gold" for a woman.

THE FLOWER OF THE NORTH
  The story of Fort o' God, where the wild flavor of the wilderness is
  blended with the courtly atmosphere of France.

THE GRIZZLY KING
  The story of Thor, the big grizzly.

ISOBEL
  A love story of the Far North.

THE WOLF HUNTERS
  A thrilling tale of adventure in the Canadian wilderness.

THE GOLD HUNTERS
  The story of adventure in the Hudson Bay wilds.

THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE
  Filled with exciting incidents in the land of strong men and women.

BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY
  A thrilling story of the Far North. The great Photoplay was made from
  this book.

Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York

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RALPH CONNOR'S STORIES OF THE NORTHWEST

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

THE SKY PILOT IN NO MAN'S LAND
  The clean-hearted, strong-limbed man of the West leaves his hills and
  forests to fight the battle for freedom in the old world.

BLACK ROCK
  A story of strong men in the mountains of the West.

THE SKY PILOT
  A story of cowboy life, abounding in the freshest humor, the truest
  tenderness and the finest courage.

THE PROSPECTOR
  A tale of the foothills and of the man who came to them to lend a hand
  to the lonely men and women who needed a protector.

THE MAN FROM GLENGARRY
  This narrative brings us into contact with elemental and volcanic
  human nature and with a hero whose power breathes from every word.

GLENGARRY SCHOOL DAYS
  In this rough country of Glengarry, Ralph Connor has found human
  nature in the rough.

THE DOCTOR
  The story of a "preacher-doctor" whom big men and reckless men loved
  for his unselfish life among them.

THE FOREIGNER
  A tale of the Saskatchewan and of a "foreigner" who made a brave and
  winning fight for manhood and love.

CORPORAL CAMERON
  This splendid type of the upright, out-of-door man about which Ralph
  Connor builds all his stories, appears again in this book.

Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York

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THE NOVELS OF GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL LUTZ

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

THE BEST MAN
  Through a strange series of adventures a young man finds himself
  propelled up the aisle of a church and married to a strange girl.

A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS
  On her way West the heroine steps off by mistake at a lonely watertank
  into a maze of thrilling events.

THE ENCHANTED BARN
  Every member of the family will enjoy this spirited chronicle of a
  young girl's resourcefulness and pluck, and the secret of the
  "enchanted" barn.

THE WITNESS
  The fascinating story of the enormous change an incident wrought in a
  man's life.

MARCIA SCHUYLER
  A picture of ideal girlhood set in the time of full skirts and poke
  bonnets.

LO, MICHAEL!
  A story of unfailing appeal to all who love and understand boys.

THE MAN OF THE DESERT
  An intensely moving love story of a man of the desert and a girl of
  the East pictured against the background of the Far West.

PHOEBE DEANE
  A tense and charming love story, told with a grace and a fervor with
  which only Mrs. Lutz could tell it.

DAWN OF THE MORNING
  A romance of the last century with all of its old-fashioned charm. A
  companion volume to "Marcia Schuyler" and "Phoebe Deane."

Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction

Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York

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ELEANOR H. PORTER'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

JUST DAVID
  The tale of a loveable boy and the place he comes to fill in the
  hearts of the gruff farmer folk to whose care he is left.

THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING
  A compelling romance of love and marriage.

OH, MONEY! MONEY!
  Stanley Fulton, a wealthy bachelor, to test the dispositions of his
  relatives, sends them each a check for $100,000, and then as plain
  John Smith comes among them to watch the result of his experiment.

SIX STAR RANCH
  A wholesome story of a club of six girls and their summer on Six Star
  Ranch.

DAWN
  The story of a blind boy whose courage leads him through the gulf of
  despair into a final victory gained by dedicating his life to the
  service of blind soldiers.

ACROSS THE YEARS
  Short stories of our own kind and of our own people. Contains some of
  the best writing Mrs. Porter has done.

THE TANGLED THREADS
  In these stories we find the concentrated charm and tenderness of all
  her other books.

THE TIE THAT BINDS
  Intensely human stories told with Mrs. Porter's wonderful talent for
  warm and vivid character drawing.

Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York

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ETHEL M. DELL'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

THE LAMP IN THE DESERT
  The scene of this splendid story is laid in India and tells of the
  lamp of love that continues to shine through all sorts of tribulations
  to final happiness.

GREATHEART
  The story of a cripple whose deformed body conceals a noble soul.

THE HUNDREDTH CHANCE
  A hero who worked to win even when there was only "a hundredth
  chance."

THE SWINDLER
  The story of a "bad man's" soul revealed by a woman's faith.

THE TIDAL WAVE
  Tales of love and of women who learned to know the true from the
  false.

THE SAFETY CURTAIN
  A very vivid love story of India. The volume also contains four other
  long stories of equal interest.

Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York

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EDGAR RICE BURROUGH'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

TARZAN THE UNTAMED
  Tells of Tarzan's return to the life of the ape-man in his search for
  vengeance on those who took from him his wife and home.

JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN
  Records the many wonderful exploits by which Tarzan proves his right
  to ape kingship.

A PRINCESS OF MARS
  Forty-three million miles from the earth--a succession of the weirdest
  and most astounding adventures in fiction. John Carter, American,
  finds himself on the planet Mars, battling for a beautiful woman, with
  the Green Men of Mars, terrible creatures fifteen feet high, mounted
  on horses like dragons.

THE GODS OF MARS
  Continuing John Carter's adventures on the Planet Mars, in which he
  does battle against the ferocious "plant men," creatures whose mighty
  tails swished their victims to instant death, and defies Issus, the
  terrible Goddess of Death, whom all Mars worships and reveres.

THE WARLORD OF MARS
  Old acquaintances, made in the two other stories, reappear, Tars
  Tarkas, Tardos Mors and others. There is a happy ending to the storv
  in the union of the Warlord, the title conferred upon John Carter,
  with Drjah Thoris.

THUVIA, MAID OF MARS
  The fourth volume of the series. The story centers around the
  adventures of Carthoris, the son of John Carter and Thuvia, daughter
  of a Martian Emperor.

Grosset & Dunlap. Publishers, New York

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BOOTH TARKINGTON'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

SEVENTEEN. Illustrated by Arthur William Brown.
  No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed the immortal
  young people of this story. Its humor is irresistible and reminiscent
  of the time when the reader was Seventeen.

PENROD. Illustrated by Gordon Grant.
  This is a picture of a boy's heart, full of the lovable, humorous,
  tragic things which are locked secrets to most older folks. It is a
  finished, exquisite work.

PENROD AND SAM. Illustrated by Worth Brehm.
  Like "Penrod" and "Seventeen," this book contains some remarkable
  phases of real boyhood and some of the best stories of juvenile
  prankishness that have ever been written.

THE TURMOIL. Illustrated by C. E. Chambers.
  Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who revolts against his
  father's plans for him to be a servitor of big business. The love of a
  fine girl turns Bibb's life from failure to success.

  THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA. Frontispiece. A story of love and
  politics,--more especially a picture of a country editor's life in
  Indiana, but the charm of the book lies in the love interest.

THE FLIRT. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood.
  The "Flirt," the younger of two sisters, breaks one girl's engagement,
  drives one man to suicide, causes the murder of another, leads another
  to lose his fortune, and in the end marries a stupid and unpromising
  suitor, leaving the really worthy one to marry her sister.

Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction

Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York





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