"Well?" says the Rev. Sam.

"Eh?" says Bobby, tearin' his eyes off the Dummy. "Were you saying something about the glass works? Beastly bore! I never go near them. But say! I want that chap over there. I want to hire him. What's his name?"

"Dummy Kronacher," says the Rev. Sam, comin' out strong on the first word.

"Good!" says Bobbie. "Hey, Dummy? What will you take to stay here with me and do that right along?"

Dummy has just discovered a stuffed alligator that can snap its jaws and wiggle its tail. He only looks up and grins.

"I'll make it a hundred a month," says Bobbie. "Well, that's settled. Atkins, you're fired! And say, McCabe, I must show this new man how I want this business done. You and your friend run in some other time, will you?"

"But," says Hooker, "can't you do something about those helpers? Won't you promise to——"

"No!" snaps Bobby. "I've no time to bother with such things. Atkins, show 'em out!"

Well, we went. We goes so sudden the Rev. Sam forgets about leavin' the Dummy until we're outside, and then he's for goin' back after him.

"What for?" says I. "That pair'll get along fine; they're two of a kind."

"I guess you're right," says he. "And it's something to have brought those two together. Perhaps someone will see the significance of it, some day."

Now what was he drivin' at then? You can search me. All I've been able to make out of it is that what ails the poor is poverty, and the trouble with the plutes is that they've got too much. Eh? Barney Shaw said something like that too? Well, don't let on I agree with him. He might get chesty.



CHAPTER X

MARMADUKE SLIPS ONE OVER

And you'd almost think I could accumulate enough freaks, all by myself, without havin' my friends pass theirs along, wouldn't you? Yet lemme tell you what Pinckney rung up on me.

He comes into the Studio one day towin' a party who wears brown spats and a brown ribbon to his shell rimmed eyeglasses, and leaves him planted in a chair over by the window, where he goes to rubbin' his chin with a silver-handled stick while we dive into the gym. for one of our little half-hour sessions. Leaves him there without sayin' a word, mind you, like you'd stand an umbrella in the corner!

"Who's the silent gazooks you run on the siding out front?" says I.

"Why," says Pinckney, "that's only Marmaduke."

"Only!" says I. "I should say Marmaduke was quite some of a name. Anything behind it? He ain't a blank, is he?"

"Who, Marmaduke?" says he. "Far from it! In fact, he has a most individual personality."

"That sounds good," says I; "but does it mean anything? Who is he, anyway?"

"Ask him, Shorty, ask him," says Pinckney, and as he turns to put his coat on the hanger I gets a glimpse of that merry eye-twinkle of his.

"Go on—I'm easy," says I. "I'd look nice, wouldn't I, holdin' a perfect stranger up for his pedigree?"

"But I assure you he'd be pleased to give it," says Pinckney, "and, more than that, I want to be there to hear it myself."

"Well, you're apt to strain your ears some listenin'," says I. "This ain't my day for askin' fool questions."

You never can tell, though. We hadn't much more'n got through our mitt exercise, and Pinckney was only half into his afternoon tea uniform, when there's a 'phone call for him. And the next thing I know he's hustled into his frock coat and rushed out.

Must have been five minutes later when I fin'lly strolls into the front office, to find that mysterious Marmaduke is still holdin' down the chair and gazin' placid out onto 42d-st. It looks like he'd been forgotten and hadn't noticed the fact.

One of these long, loose jointed, languid actin' gents, Marmaduke is; the kind that can drape themselves careless and comf'table over almost any kind of furniture. He's a little pop eyed, his hair is sort of a faded tan color, and he's whopper jawed on the left side; but beyond that he didn't have any striking points of facial beauty. It's what you might call an interestin' mug, though, and it's so full of repose that it seems almost a shame to disturb him.

Someone had to notify him, though, that he'd overslept. I tried clearin' my throat and shufflin' my feet to bring him to; but that gets no action at all. So there was nothing for it but to go over and tap him on the shoulder.

"Excuse me," says I, "but your friend has gone."

"Ah, quite so," says he, still starin' out of the window and rubbin' his chin. "'Tis a way friends have. They come, and they go. Quite so."

"Nobody's debatin' that point," says I; "but just now I wa'n't speakin' of friends in gen'ral. I was referrin' to Pinckney. He didn't leave any word; but I suspicion he was called up by——"

"Thanks," breaks in Marmaduke. "I know. Mrs. Purdy-Pell consults him about dinner favors—tremendous trifles, to be coped with only by a trained intelligence. We meet at the club later."

"Oh, that's it, is it?" says I. "In that case, make yourself to home. Have an evening paper?"

"Please take it away," says he. "I might be tempted to read about the beastly stock market."

"Been taking a little flyer, eh?" says I.

"What, I?" says he. "Why, I haven't enough cash to buy a decent dinner. But everybody you meet follows the market, you know. It's a contagious disease."

"So?" says I. "Now I've been exposed a lot and haven't caught it very hard."

"Gifted of the gods!" says he.

"Eh?" says I.

"I'm Marmaduke, you know," says he.

"I've heard that much," says I.

"To him that hath ears—mufflers," says he.

"Mufflers?" says I. "I guess I must be missin' some of my cues, Mister."

"Never care," says he. "Why cry over spilt milk when one can keep a cat?"

"Look here!" says I. "Are you stringin' me, or am I stringin' you?"

"Of what use to fret the oracle?" says he. "They say silence is golden—well, I've spent mine."

And, say, he had me doin' the spiral dip at that. I don't mind indulgin' in a little foolish conversation now and then; but I hate to have it so one sided. And, honest, so far as I figured, he might have been readin' the label off a tea chest. So with that I counters with one of my rough and ready comebacks.

"Marmaduke—did you say it was?" says I. "If you did, where's the can?"

"By Jove! That's rather good, though!" says he, rappin' the floor with his stick. "A little crude; but the element is there. Brava! Bravissimo!"

"Stirred up the pigeons, anyway," says I.

"Pigeons?" says he, lookin' puzzled.

"Well, well!" says I. "And he wants a diagram for that mossy one! Loft, you know," and I taps my forehead.

"Almost worthy of my steel!" says he, jumpin' up and shovin' out his hand. "Well met, Brother!"

"I don't know which of us has a call to get chesty over it; but here's how," says I, takin' the friendly palm he holds out. "Seein' it's gone this far, though, maybe you'll tell me who in blazes you are!"

And there I'd gone and done just what Pinckney had egged me to do. Course, the minute I asked the question I knew I'd given him a chance to slip one over on me; but I wa'n't lookin' for quite such a double jointed jolt.

"Who am I?" says he. "Does it matter? Well, if it does, I am easily accounted for. Behold an anachronism!"

"A which?" says I.

"An anachronism," says he once more.

"I pass," says I. "Is it part of Austria, or just a nickname for some alfalfa district out West?"

"Brave ventures," says he; "but vain. One's place of birth doesn't count if one's twentieth century mind has a sixteenth century attitude. That's my trouble; or else I'm plain lazy, which I don't in the least admit. Do you follow me?"

"I'm dizzy from it," says I.

"The confession is aptly put," he goes on, "and the frankness of it does you credit. But I perceive. You would class me by peg and hole. Well, I'm no peg for any hole. I don't fit. On the floor of life's great workshop I just kick around. There you have me—ah—what?"

"Maybe," says I; "but take my advice and don't ever spring that description on any desk Sergeant. It may be good; but it sounds like loose bearin's."

"Ah!" says he. "The metaphor of to-morrow! Speak on, Sir Galahad!"

"All right," says I. "I know it's runnin' a risk; but I'll chance one more: What part of the map do you hail from, Marmaduke?"

"My proper home," says he, "is the Forest of Arden; but where that is I know not."

"Why," says I, "then you belong in the new Harriman State Park. Anyway, there's a station by that name out on the Erie road."

"Rails never ran to Arden Wood," says he, "nor ever will. Selah!"

"Sounds like an old song," says I. "Are you taken this way often?"

"I'm Marmaduke, you know," says he.

"Sure, that's where we begun," says I; "but it's as far as we got. Is bein' Marmaduke your steady job?"

"Some would call it so," says he. "I try to make of it an art."

"You win," says I. "What can I set up?"

"Thanks," says he. "Pinckney has thoughtlessly taken his cigarette case with him."

So I sends Swifty out for a box of the most expensive dope sticks he can find. Maybe it wouldn't strike everybody that way; but to me it seemed like bein' entertained at cut rates. Next to havin' a happy dream about nothing I could remember afterwards, I guess this repartee bout with Marmaduke gets the ribbon. It was like blowin' soap bubbles to music,—sort of soothin' and cheerin' and no wear and tear on the brain. He stayed until closin' up time, and I was almost sorry to have him go.

"Come around again," says I, "when the fog is thinner."

"I'm certain to," says he. "I'm Marmaduke, you know."

And the curious thing about that remark was that after you'd heard it four or five times it filled the bill. I didn't want to know any more, and it was only because Pinckney insisted on givin' me the details that the mystery was partly cleared up.

"Well," says he, "what did you think of Marmaduke?"

"Neither of us did any thinkin'," says I. "I just watched the butterflies."

"You what?" says Pinckney.

"Oh, call 'em bats, then!" says I. "He's got a dome full."

"You mean you thought Marmaduke a bit off?" says he. "Nothing of the kind, Shorty. Why, he's a brilliant chap,—Oxford, Heidelberg, and all that sort of thing. He's written plays that no one will put on, books that no one will publish, and composed music that few can understand."

"I can believe it," says I. "Also he can use language that he invents as he goes along. Entertainin' cuss, though."

"A philosopher souffle," says Pinckney.

"Does it pay him well?" says I.

"It's no joke," says Pinckney. "The little his father left him is gone, and what's coming from his Uncle Norton he doesn't get until the uncle dies. Meanwhile he's flat broke and too proud to beg or borrow."

"Never tried trailin' a pay envelope, did he?" says I.

"But he doesn't know how," says Pinckney. "His talents don't seem to be marketable. I am trying to think of something he could do. And did you know, Shorty, he's taken quite a fancy to you?"

"They all do," says I; "but Marmaduke's easier to stand than most of 'em. Next time I'm threatened with the willies I'll send for him and offer to hire him by the hour."

As a matter of fact, I didn't have to; for he got into the habit of blowin' into the studio every day or two, and swappin' a few of his airy fancies for my mental short-arm jabs. He said it did him good, and somehow or other it always chirked me up too.

And the more I saw of Marmaduke, the less I thought about the bats. Get under the surface, and he wa'n't nutty at all. He just had a free flow of funny thoughts and odd ways of expressin' 'em. Most of us are so shy of lettin' go of any sentiments that can't be had on a rubber stamp that it takes a mighty small twist to put a person in the queer class.

However, business is business, and I'd just as soon Marmaduke hadn't been on hand the other day when Pyramid Gordon comes in with one of his heavyweight broker friends. Course, I didn't know anything about the stranger; but I know Pyramid, and his funnybone was fossilized years ago. Marmaduke don't offer to make any break, though. He takes his fav'rite seat over by the window and goes to gazin' out and rubbin' his chin.

Seems that Mr. Gordon and his friend was both tangled up in some bank chain snarl that was worryin' 'em a lot. Things wouldn't be comin' to a head for forty-eight hours or so, and meantime all they could do was sit tight and wait.

Now, Pyramid's programme in a case of that kind is one I made out for him myself. It's simple. He comes to the studio for an hour of the roughest kind of work we can put through. After that he goes to his Turkish bath, and by the time his rubber is through with him he's ready for a private room and a ten hours' snooze. That's what keeps the gray out of his cheeks, and helps him look a Grand Jury summons in the face without goin' shaky.

So it's natural he recommends the same course to this Mr. Gridley that he's brought along. Another thick-neck, Gridley is, with the same flat ears as Pyramid, only he's a little shorter and not quite so rugged around the chin.

"Here we are, now," says Pyramid, "and here's Professor McCabe, Gridley. If he can't make you forget your troubles, you will be the first on record. Come on in and see."

But Gridley he shakes his head. "Nothing so strenuous for me," says he. "My heart wouldn't stand it. I'll wait for you, though."

"Better come in and watch, then," says I, with a side glance at Marmaduke.

"No, thanks; I shall be quite as uncomfortable here," says Gridley, and camps his two hundred and ten pounds down in my desk chair.

It was a queer pair to leave together,—this Gridley gent, who was jugglin' millions, and gettin' all kinds of misery out of it, and Marmaduke, calm and happy, with barely one quarter to rub against another. But of course there wa'n't much chance of their findin' anything in common to talk about.

Anyway, I was too busy for the next hour to give 'em a thought, and by the time I'd got Pyramid breathin' like a leaky air valve and glowin' like a circus poster all over, I'd clean forgot both of 'em. So, when I fin'lly strolls out absent minded, it's something of a shock to find 'em gettin' acquainted, Marmaduke tiltin' back careless in his chair, and Gridley eyin' him curious.

It appears that Pyramid's friend has got restless, discovered Marmaduke, and proceeded to try to tell him how near he comes to bein' a nervous wreck.

"Ever get so you couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, couldn't think of but one thing over and over?" he was just sayin'.

"To every coat of arms, the raveled sleeve of care," observes Marmaduke sort of casual.

"Hey?" says Gridley, facin' round on him sharp.

"As the poet puts it," Marmaduke rattles on,—

"You cannot gild the lily, Nor can you wet the sea; Pray tell me of my Bonnie, But bring her not to me!"

"Say, what the howling hyenas are you spouting about?" snorts Gridley, growin' purple back of the ears. "Who in thunder are you?"

"Don't!" says I, holdin' up a warnin' hand. But I'm too late. Marmaduke has bobbed up smilin'.

"A chip on the current," says he. "I'm Marmaduke, you know. No offense meant. And you were saying——"

"Huh!" grunts Gridley, calmin' down. "Can't wet the sea, eh? Not so bad, young man. You can't keep it still, either. It's the only thing that puts me to sleep when I get this way."

"Break, break, break—I know," says Marmaduke.

"That's it," says Gridley, "hearing the surf roar. I'd open up my seashore cottage just for the sake of a good night's rest, if it wasn't for the blasted seagulls. You've heard 'em in winter, haven't you, how they squeak around?"

"It's their wing hinges," says Marmaduke, solemn and serious.

"Eh?" says Gridley, gawpin' at him.

"Squeaky wing hinges," says Marmaduke. "You should oil them."

And, say, for a minute there, after Gridley had got the drift of that tomfool remark, I didn't know whether he was goin' to throw Marmaduke through the window, or have another fit. All of a sudden, though, he begins poundin' his knee.

"By George! but that's rich, young man!" says he. "Squeaky gulls' wing hinges! Haw-haw! Oil 'em! Haw-haw! How did you ever happen to think of it, eh?"

"One sweetly foolish thought," says Marmaduke. "I'm blessed with little else."

"Well, it's a blessing, all right," says Gridley. "I have 'em sometimes; but not so good as that. Say, I'll have to tell that to Gordon when he comes out. No, he wouldn't see anything in it. But see here, Mr. Marmaduke, what have you got on for the evening, eh?"

"My tablets are cleaner than my cuffs," says he.

"Good work!" says Gridley. "What about coming out and having dinner with me?"

"With you or any man," says Marmaduke. "To dine's the thing."

With that, off they goes, leavin' Pyramid in the gym. doorway strugglin' with his collar. Course, I does my best to explain what's happened.

"But who was the fellow?" says Mr. Gordon.

"Just Marmaduke," says I, "and if you don't want to get your thinker tied in a double bowknot you'll let it go at that. He's harmless. First off I thought his gears didn't mesh; but accordin' to Pinckney he's some kind of a philosopher."

"Gridley has a streak of that nonsense in him too," says Pyramid. "I only hope he gets it all out of his system by to-morrow night."

Well, from all I could hear he did; for there wa'n't any scarehead financial story in the papers, and I guess the bank snarl must have been straightened out all right. What puzzled me for a few days, though, was to think what had become of Marmaduke. He hadn't been around to the studio once; and Pinckney hadn't heard a word from him, either. Pinckney had it all framed up how Marmaduke was off starvin' somewhere.

It was only yesterday, too, that I looks up from the desk to see Marmaduke, all got up in an entire new outfit, standin' there smilin' and chipper.

"Well, well!" says I. "So you didn't hit the breadline, after all!"

"Perchance I deserved it," says he; "but there came one from the forest who willed otherwise."

"Ah, cut the josh for a minute," says I, "and tell us what you landed!"

"Gladly," says he. "I have been made the salaried secretary of the S. O. S. G. W. H."

"Is it a new benefit order," says I, "or what?"

"The mystic letters," says he, "stand for the Society for Oiling Squeaky Gulls' Wing Hinges. Mr. Gridley is one member; I am the other."

And, say, you may not believe it, but hanged if it wa'n't a fact! He has a desk in Gridley's private office, and once a day he shows up there and scribbles off a foolish thought on the boss's calendar pad. That's all, except that he draws down good money for it.

"Also I have had word," says Marmaduke, "that my aged Uncle Norton is very low of a fever."

"Gee!" says I. "Some folks are born lucky, though!"

"And others," says he, "in the Forest of Arden."



CHAPTER XI

A LOOK IN ON THE GOAT GAME

Pinckney was tellin' me, here awhile back at lunch one day, what terrors them twins of his was gettin' to be. He relates a tragic tale about how they'd just been requested to resign from another private school where they'd been goin' as day scholars.

"That is the third this season," says he; "the third, mind you!"

"Well, there's more still, ain't there?" says I.

"Brilliant observation, Shorty," says he, "also logical and pertinent. Yes, there are several others still untried by the twins."

"What you howlin' about, then?" says I.

"Because," says he, toyin' with the silver frame that holds the bill of fare, "because it is not my intention to demoralize all the educational institutions of this city in alphabetical order."

"G'wan!" says I. "The kids have got to be educated somewhere, haven't they?"

"Which is the sad part of it," says Pinckney, inspectin' the dish of scrambled eggs and asparagus tips and wavin' the waiter to do the serving himself. "It means," he goes on, "having a governess around the house, and you know what nuisances they can be."

"Do I?" says I. "The nearest I ever got to havin' a governess was when Mrs. O'Grady from next door used to come in to use our wash-tubs and I was left with her for the day. Nobody ever called her a nuisance and got away with it."

"What an idyllic youth to look back upon!" says he. "I can remember half a dozen, at least, who had a hand in directing the course of my budding intellect, and each one of them developed some peculiarity which complicated the domestic situation. I am wondering what this new governess of ours will contribute."

"Got one on the job already, eh?" says I.

"This is her third day," says he, "and if she manages to live through it with the twins, I shall have hope."

"Ah, pickles!" says I. "Those kids are all right. They're full of life and ginger, that's all."

"Especially ginger," says Pinckney.

"What of it?" says I. "Or are you just blowin' about 'em? It's all right, they're a great pair, and any time you want to entertain me for half an hour, turn 'em loose in my comp'ny."

"Done!" says Pinckney. "We'll take a cab right up."

"Put it off three minutes, can't you?" says I, lookin' over the French pastry tray and spearin' a frosted creampuff that was decorated up with sugar flowers until it looked like a bride's bouquet.

He insists on callin' my bluff, though; so up the avenue we goes, when I should have been hotfootin' it back to the studio. But I could see that Pinckney was some anxious about how the kids was gettin' on, Gertie being away for the day, and I thinks maybe I'll be useful in calmin' any riot he might find in progress.

All was quiet and peaceful, though, as Pinckney opens the door with his latchkey. No howls from upstairs, no front windows broken, and nobody slidin' down the banisters. We was just waitin' for the automatic elevator to come down when we hears voices floatin' out from the lib'ry. Pinckney steps to the doorway where he can see through into the next room, and then beckons me up for a squint.

It wa'n't the kids at all, but a couple of grownups that was both strangers to me. From the way the young woman is dressed I could guess she was the new governess. Anyway, she's makin' herself right to home, so far as entertainin' comp'ny goes; for she and the gent with her is more or less close together and mixed up. First off it looked like a side-hold lover's clinch, and then again it didn't.

"Is it a huggin' match, or a rough-house tackle?" I whispered over Pinckney's shoulder.

"I pass the declaration," says he. "Suppose we investigate."

With that we strolls in, and we're within a dozen feet of the couple before they get wise to the fact that there's an int'rested audience. I must say, though, that they made a clean, quick breakaway. Then they stands, starin' at us.

"Ah, Miss Marston!" says Pinckney. "Do I interrupt?"

"Why—er—er—you see, sir," she begins, "I—that is—we——"

And she breaks down with as bad a case of rattles as I ever see. She's a nice lookin', modest appearin' young woman, too, a little soft about the mouth, but more or less classy in her lines. Her hair is some mussed, and there's sort of a wild, desp'rate look in her eyes.

"A near relative, I presume?" suggests Pinckney, noddin' at the gent, who's takin' it all cool enough.

"Oh, yes, sir," gasps out the governess. "My husband, sir."

And the gent, he bows as easy and natural as if he was bein' introduced at an afternoon tea party. "Glad to know you," says he, stickin' out his hand, which Pinckney, bein' absent-minded just then, fails to see.

"Really!" says Pinckney, lookin' the governess up and down. "Then it's not Miss Marston, but Mrs.—er——"

"Yes," says she, lettin' her chin drop, "Mrs. Marston."

"Very unfortunate," says Pinckney, "very!"

"Haw, haw, haw!" breaks out the strange gent, slappin' his knee. "I say now, but that's a good one, that is, even if it is at my expense! Unfortunate, eh? Perfectly true though, perfectly true!"

Now it takes a lot to get Pinckney going; but for a minute all he does is turn and size up this husband party with the keen sense of humor. I had my mouth open and my eyes bugged too; for he don't look the part at all. Why, he's dressed neat and expensive, a little sporty maybe, for a real gent; but he carries it off well.

"Glad to have your assurance that I was right," says Pinckney, still givin' him the frosty eye.

"Oh, don't mention it," says Mr. Marston. "And I trust you will overlook my butting in here to see Kitty—er, Mrs. Marston. Little matter of sentiment and—well, business, you know. I don't think it will happen often."

"I am quite sure it won't," says Pinckney. "And now, if the interview has been finished, I would suggest that——"

"Oh, certainly, certainly!" says Marston, edging towards the door. "Allow me, gentlemen, to bid you good-day. And I say, Kit, don't forget that little matter. By-by."

Honest, if I could make as slick a backout as that, without carryin' away anybody's footprint, I'd rate myself a headliner among the trouble dodgers. Pinckney, though, don't seem to appreciate such talents.

"That settles governess No. 1," says he as we starts for the elevator again. "We are beginning the series well."

That was before he saw how smooth she got along with Jack and Jill. After she'd given an exhibition of kid trainin' that was a wonder, he remarked that possibly he might as well let her stay the week out.

"But of course," says he, "she will have to go. Hanged if I understand how Mrs. Purdy-Pell happened to send her here, either! Shorty, do you suppose Sadie could throw any light on this case?"

"I'll call for a report," says I.

Does Sadie know anything about the Marstons? Well, rather! Says she told me all about 'em at the time too; but if she did it must have got by. Anyway, this was just a plain, simple case of a worthless son marryin' the fam'ly governess and bein' thrown out for it by a stern parent, same as they always are in them English novels Sadie's forever readin'.

The Marstons was Madison-ave. folks, which means that their back yard was bounded on the west by the smart set—and that's as far as there's any need of going. The girl comes from 'Frisco and is an earthquake orphan. Hence the governess stunt. As for young Marston, he'd been chucked out of college, tried out for a failure in the old man's brokerage office, and then left to drift around town on a skimpy allowance. So he was in fine shape to get married! The girl sticks to him, though, until there's trouble with the landlady, and then, when he only turns ugly and makes no move towards gettin' a job, she calls it off, gives him the slip, and begins rustlin' for herself.

"Oh, well," says Pinckney, "I suppose she ought to have a chance. But if that husband of hers is going to——"

"Next time you catch him at it," says I, "just 'phone down for me. It'll be a pleasure."

I meant it too; for after hearing how she'd lost other places on account of his hangin' around I could have enjoyed mussin' him up some.

With my feelin' that way, you can guess what a jar it is, one afternoon when I'm having a little front office chat with my old reg'lar, Pyramid Gordon, to see this same gent blow in through the door. Almost looked like he knew what he ought to get and had come after it.

"Well?" says I as chilly as I knew how.

"Quite so," says he, "quite so. I see you remember our recent meeting. Awkward situation for a moment, wasn't it, eh? Splendid chap, though, your friend——"

"Say, choke off the hot air," says I, "and let's hear what gave you the courage to climb those stairs!"

And what do you guess? He takes five minutes of steady chinnin' to get around to it; but he puts over such a velvety line of talk, and it's so int'restin' to watch him do it, that I let him spiel ahead until he gets to the enactin' clause in his own way. And it's nothing more or less than a brassy fingered touch for a twenty, all based on the fact that he met me at a house where his wife's drawin' wages.

"Mr. Gordon," says I, turnin' to Pyramid, who's heard it all, "what do you think of that, anyway?"

"Very neat, indeed," says Pyramid, chucklin'.

"And then a few!" says I. "I can almost see myself givin' up that twenty right off the bat. Nothing but great presence of mind and wonderful self-control holds me back. But look here, Mr. What's-your-name——"

"Marston," says he, flashin' an engraved visitin' card, "L. Egbert Marston."

"L. Egbert, eh?" says I. "Does the L stand for Limed? And what do they call you for short—Eggie?"

"Oh, suit yourself," says he, with a careless wave of the hand.

"All right, Eggie," says I; "but before we get in any deeper I've got a conundrum or two to spring on you. We got kind of curious, Pinckney and me, about that visit of yours. He thinks we disturbed a fond embrace. It looked diff'rent to me. I thought I could see finger-marks on the young lady's throat. How about it?"

Course he flushes up. Any man would under a jab like that, and I looked for him either to begin breakin' the peace or start lyin' out of it. There's considerable beef to Egbert, you know. He'd probably weigh in at a hundred and eighty, with all that flabby meat on him, and if it wa'n't for that sort of cheap look to his face you might take him for a real man. But he don't show any more fight than a cow. He don't even put in any indignant "Not guilty!" He just shrugs his shoulders and indulges in a sickly laugh.

"It doesn't sound nice," says he; "but sometimes they do need a bit of training, these women."

"For instance?" says I. "In the matter of handing over a little spendin' money, eh?"

"You've struck it," says he, with another shrug.

I glances at Pyramid; but there wa'n't any more expression to that draw poker face of his than as if it was a cement block.

"Egbert," says I, frank and confidential, "you're a sweet scented pill, ain't you?"

And does that draw any assault and battery motions? It don't. All the result is to narrow them shifty eyes of his and steady 'em down until he's lookin' me square in the face.

"I was hard up, if you want to know," says he. "I didn't have a dollar."

"And that," says I, "is what you give out as an excuse for——"

"Yes," he breaks in. "And I'm no worse than lots of other men, either. With money, I'm a gentleman; without it—well, I get it any way I can. And I want to tell you, I've seen men with plenty of it get more in meaner ways. I don't know how to juggle stocks, or wreck banks, or use any of the respectable methods that——"

"Nothing personal, I hope," puts in Mr. Gordon, with another chuckle.

"Not so intended," says Marston.

"Eh, thanks," says Pyramid.

"We'll admit," says I, "that your partic'lar way of raisin' funds, Mr. Marston, ain't exactly novel; but didn't it ever occur to you that some folks get theirs by workin' for it?"

"I know," says he, tryin' to seem good natured again; "but I'm not that kind. I'm an idler. As some poet has put it, 'Useless I linger, a cumberer here.'"

"You're a cucumber, all right," says I; "but why not, just for a change, make a stab at gettin' a job?"

"I've had several," says he, "and never could hold one more than a week. Too monotonous, for one thing; and then, in these offices, one is thrown among so many ill bred persons, you know."

"Sure!" says I, feelin' my temper'ture risin'. "Parties that had rather work for a pay envelope than choke their wives. I've met 'em. I've heard of your kind too, Egbert; but you're the first specimen I ever got real close to. And you're a bird! Mr. Gordon, shall I chuck him through the window, or help him downstairs with my toe?"

"I wouldn't do either," says Pyramid. "In fact, I think I can make use of this young man."

"Then you're welcome to him," says I. "Blaze ahead."

"Much obliged," says Pyramid. "Now, Mr. Marston, what is the most reasonable sum, per month, that would allow you to carry out your idea of being a gentleman?"

Egbert thinks that over a minute and then puts it at three hundred.

"And would it conflict with those ideas," Pyramid goes on, "if you were required, say twice a week, to spend an hour in a private office, signing your name?"

Egbert thinks he could stand that.

"Very well, then," says Pyramid, producin' his checkbook and gettin' busy with the fountain pen, "here is your first month's salary in advance. Whenever you find it convenient during the week, report at my offices. Ask for Mr. Bradley. Yes, Bradley. That's all," and Pyramid lights up one of his torches as satisfied as though he'd just bought in a Senator.

As for Egbert, he stows the check away, taps me on the shoulder, and remarks real friendly, "Well, professor, no hard feelings, I hope?"

"Say, Eggie," says I, "seems to me I expressed myself once on that point, and I ain't had any sudden change of heart. If I was you I'd beat while the beatin's good."

Egbert laughs; but he takes the advice.

"Huh!" says I to Pyramid. "I expect that's your notion of making a funny play, eh!"

"I'm no humorist, Shorty," says he.

"Then what's the idea?" says I. "What do you mean?"

"I never mean anything but cold, straight business," says he. "That's the only game worth playing."

"So?" says I. "Then here's where you got let in bad with your eyes open. You heard him tell how useless he was?"

"I did," says Pyramid; "but I always do my own appraising when I hire men. I anticipate finding Mr. Marston somewhat useful."

And say, that's all I can get out of Pyramid on the subject; for when it comes to business, he's about as chatty over his plans as a hard shell clam on the suffragette question. I've known him to make some freak plans; but this move of pickin' out a yellow one like Egbert and rewardin' him as if he was a Carnegie medal winner beat anything he'd ever sprung yet.

It's no bluff, either. I hears of this Marston gent sportin' around at the clubs, and it wa'n't until I accident'lly run across an item on the Wall Street page that I gets any more details. He shows up, if you please, as secretary of the Consolidated Holding Company that there's been so much talk about. I asks Pinckney what kind of an outfit that was; but he don't know.

"Huh!" says I. "All I'd feel safe in givin' Egbert to hold for me would be one end of the Brooklyn Bridge."

"I don't care what he holds," says Pinckney, "if he will stay away from our little governess. She's a treasure."

Seems Mrs. Marston had been doin' some great tricks with the twins, not only keepin' 'em from marrin' the furniture, but teachin' 'em all kinds of knowledge and improvin' their table manners, until it was almost safe to have 'em down to luncheon now and then.

But her life was being made miser'ble by the prospect of havin' Egbert show up any day and create a row. She confided the whole tale to Sadie, how she was through with Marston for good, but didn't dare tell him so, and how she sent him most of her salary to keep him away.

"The loafer!" says I. "And think of the chance I had at him there in the studio! Hanged if I don't get even with Pyramid for that, though!"

But I didn't. Mr. Gordon's been too busy this season to show up for any trainin', and it was only here the other day that I runs across him in the street.

"Well," says I, "how's that work scornin' pet of yours gettin' on these days?"

"Marston?" says he. "Why, haven't you heard? Mr. Marston is away on a vacation."

"Vacation!" says I. "He needs it, he does!"

"The company thought so," says Pyramid. "They gave him six months' leave with pay. He's hunting reindeer or musk ox somewhere up in British Columbia."

"Him a hunter?" says I. "G'wan!"

Pyramid grins. "He did develop a liking for the wilderness rather suddenly," says he; "but that is where he is now. In fact, I shouldn't be surprised if he stayed up there for a year or more."

"What's the joke?" says I, catchin' a flicker in them puffy eyes of Pyramid's.

"Why, just this," says he. "Mr. Marston, you know, is secretary of the Consolidated Holding Company."

"Yes, I read about that," says I. "What then?"

"It pains me to state," says Mr. Gordon, "that in his capacity of secretary Mr. Marston seems to have sanctioned transactions which violate the Interstate Commerce act."

"Ah-ha!" says I. "Turned crooked on you, did he?"

"We are not sure as yet," says Pyramid. "The federal authorities are anxious to settle that point by examining certain files which appear to be missing. They even asked me about them. Perhaps you didn't notice, Shorty, that I was cross-examined for five hours, one day last week."

"I don't read them muck rakin' articles," says I.

"Quite right," says Pyramid. "Well, I couldn't explain; for, as their own enterprising detectives discovered, when Mr. Marston boarded the Montreal Express his baggage included a trunk and two large cases. Odd of him to take shipping files on a hunting trip, wasn't it?" and Pyramid tips me the slow wink.

I'm more or less of a thickhead when it comes to flossy finance; but I've seen enough plain flimflam games to know a few things. And the wink clinched it. "Mr. Gordon," says I, "for a Mr. Smooth you've got a greased pig in the warthog class. But suppose Egbert gets sick of the woods and hikes himself back? What then?"

"Jail," says Pyramid, shruggin' his sable collar up around his ears. "That would be rather deplorable too. Bright young man, Marston, in many ways, and peculiarly adapted for——"

"Yes, I know the part," says I. "They gen'rally spells it g-o-a-t."



CHAPTER XII

MRS. TRUCKLES' BROAD JUMP

And do you imagine Kitty Marston settles down to a life job after that? Not her. At the very next pay day she hands in her two weeks' notice, and when they pin her right down to facts she admits weepy that she means to start out lookin' for Egbert. Now wouldn't that crust you?

Course, the sequel to that is another governess hunt which winds up with Madame Roulaire. And say, talk about your queer cases——But you might as well have the details.

You see, until Aunt Martha arrived on the scene this Madame Roulaire business was only a fam'ly joke over to Pinckney's, with all of us in on it more or less. But Aunt Martha ain't been there more'n three or four days before she's dug up mystery and scandal and tragedy enough for another one of them French dope dramas.

"In my opinion," says she, "that woman is hiding some dreadful secret!"

But Mrs. Pinckney only smiles in that calm, placid way of hers. You know how easy she took things when she was Miss Geraldine and Pinckney found her on the steamer in charge of the twins that had been willed to him? Well, she ain't changed a bit; and, with Pinckney such a brilliant member of the Don't Worry Fraternity, whatever frettin' goes on in that house has to be done by volunteers.

Aunt Martha acts like she was wise to this; for she starts right in to make up for lost opportunities, and when she spots this freaky lookin' governess she immediately begins scoutin' for trouble. Suspicions? She delivers a fresh lot after every meal!

"Humph!" says she. "Madame Roulaire, indeed! Well, I must say, she looks as little like a Frenchwoman as any person I ever saw! How long have you had her, Geraldine? What, only two months? Did she bring written references, and did you investigate them carefully?"

She wouldn't let up, either, until she'd been assured that Madame Roulaire had come from service in an English fam'ly, and that they'd written on crested notepaper indorsin' her in every point, giving her whole hist'ry from childhood up.

"But she hasn't the slightest French accent," insists Aunt Martha.

"I know," says Mrs. Pinckney. "She lived in England from the time she was sixteen, and of course twenty years away from one's——"

"Does she claim to be only thirty-six?" exclaims Aunt Martha. "Why, she's fifty if she's a day! Besides, I don't like that snaky way she has of watching everyone."

There was no denyin', either, that this Roulaire party did have a pair of shifty eyes in her head. I'd noticed that much myself in the few times I'd seen her. They wa'n't any particular color you could name,—sort of a greeny gray-blue,—but they sure was bright and restless. You'd never hear a sound out of her, for she didn't let go of any remarks that wa'n't dragged from her; but somehow you felt, from the minute you got into the room until she'd made a gumshoe exit by the nearest door, that them sleuthy lamps never quite lost sight of you.

That and her smile was the main points about her. I've seen a lot of diff'rent kinds of smiles, meanin' and unmeanin'; but this chronic half-smirk of Madame Roulaire's was about the most unconvincin' performance I've ever watched. Why, even a blind man could tell she didn't really mean it! Outside of that, she was just a plain, pie faced sort of female with shrinkin', apologizin' ways and a set of store teeth that didn't fit any too well; but she wa'n't one that you'd suspect of anything more tragic than eatin' maraschino cherries on the sly, or swappin' household gossip with the cook.

That wa'n't the way Martha had her sized up, though, and of course there was no keepin' her inquisitive nose out of the case. First thing anyone knew, she'd backed Madame Roulaire into a corner, put her through the third degree, and come trottin' back in triumph to Mrs. Pinckney.

"Didn't I tell you?" says she. "French! Bosh! Perhaps you haven't asked her about Auberge-sur-Mer, where she says she was born?"

Greraldine admits that she ain't done much pumpin'.

"Well, I have," says Aunt Martha, "and she couldn't tell me a thing about the place that was so. I spent ten days there only two years ago, and remember it perfectly. She isn't any more French than I am."

"Oh, what of it?" says Mrs. Pinckney. "She gets along splendidly with the twins. They think the world of her."

"But she's thoroughly deceitful," Aunt Martha comes back. "She misrepresents her age, lies about her birthplace, and—and she wears a transformation wig."

"Yes, I had noticed the brown wig," admits Mrs. Pinckney; "but they're quite common."

"So are women poisoners," snaps Martha. "Think of what happened to the Briggses, after they took in that strange maid! Then there was the Madame Catossi case, over in Florence last year. They were warned about her, you remember."

And maybe you know how a good lively suspecter can get results when she keeps followin' it up. They got to watchin' the governess close when she was around, and noticin' all the little slips in her talk and the crab-like motions she made in dodgin' strangers. That appears to make her worse than ever, too. She'd get fussed every time anyone looked her way, and just some little question about the children would make her jump and color up like she'd been accused of burnin' a barn. Even Sadie, who'd been standin' up for her right along, begins to weaken.

"After all," says she, "I'm not sure there isn't something queer about that woman."

"Ah, all governesses are queer, ain't they?" says I; "but that ain't any sign they've done time or are in the habit of dosin' the coffeepot with arsenic. It's Aunt Martha has stirred all this mess up, and she'd make the angel Gabriel prove who he was by blowin' bugle calls."

It was only next day, though, that we gets a report of what happens when Pinckney runs across this Sir Carpenter-Podmore at the club and lugs him out to dinner. He's an English gent Pinckney had known abroad. Comin' in unexpected that way, him and Madame Roulaire had met face to face in the hall, while the introductions was bein' passed out—and what does she do but turn putty colored and shake like she was havin' a fit!

"Ah, Truckles?" says Podmore, sort of cordial.

"No, no!" she gasps. "Roulaire! I am Madame Roulaire!"

"Beg pardon, I'm sure," says Sir Carpenter, liftin' his eyebrows and passin' on.

That was all there was to it; but everyone in the house heard about it. Course Aunt Martha jumps right in with the question marks; but all she gets out of Podmore is that he presumes he was mistaken.

"Well, maybe he was," says I. "Why not?"

"Then you haven't heard," says Sadie, "that Sir Carpenter was for a long time a Judge on the criminal bench."

"Z-z-z-zing!" says I. "Looks kind of squally for the governess, don't it?"

If it hadn't been for Pinckney, too, Aunt Martha'd had her thrown out that night; but he wouldn't have it that way.

"I've never been murdered in my bed, or been fed on ground glass," says he, "and—who knows?—I might like the sensation."

Say, there's more sides to that Pinckney than there are to a cutglass paperweight. You might think, with him such a Reggie chap, that havin' a suspicious character like that around would get on his nerves; but, when it comes to applyin' the real color test, there ain't any more yellow in him than in a ball of bluin', and he can be as curious about certain things as a kid investigatin' the animal cages.

Rather than tie the can to Madame Roulaire without gettin' a straight line on her, he was willin' to run chances. And it don't make any difference to him how much Aunt Martha croaks about this and that, and suggests how dreadful it is to think of those dear, innocent little children exposed to such evil influences. That last item appeals strong to Mrs. Pinckney and Sadie, though.

"Of course," says Geraldine, "the twins don't suspect a thing as yet, and whatever we discover must be kept from them."

"Certainly," says Sadie, "the poor little dears mustn't know."

So part of the programme was to keep them out of her way as much as possible without actually callin' her to the bench, and that's what fetched me out there early the other afternoon. It was my turn at protectin' innocent childhood. I must say, though, it's hard realizin' they need anything of that sort when you're within reach of that Jack and Jill combination. Most people seem to feel the other way; but, while their society is apt to be more or less strenuous, I can gen'rally stand an hour or so of it without collectin' any broken bones.

As usual, they receives me with an ear splittin' whoop, and while Jill gives me the low tackle around the knees Jack proceeds to climb up my back and twine his arms affectionate around my neck.

"Hey, Uncle Shorty," they yells in chorus, "come play Wild West with us!"

"G'wan, you young terrors!" says I, luggin' 'em out on the lawn and dumpin' 'em on the grass. "Think I'd risk my neck at any such game as that? Hi! leggo that necktie or I'll put on the spanks! Say, ain't you got any respect for company clothes? Now straighten up quiet and tell me about the latest deviltry you've been up to."

"Pooh!" says Jill. "We're not afraid of you."

"And we know why you're here to-day, too," says Jack.

"Do you?" says I. "Well, let's have it."

"You're on guard," says Jill, "keeping us away from old Clicky."

"Old Clicky?" says I.

"Uh-huh," says Jack. "The goosy governess, you know."

"Eh?" says I, openin' my eyes.

"We call her that," says Jill, "because her teeth click so when she gets excited. At night she keeps 'em in a glass of water. Do you suppose they click then?"

"Her hair comes off too," says Jack, "and it's all gray underneath. We fished it off once, and she was awful mad."

"You just ought to hear her when she gets mad," says Jill. "She drops her H's."

"She don't do it before folks, though," says Jack, "'cause she makes believe she's French. She's awful good to us, though, and we love her just heaps."

"You've got queer ways of showin' it," says I.

"What makes Aunt Martha so scared of her?" says Jill. "Do you think it's so she would really and truly murder us all and run off with the jewelry, or that she'd let in burglars after dark? She meets someone every Thursday night by the side gate, you know."

"A tall woman with veils over her face," adds Jack. "We hid in the bushes and watched 'em."

"Say, for the love of Mike," says I, "is there anything about your governess you kids haven't heard or seen? What more do you know?"

"Lots," says Jill. "She's scared of Marie, the new maid. Marie makes her help with the dishes, and make up her own bed, and wait on herself all the time."

"And she has to study beforehand all the lessons she makes us learn," says Jack. "She studies like fun every night in her room, and when we ask questions from the back of the book she don't know the answers."

"She's been too scared to study or anything, ever since Monday," says Jill. "Do you think they'll have a policeman take her away before she poisons us all? We heard Aunt Martha say they ought to."

Say, they had the whole story, and more too. If there was anything about Madame Roulaire's actions, her past hist'ry, or what people thought of her that had got by these two, I'd like to know what it was.

"Gee!" says I. "Talk about protectin' you! What you need most is a pair of gags and some blinders. Now trot along off and do your worst, while I look up Pinckney and give him some advice."

I was strollin' through the house lookin' for him, and I'd got as far as the lib'ry, when who should I see but Madame Roulaire comin' through the opposite door. Someway, I didn't feel like meetin' them sleuthy eyes just then, or seein' that smirky smile; so I dodges back and pikes down the hall. She must have had the same thought; for we almost collides head on halfway down, and the next thing I know she's dropped onto a davenport, sobbin' and shakin' all over.

"Excuse me for mentionin' it," says I; "but there ain't any call for hysterics."

"Oh, I know who you are now," says she. "You—you're a private detective!"

"Eh?" says I. "How'd you get onto my disguise?"

"I knew it from the first," says she. "And then, when I saw you with the children, asking them about me——Oh, you won't arrest me and take me away from the darlings, will you? Please don't take me to jail! I'll tell you everything, truly I will, sir!"

"That might help some," says I; "but, if you're goin' to 'fess up, suppose you begin at Chapter I. Was it the fam'ly jewels you was after?"

"No, no!" says she. "I never took a penny's worth in my life. Truckles could tell you that if he could only be here."

"Truckles, eh!" says I. "Now just who was——"

"My 'usband, sir," says she. "And I'm Mrs. Truckles."

"Oh-ho!" says I. "Then this Roulaire name you've been flaggin' under was sort of a nom de plume?"

"It was for Katy I did it!" she sobs.

"Oh, yes," says I. "Well, what about Katy?"

And, say, that was the way it come out; first, a bit here and then a bit there, with me puttin' the ends together and patchin' this soggy everyday yarn out of what we'd all thought was such a deep, dark mystery.

She was English, Mrs. Truckles was, and so was the late Truckles. They'd worked together, him bein' a first class butler whose only fault was he couldn't keep his fingers off the decanters. It was after he'd struck the bottom of the toboggan slide and that thirst of his had finished him for good and all that Mrs. Truckles collects her little Katy from where they'd boarded her out and comes across to try her luck on this side.

She'd worked up as far as housekeeper, and had made enough to educate Katy real well and marry her off to a bright young gent by the name of McGowan that owned a half interest in a corner saloon up in the Bronx and stood well with the district leader.

She was happy and contented in them days, Mrs. Truckles was, with McGowan doin' a rushin' business, gettin' his name on the Tammany ticket, and Katy patronizing a swell dressmaker and havin' a maid of her own. Then, all of a sudden, Mrs. Truckles tumbles to the fact that Katy is gettin' ashamed of havin' a mother that's out to service and eatin' with the chauffeur and the cook. Not that she wants her livin' with them,—McGowan wouldn't stand for that,—but Katy did think Mother might do something for a living that wouldn't blur up the fam'ly escutcheon quite so much.

It was just when Mrs. Truckles was feelin' this most keen that the French governess where she was got married and went West to live, leavin' behind her, besides a collection of old hats, worn out shoes, and faded picture postals, this swell reference from Lady Jigwater. And havin' put in a year or so in France with dif'rent families that had taken her across, and havin' had to pick up more or less of the language, Mrs. Truckles conceives the great scheme of promotin' herself from the back to the front of the house. So she chucks up as workin' housekeeper, splurges on the wig, and strikes a swell intelligence office with this phony reference.

Course, with anybody else but an easy mark like Mrs. Pinckney, maybe she wouldn't have got away with it; but all Geraldine does is glance at the paper, ask her if she likes children, and put her on the payroll.

"Well?" says I. "And it got you some worried tryin' to make good, eh?"

"I was near crazy over it," says she. "I thought I could do it at first; but it came cruel 'ard. Oh, sir, the lies I've 'ad to tell, keepin' it up. And with the rest of the 'elp all 'ating me! Marie used me worst of all, though. She made me tell 'er everything, and 'eld it over my 'ead. Next that Aunt Martha came and thought up so many bad things about me—you know."

"Sure," says I; "but how about this Sir Podmore?"

"I was 'ead laundress at Podmore 'Ouse," says she, "and I thought it was all up when he saw me here. I never should have tried to do it. I'm a good 'ousekeeper, if I do say it; but I'm getting to be an old woman now, and this will end me. It was for Katy I did it, though. Every week she used to come and throw it in my face that she couldn't call at the front door and—and——Well, I 'opes you'll believe me, sir; but that was just the way of it, and if I'm taken to jail it will kill Katy and——"

"Aha!" breaks in a voice behind us. "Here, Pinckney! Come, Geraldine! This way everybody!" and as I turns around there's Aunt Martha with the accusin' finger out and her face fairly beamin'. Before I can get in a word she's assembled the fam'ly.

"What did I tell you?" she cackles. "She's broken down and confessed! I heard her!"

"Is it true, Shorty?" demands Mrs. Pinckney. "Does she admit that she was plotting to——"

"Yep!" says I. "It's something awful too, almost enough to curdle your blood."

"Go on," says Aunt Martha. "Tell us the worst. What is it?"

"It's a case of standin' broad jump," says I, "from housekeeper to governess, with an age handicap and a crooked entry."

Course, I has to work out the details for 'em, and when I've stated the whole hideous plot, from the passing of Truckles the Thirsty to the high pride of Katy the Barkeep's Bride, includin' the tale of the stolen character and chuckin' the nervy bluff—well, they didn't any of 'em know what to say. They just stands around gawpin' curious at this sobbin', wabbly kneed old party slumped down there on the hall seat.

Aunt Martha, actin' as prosecutor for the State, is the first to recover. "Well, there's no knowin' how far she might have gone," says she. "And she ought to be punished some way. Pinckney, what are you going to do with her?"

For a minute he looks from Aunt Martha to the object in the middle of the circle, and then he drops them black eyelashes lazy, like he was half-asleep, and I knew somethin' was coming worth listenin' to.

"Considering all the circumstances," says Pinckney, "I think we shall discharge Marie, increase Mrs. Truckles' salary, give her an assistant, and ask her to stay with us permanently. Eh, Geraldine?"

And Geraldine nods hearty.

"Pinckney, let's shake on that," says I. "Even if your head is full of soap bubbles, you've got an eighteen-carat heart in you. Hear the news, Mrs. Truckles?"

"Then—then I'm not to go to jail?" says she, takin' her hands off her face and lookin' up straight and steady for the first time in months.

"Jail nothin'!" says I. "There's goin' to be a new deal, and you start in fresh with a clean slate."

"Humph!" snorts Aunt Martha. "Do you expect me to stay here and countenance any such folly?"

"I'm far too considerate of my relatives for that," says Pinckney. "There's a train at five-thirty-six."

And, say, to see Mrs. Truckles now, with her gray hair showin' natural, and her chin up, and a twin hangin' to either hand, and the sleuthy look gone out of them old eyes, you'd hardly know her for the same party!

These antelope leaps is all right sometimes; but when you take 'em you want to be wearin' your own shoes.



CHAPTER XIII

HEINEY TAKES THE GLOOM CURE

Two in one day, mind you. It just goes to show what effect the first dose of hot weather is liable to have on the custard heads. Well, maybe I oughtn't to call 'em that, either. They can't seem to help gettin' that way, any more'n other folks can dodge havin' bad dreams, or boils on the neck. And I ain't any mind specialist; so when it comes to sayin' what'll soften up a man's brain, or whether he couldn't sidestep it if he tried, I passes the make.

Now look at this dippy move of Mr. Jarvis's. Guess you don't remember him. I'd 'most forgot him myself, it's so long since he was around; but he's the young chap that owns that big Blenmont place, the gent that Swifty and I helped out with the fake match when he——Well, never mind that yarn. He got the girl, all right; and as he had everything else anybody could think of, it should have been a case of lockin' trouble on the outside and takin' joy for a permanent boarder.

But there the other mornin', just as I was havin' a breathin' spell after hammerin' some surplus ego out of a young society sport that had the idea he could box, the studio door opens, and in pokes this Mr. Jarvis, actin' like he'd been doped.

Now he's a big, husky, full blooded young gent, that's always used himself well, never collected any bad habits, and knows no more about being sick than a cat knows about swimmin'. Add to that the fact that he's one of the unemployed rich, with more money than he knows how to spend, and you can figure out how surprised I am to see that down and out look on his face. Course, I thinks something serious has been happenin' to him, and I treats him real gentle.

"Hello, Mr. Jarvis!" says I. "Somebody been throwin' the hooks into you, have they?"

"Oh, no," says he. "No, I—I'm all right."

"That's good," says I. "Dropped in to let me hand you a few vibrations with the mitts?"

"No, thank you, Shorty," says he, fingerin' a chair-back sort of hesitatin', as if he didn't know whether to sit down or stand up. "That is—er—I think I don't care for a bout to-day. I—I'm hardly in the mood, you see."

"Just as you say," says I. "Have a seat, anyway. Sure! That one; it's reserved for you. Maybe you come in to enjoy some of my polite and refined conversation?"

"Why—er—the fact is, Shorty," says he, fixin' his tie kind of nervous, "I—I don't know just why I did come in. I think I started for the club, and as I was passing by in a cab I looked up here at your windows—and—and——"

"Of course," says I, soothin'. "What's the use goin' to the club when the Physical Culture Studio is handier? You're feelin' fine as silk; how're you lookin'?"

"Eh? Beg pardon?" says he, gettin' twisted up on that mothy gag. "Oh, I see! I'm looking rotten, thank you, and feeling the same."

"G'wan!" says I. "You ain't got any license to have feelin's like that. Guess you got the symptoms mixed. But where do you think it hurts most?"

Well, it takes five or ten minutes of jollyin' like that to pull any details at all out of Jarvis, and when I does get the whole heartrendin' story, I hardly knows whether to give him the laugh, or to send out for a nursin' bottle.

Ever seen a great, grown man play the baby act? Talk about a woman in a cryin' spell! That ain't a marker to watchin' a six-foot, one hundred and eighty-pound free citizen droop his mouth corners and slump his shoulders over nothin' at all. Course, I don't always feel like a hickey boy myself, and I'll admit there are times when the rosy tints get a little clouded up; but I has my own way of workin' out of such spells before the mullygrubs turns my gray matter into curdled milk. But Jarvis, he's as blue as a rainy Monday with the wash all in soak.

In the first place, he's been alone for nearly three whole weeks, the women folks all bein' abroad, and it's a new experience for him. Think of that awful calamity happenin' to a man of his size! Seems that before he was married he'd always carted mother and sister around, under the idea that he was lookin' out for them, when as a matter of fact they was the ones that was lookin' after him. Then Mrs. Jarvis, Lady Evelyn that was, takes him in hand and makes him more helpless than ever. He never mistrusts how much he's been mollycoddled, until he finds himself with nobody but a valet, a housekeeper, and seventeen assorted servants to help him along in the struggle for existence.

His first move after the ladies have sailed is to smoke until his tongue feels like a pussycat's back, eat his lonesome meals at lunch-counter clip, and work himself into a mild bilious state. That makes him a little cranky with the help, and, as there's no one around to smooth 'em out, the cook and half a dozen maids leaves in a bunch. His head coachman goes off on a bat, the housekeeper skips out to Ohio to bury an aunt, and the domestic gear at Blenmont gets to runnin' about as smooth as a flat wheel trolley car on a new roadbed.

To finish off the horrible situation, Jarvis has had a misunderstandin' with a landscape architect that he'd engaged to do things to the grounds. Jarvis had planned to plant a swan lake in the front yard; but the landscaper points out that it can't be done because there's a hill in the way.

"To be sure," says Jarvis, "these are little things; but I've been worrying over them until—until—— Well, I'm in bad shape, Shorty."

"It's a wonder you're still alive," says I.

"Don't!" says he, groanin'. "It is too serious a matter. Perhaps you don't know it, but I had an uncle that drank himself to death."

"Huh!" says I. "'Most everybody has had an uncle of that kind."

"And one of my cousins," Jarvis goes on, lowerin' his voice and lookin' around cautious, "shot himself—in the head!"

"Eh?" says I. And then I begun to get a glimmer of what he was drivin' at. "What! You don't mean that you were thinkin' of—of——"

He groans again and nods his head.

Then I cuts loose. "Why, look here!" says I. "You soft boiled, mush headed, spineless imitation of a real man! do you mean to tell me that, just because you've been tied loose from a few skirts for a week or so, and have had to deal with some grouchy hired hands, you've actually gone jelly brained over it?"

Perhaps that don't make him squirm some, though! He turns white first, and then he gets the hectic flush. "Pardon me, McCabe," says he, stiffenin' up, "but I don't care to have anyone talk to me like——"

"Ah, pickles!" says I. "I'll talk to you a good deal straighter'n that, before I finish! And you'll take it, too! Why, you great, overgrown kid! what right have you developin' such a yellow cur streak as that? You! What you need is to be laid over that chair and paddled, and blamed if I don't know but I'd better——"

But just here the door creaks, and in drifts the other one. Hanged if I ever did know what his real name was. I called him Heiney Kirschwasser for short, though he says he ain't Dutch at all, but Swiss-French; and that it ain't kirsch that's his failin', but prune brandy. He's the mop and broom artist for the buildin', some floater the janitor picked up off the sidewalk a few months back.

He wa'n't exactly a decorative object, this Heiney; but he's kind of a picturesque ruin. His widest part is around the belt; and from there he tapers both ways, his shoulders bein' a good eight inches narrower; and on top of them, with no neck to speak of, is a head shaped like a gum drop, bald on top, and remindin' you of them mountain peaks you see in pictures, or a ham set on end.

He has a pair of stary, pop eyes, a high colored beak that might be used as a danger signal, and a black, shoebrush beard, trimmed close except for a little spike under the chin, that gives the lower part of his face a look like the ace of spades. His mornin' costume is a faded blue jumper, brown checked pants, and an old pair of rubber soled shoes that Swifty had donated to him.

That's Heiney's description, as near as I can get to it. He comes shufflin' in, luggin' a scrub pail in one hand, and draggin' a mop in the other, and he looks about as cheerful as a worn-out hearse that's been turned into an ash wagon.

"Heiney," says I, "you're just in time. Still lookin' for a nice, comfortable place to die in, are you?"

Heiney shrugs his shoulders and lifts his eyebrows in a lifeless sort of style. He does most of his conversin' that way; but he can say more with a few shrugs than Swifty Joe can by usin' both sides of his mouth. What Heiney means is that one place is as good as another, and he don't care how soon he finds it.

"Well, cheer up, Heiney," says I; "for I've just decided to give you the use of my back room to shuffle off in. I've got comp'ny for you, too. Here's a friend of mine that feels the same way you do. Mr. Jarvis, Mr. Heiney Kirschwasser."

And you should have seen the look of disgust on Jarvis's face as he sizes up the specimen. "Oh, I say now, Shorty," he begins, "there's such a thing as——"

"G'wan!" says I. "Wa'n't you just tellin' me about how you was plannin' a job for the coroner? And Heiney's been threatenin' to do the same thing for weeks. He comes in here every day or so and talks about jumpin' off the dock, or doin' the air dance. I've been stavin' him off with slugs of prune brandy and doses of good advice; but if a chap like you has caught the fever, then I see I've been doin' wrong not to let Heiney have his way. Now there's the back room, with plenty of rope and gasjets. Get on in there, both of you, and make a reg'lar bee of it!"

Heiney, he stands blinkin' and starin' at Jarvis, until he gets him so nervous he almost screams.

"For Heaven's sake, Shorty," says Jarvis, "let's not joke about such a subject!"

"Joke!" says I. "You're the one that's supplyin' the comedy here. Now Heiney is serious. He'd do the trick in a minute if he had the nerve. He's got things on his mind, Heiney has. And what's the odds if they ain't so? Compared to what you've been fussin' about, they're——Here, Heiney, you tell the gentleman that tale of yours. Begin where you was a cook in some seashore hotel in Switzerland."

"Not zeashore! Non!" says Heiney, droppin' his pail and wavin' one hand. "Eet ees at Lack Como, in ze montongs. I am ze head chef, moi!"

"Yes, you look it!" says I. "A fine figure of a chef you'd make! wouldn't you? Well, go on: about bein' full of prunes when they called on you to season the soup. What was it you dumped in instead of salt,—arsenic, eh?"

"Non, non!" says Heiney, gettin' excited. "Ze poison for ze r-r-rat. I keep heem in one tin can, same as ze salt. I am what you call intoxicate. I make ze mistak'. Ah, diable! Deux, trois—t'ree hundred guests are zere. Zey eat ze soup. Zen come by me ze maitre d'hotel. He say ze soup ees spoil. Eet has ze foony taste. Ah, mon Dieu! Mon——"

"Yes, yes," says I. "Never mind whether it was Monday or Tuesday. What did you do then?"

"Moi? I fly!" says Heiney. "I am distract. I r-r-r-run on ze r-r-r-road. I tear-r-r off my white apron, my white chapeau. Ah, sacr-r-re nom! How my heart is thoomp, thoomp, on my inside! All night I speak to myself: 'You have keel zem all! Ze belle ladies! Ze pauvre shildren! All, you have poi-zon-ed! Zey make to tweest up on ze floor!' Ah, diable! Always I can see zem tweest up!"

"Reg'lar rough on rats carnival, eh?" says I. "Three hundred beautiful ladies and poor children, not to mention a few men, doin' the agony act on the dinin' room floor! There, Jarvis! How'd you like to carry round a movin' picture film like that in your mem'ry? Course, I've tried to explain to Heiney that nothing of the kind ever took place; that the papers would have been full of it; and that he'd been in the jug long before this, if it had. But this is Heiney's own particular pipe dream, and he can't let go of it. It's got tangled up in the works somehow, and nothing I can say will jar it loose. Poor cuss! Look at him! No doubt about its seemin' real to him, is there? And how does your little collection of fleabites show up alongside it; eh, Jarvis?"

But Jarvis, he's gazin' at Heiney as if this lump of moldy sweitzerkase was fascinatin' to look at.

"I beg pardon," says he, "but you say this hotel was at Lake Como?"

Heiney nods his head, then covers his face with his hands, as if he was seein' things again.

"And what was the date of this—this unfortunate occurrence?" says Jarvis.

"Year before the last, in Augoost," says Heiney, shudderin',—"Augoost seven."

"The seventh of August!" says Jarvis. "And was your hotel the Occident?"

"Oui, oui!" says Heiney. "L'Hotel Occident."

"Guess he means Accident," says I. "What do you know about it, Jarvis?"

"Why," says he, "I was there."

"What?" says I. "Here, Heiney, wake up! Here's one of the victims of your rat poison soup. Does he look as though he'd been through that floor tweestin' orgy?"

With that Heiney gets mighty interested; but he ain't convinced until Jarvis gives him all the details, even to namin' the landlord and describin' the head waiter.

"But ze soup!" says Heiney. "Ze poi-zon-ed soup?"

"It was bad soup," says Jarvis; "but not quite so bad as that. Nobody could eat it, and I believe the final report that we had on the subject was to the effect that a half intoxicated chef had seasoned it with the powdered alum that should have gone into the morning rolls."

"Ze alum! Ze alum! Of zat I nevair think!" squeals Heiney, flopping down on his knees. "Ah, le bon Dieu! Le bon Dieu!"

He clasps his hands in front of him and rolls his eyes to the ceilin'. Say, it was the liveliest French prayin' I ever saw; for Heiney is rockin' back and forth, his pop eyes leakin' brine, and the polly-voo conversation is bubblin' out of him like water out of a bu'sted fire hydrant.

"Ah, quit it!" says I. "This is no camp meetin'."

There's no shuttin' him off, though, and all the let-up he takes is to break off now and then to get Jarvis to tell him once more that it's all true.

"You make certainement, eh?" says he. "Nobody was keel?"

"Not a soul," says Jarvis. "I didn't even hear of anyone that was made ill."

"Ah, merci, merci!" howls Heiney, beginnin' the rockin' horse act again.

"Say, for the love of Pete, Heiney!" says I, "will you saw that off before you draw a crowd? I'm glad you believe Jarvis, and that Jarvis believes you; but hanged if I can quite swallow any such dopy yarn as that without somethin' more convincin'! All I know about you is that you're the worst floor scrubber I ever saw. And you say you was a cook, do you?"

"Cook!" says Heiney, swellin' up his chest. "I am tell you zat I was ze premier chef. I have made for myself fame. Everywhere in l'Europe zey will tell you of me. For the king of ze Englise I have made a dinner. Moi! I have invent ze sauce Ravignon. From nozzing at all—some meat scraps, some leetle greens—I produce ze dish ravishment."

"Yes, I've heard bluffs like that before," says I; "but I never saw one made good. Tell you what I'll do, though: In the far corner of the gym, there, is what Swifty Joe calls his kitchenet, where he warms up his chowder and beans. There's a two-burner gas stove, an old fryin' pan, and a coffee pot. Now here's a dollar. You take that out on Sixth-ave. and spend it for meat scraps and leetle greens. Then you come back here, and while Jarvis and I are takin' a little exercise, if you can hash up anything that's fit to eat, I'll believe your whole yarn. Do you make the try?"

Does he? Say, you never saw such a tickled Frenchy in your life. Before Jarvis and me had got nicely peeled down for our delayed boxin' bout, Heiney is back with his bundles, has got the fryin' pan scoured, the gas blazin', and is throwin' things together like a juggler doin' a stage turn.

He sheds the blue jumper, ties a bath towel around him for an apron, makes a hat out of a paper bag, and twists some of that stringy lip decoration of his into a pointed mustache. Honest, he didn't look nor act any more like the wreck that had dragged the mop in there half an hour before than I look like Bill Taft. And by the time we've had our three rounds and a rub down, he's standin' doubled up beside a little table that he's found, with his arms spread out like he was goin' to take a dive.

"Messieurs," says he, "eet ees serve."

"Good!" says I. "I'm just about up to tacklin' a hot lunch. What kind of a mess have you got here, anyway, Heiney? Any alum in it? Blamed if I don't make you put away the whole shootin' match if it ain't good!"

How's that? Well, say, I couldn't name it, or say whether it was a stew, fry or an omelet, but for an impromptu sample of fancy grub it was a little the tastiest article I ever stacked up against.

"Why!" says Jarvis, smackin' his lips after the third forkful. "It's ris de veau, isn't it?"

"But yes, monsieur!" says Heiney, his face lightin' up. "Eet ees ris de veau grille, a la financier."

"And what's that in English?" says I.

"In Englise," says Heiney, shruggin' his shoulders, "eet ees not exist. Eet ees Parisienne."

"Bully for Paris, then!" says I. "Whatever it might be if it could be naturalized, it touches the spot. I take it all back, Heiney. You're the shiftiest chef that ever juggled a fryin' pan. A refill on the riddy-voo, seal-voo-plate."

Well, what do you guess! Jarvis engages Heiney on the spot, and an hour later they've started for Blenmont, both of 'em actin' like they thought this was a good world to live in, after all.

Yesterday me and Sadie accepts a special invite out there to dinner; and it was worth goin' out to get. From start to finish it was the finest that ever happened. Afterwards Jarvis has Heiney come up from the kitchen and show himself while we drinks his good health. And say, in his white togs and starched linen cap, he's got the chef on the canned goods ads. lookin' like a hash rustler in a beanery.

As for Jarvis, he's got the pink back in his cheeks, and is holdin' his chin up once more, and when we left in the mornin' he was out bossin' a couple of hundred lab'rers that was takin' that hill in wheelbarrows and cartin' it off where it wouldn't interfere with the lake.

"Shorty," says he, "I don't know how you did it, but you've made me a sane man again, and I owe you more than——"

"Ah, chuck it!" says I. "It was curin' Heiney that cured you."

"Really?" says he. "Then you are a believer in homeopathic psychotherapeutics?"

"Which?" says I. "Say, write that down on my cuff by syllables, will you? I want to spring it on Swifty Joe."



CHAPTER XIV

A TRY-OUT FOR TOODLEISM

Eh? Yes, maybe I do walk a little stiff jointed; but, say, I'm satisfied to be walkin' around at all. If I hadn't had my luck with me the other day, I'd be wearin' that left leg in splints and bein' pushed around in a wheel chair. As it is, the meat is only a little sore, and a few more alcohol rubs will put it in shape.

What was it come so near gettin' me on the disabled list? Toodleism! No, I expect you didn't; but let me put you next, son: there's more 'isms and 'pathys and 'ists floatin' around these days, than any one head can keep track of. I don't know much about the lot; but this Toodleism's a punk proposition. Besides leavin' me with a game prop, it come near bu'stin' up the fam'ly.

Seems like trouble was lookin' for me last week, anyway. First off, I has a run of old timers, that panhandles me out of all the loose coin I has in my clothes. You know how they'll come in streaks that way, sometimes? Why, I was thinkin' of havin' 'em form a line, one while. Then along about Thursday one of my back fletchers develops a case of jumps. What's a fletcher? Why, a steak grinder, and this one has a ripe spot in it. Course, it's me for the nickel plated plush chair, with the footrest and runnin' water attached; and after the tooth doctor has explored my jaw with a rock drill and a few other cute little tools, he says he'll kill the nerve.

"Don't, Doc.!" says I. "That nerve's always been a friend of mine until lately. Wouldn't dopin' it do?"

He says it wouldn't, that nothin' less'n capital punishment would reform a nerve like that; so I tells him to blaze away. No use goin' into details. Guess you've been there.

"Say, Doc.," says I once when he was fittin' a fresh auger into the machine, "you ain't mistakin' me for the guilty party, are you?"

"Did I hurt?" says he.

"You don't call that ticklin', do you?" says I.

But he only grins and goes on with the excavation. After he's blasted out a hole big enough for a terminal tunnel he jabs in a hunk of cotton soaked with sulphuric acid, and then tamps down the concrete.

"There!" says he, handin' me a drug store drink flavored with formaldehyde. "In the course of forty-eight hours or so that nerve will be as dead as a piece of string. Meantime it may throb at intervals."

That's what it did, too! It dies as hard as a campaign lie. About every so often, just when I'm forgettin', it wakes up again, takes a fresh hold, and proceeds to give an imitation of a live wire on an alternatin' circuit.

"Ahr chee!" says Swifty Joe. "To look at the map of woe you're carryin' around, you'd think nobody ever had a bum tusk before."

"Nobody ever had this one before," says I, "and the way I look now ain't chronic, like some faces I know of."

"Ahr chee!" says Swifty, which is his way of bringin' in a minority report.

The worst of it was, though, I'm billed to show up at Rockywold for a May party that Sadie and Mrs. Purdy-Pell was pullin' off, and when I lands there Friday afternoon the jaw sensations was still on the job. I'm feeling about as cheerful and chatty as a Zoo tiger with ingrowin' toenails. So, after I've done the polite handshake, and had a word with Sadie on the fly, I digs out my exercise uniform and makes a sneak down into their dinky little gym., where there's a first class punchin' bag that I picked out for Purdy-Pell myself.

You know, I felt like I wanted to hit something, and hit hard. It wa'n't any idle impulse, either. That tooth was jumpin' so I could almost feel my heels leave the floor, and I had emotions that it would take more than language to express proper. So I peels off for it, down to a sleeveless jersey and a pair of flannel pants, and starts in to drum out the devil's tattoo on that pigskin bag.

I was so busy relievin' my feelin's that I didn't notice anything float in the door; but after awhile I looks up and discovers the audience. She's a young female party that I didn't remember havin' seen before at any of the Rockywold doin's; but it looks like she's one of the guests, all right.

Well, I hadn't been introduced, and I couldn't see what she was buttin' into the gym. for, anyway, so I keeps right on punchin' the bag; thinkin' that if she was shocked any by my costume she'd either get over it, or beat it and have a fit.

She's one of the kind you might expect 'most anything from,—one of these long, limp, loppy, droop eyed fluffs, with terracotta hair, and a prunes-and-prisms mouth all puckered to say something soulful. She's wearin' a whackin' big black feather lid with a long plume trailin' down over one ear, a strawb'ry pink dress cut accordin' to Louis Catorz designs,—waist band under her armpits, you know,—and nineteen-button length gloves. Finish that off with a white hen feather boa, have her hands clasped real shy under her chin, and you've got a picture of what I sees there in the door. But it was the friendly size-up she was givin' me, and no mistake. She must have hung up there three or four minutes too, before she quits, without sayin' a word.

At the end of half an hour I was feelin' some better; but when I'd got into my tailor made, I didn't have any great enthusiasm for tacklin' food.

"Guess I'll appoint this a special fast day for mine," says I to Sadie.

"Why, Shorty!" says she. "Whatever is the matter?" And she has no sooner heard about the touchy tusk than she says, "Oh, pooh! Just say there isn't any such thing as toothache. Pain, you know, is only a false mental photograph, an error of the mind, and——"

"Ah, back up, Sadie!" says I. "Do you dream I don't know whether this jump is in my brain or my jaw? This is no halftone; it's the real thing."

"Nonsense!" says she. "You come right downstairs and see Dr. Toodle. He'll fix it in no time."

Seems this Toodle was the one the party had been arranged for, and Sadie has to hunt him up. It didn't take long to trail him down; for pretty soon she comes towin' him into the drawin'-room, where I'm camped down on a sofa, holdin' on with both hands.

"Dr. Toodle," says she, "I want to present Mr. McCabe."

Now, I don't claim any seventh-son powers; but I only has to take one look at Toodle to guess that he's some sort of a phony article. No reg'lar pill distributor would wear around that mushy look that he has on. He's a good sized, wide shouldered duck, with a thick crop of long hair that just clears his coat collar, and one of these smooth, soft, sentimental faces the women folks go nutty over,—you know, big nose, heavy chin, and sagged mouth corners. His get-up is something between a priest's and an actor's,—frock coat, smooth front black vest, and a collar buttoned behind. He gurgles out that he's charmed to meet Mr. McCabe, and wants to know what's wrong.

"Nothin' but a specked tooth," says I. "But I can stand it."

"My de-e-ear brother," says Toodle, puttin' his fingers together and gazin' down at me like a prison chaplain givin' a talk to murderers' row, "you are possessed of mental error. Your brain focus has been disturbed, and a blurred image has been cast on the sensitive retina of the——"

"Ah, say, Doc.," says I, "cut out the preamble! If you've got a cocaine gun in your pocket, dig it up!"

Then he goes off again with another string of gibberish, about pain bein' nothin' but thought, and thought bein' something we could steer to suit ourselves. I can't give you the patter word for word; but the nub of it was that I could knock that toothache out in one round just by thinkin' hard. Now wouldn't that peeve you? What?

"All right, Doc.," says I. "I'll try thinkin' I ain't got any ache, if you'll sit here and keep me comp'ny by thinkin' you've had your dinner. Is it a go?"

Well, it wa'n't. He shrugs his shoulders, and says he's afraid I'm a difficult subject, and then he teeters off on his toes. Sadie tells me I ought to be ashamed of myself for tryin' to be so fresh.

"He's a very distinguished man," she says. "He's the founder of Toodleism. He's written a book about it."

"I thought he looked like a nutty one," says I. "Keep him away from me; I'll be all right by mornin'."

The argument might have lasted longer; but just then comes the dinner call, and they all goes in where the little necks was waitin' on the cracked ice, and I'm left alone to count the jumps and enjoy myself. Durin' one of the calm spells I wanders into the lib'ry, picks a funny paper off the table, and settles down in a cozy corner to read the jokes. I must have been there near an hour, when in drifts the loppy young lady in the pink what-d'ye-call-it,—the one I'd made the silent hit with in the gym.,—and she makes straight for me.

"Oh, here you are!" says she, like we was old friends. "Do you know, I've just heard of your—your trouble."

"Ah, it ain't any killin' matter," says I. "It don't amount to much."

"Of course it doesn't!" says she. "And that is what I came to talk to you about. I am Miss Lee,—Violet Lee."

"Ye-e-es?" says I.

"You see," she goes on, "I am Dr. Toodle's secretary and assistant."

"Oh!" says I. "He's in luck, then."

"Now, now!" says she, just like that, givin' me a real giddy tap with her fan. "You must be real serious."

"I'm in condition to be all of that," says I. "Are you plannin' to try the——"

"I am going to help you to banish the imaginary pains, Mr. McCabe," says she. "Now first you must repeat after me the summum bonum."

"Eh?" says I.

"It's very simple," says she, floppin' down on the cushions alongside and reachin' out for one of my hands. "It begins this way, 'I am a child of light and goodness.' Now say that."

Say, how would you duck a proposition of that kind? There was Violet, with her big eyes rolled at me real pleadin', and her mouth puckered up real cunning, and the soft, clingin' grip on my right paw. Well, I says it over.