"Squelched!" says Barry. "I'll be good."

Say, they made a great team, them two, when it came to exchangin' persiflage. It was snappy stuff and it helped a lot towards taking my mind off Barry's jazz-style drivin'. For he sure does bear down heavy with his foot. If he plays the organ the way he runs a car I should think he'd raise the roof. And the speed he gets out of that dinky little roadster is amazin'. Might have been all right on smooth macadam, but on this country road he had her jumpin' around on that short wheel-base like a jackrabbit with the itch. We might have been so many kernels of pop-corn being shaken over a hot fire. Barry seems to be enjoyin' every minute of it, though. He makes funny cracks, whistles, and now and then breaks into song.

"Driving a car seems to go to his head," remarks Miss McLeod. "It appears to make him wild." "It does," says Barry. "For——

I'm a wild prairie flower, I grow wilder hour by hour. Nobody cares to cultivate me, I'm wild. Whe-e-e-e!"

He warbles that for the next five minutes, until Miss McLeod suggests that it's time for lunch.

"Let's stop at the next shady place we come to," says she.

"Oh, bother!" says Barry. "Just when Adelbaran is striking his best pace. Why not take our nourishment on the fly?"

So she gets out the sandwiches and the thermos bottle and we take it that way. Rather than let Barry take either hand off the wheel she feeds him herself, even if he does complain about gettin' his countenance smeared up with mustard some. Anyway, we didn't lose any time if we did spill more or less of the coffee.

"Cheerie oh!" sings out Barry, readin' a sign board. "Only twenty miles more!"

"But such up-and-downy miles!" says Ann.

She was dead right about that, for the further we got into New Hampshire the more the road looked like it had been built by a roller coaster fan. I always had a notion this was a small state, from the way it looks on the map, but I'll bet if it could be rolled flat once it would spread out near as big as Texas. All we did was to climb up and up and then slide down and down. Generally at the bottom was one of these covered wooden bridges, like a hay barn with both ends knocked out, and the way we'd roar through those was enough to make you think you was goin' forward with a barrage. Then just ahead would be another long hill windin' up to the top of the world.

"Only five miles to go!" sings out Barry at last, along about three o'clock. "Now, Ann, it's nearly time for you to be saying a few kind words to Adelbaran and me."

"I'll be thinking them up," says Ann.

Perhaps she did. I can't say. For it was somewhere in the middle of the second or third hill after this that the little roadster began to splutter and cough like it had swallowed a monkey wrench.

"Come, come now, Adelbaran!" says Barry coaxin'. "Don't go misbehaving at this late hour. Remember the women singing in the tents, the palm waving over the——"

"Barry," says Ann, "something has gone wrong with your engine."

"Say not so," says Barry, steppin' on the accelerator careless.

"But I'm sure!" says Ann. "There!"

With a final cough the thing has quit cold. All Barry can seem to do though is to jiggle the spark and look surprised. "Why—why, that's odd!" says he.

"Yes, but sitting here isn't going to help," says Miss McLeod. "Get out and see what's happened. Come on."

And while she's liftin' the hood and pawin' around among the wires and things, with Barry lookin' on puzzled and helpless, I sort of wanders about inspectin' Adelbaran curious. It's some relic, all right, and my guess is that it was assembled by a cross-eyed mechanic from choice pieces he rescued off'm a scrap heap. All of a sudden I notices something peculiar.

"Say, folks," I calls out, "where's the gas tank on this chariot?"

"Why, it's on the back," says Barry.

"Well, it ain't now," says I. "It's gone."

"Gone!" echoes Ann. "The gas tank? Oh, that can't be possible."

"Take a look," says I.

And sure enough, when they comes around all they can find is the rusted straps that held it in place and the feed pipe twisted off short.

"Ha, ha!" says Barry. "How utterly absurd. I've rattled off a lot of things before, but never the gas tank. And I suppose that's rather important to have."

"Quite," says Ann. "One doesn't go motoring nowadays without one."

"But—but what's to be done?" says Barry. "I simply must get to Birch Crest in time to play the wedding march. The ceremony is to be at 4:30, you know, and here we are——"

"I should say," breaks in Ann, "that we'd better find that tank and see if we can't screw it on or something. It can't be far behind, of course."

That seemed sensible enough. So we spreads out across the road and goes scoutin' down the hill. Didn't seem likely a thing as big as that could hide itself completely, even if it had bounced off into the bushes. But we got clear to the bottom without findin' so much as its track. On we goes, pawin' through the bushes, scoutin' the ditches on both sides, and peekin' behind trees.

"Come, little tankey, come to your master," calls Barry persuasive. Then he tries whistlin' for it.

"Well, we're sure to find it somewhere down that next hill," says Ann. "Probably near that water-break where you gave us such a hard jolt."

But we didn't. In fact, we scouted back over the road for nearly a mile with no signs of the bloomin' thing.

"Then we've missed it," finally decides Ann. "Of course no car could run this far without gas."

"You don't know Adelbaran," says Barry. "He's quite used to running without things. I've trained him to do it."

"Barry, this is no time to be funny," says she. "Now you take the left side going back. I'll bet you overlooked it."

Well, we made a regular drag-net on the return trip, scourin' the bushes for twenty feet on either side, but no tank turns up.

"Looks like we were stranded," says I, as we fetches up at the roadster once more.

Miss Ann McLeod, though, ain't one to give up easy. Besides, she's had all that efficiency trainin'.

"I don't suppose you carry such a thing as an emergency can of gasoline anywhere in the car?" she asks Barry.

"I'm sure I don't know," says he. "The fellow in the garage insisted on selling me a lot of stuff once. It's all stowed under the seat."

"Let's see," says she, liftin' out the cushion. "Why yes, here it is—a whole quart. And a little funnel, too. Now if we could pour enough into the feed pipe to fill the carburetor——"

It was a grand little scheme, only the funnel end was too big to fit into the feed pipe.

"Any tire tape?" demands Ann.

Barry thought there was, but we couldn't find it. Then he remembered he'd used it to wrap the handle of his tennis racquet once.

"I got some gum," says I.

"The very thing!" says Ann. "It must be chewed first though. Here, Barry, take two or three pieces."

"But I don't care for gum," says Barry. "Really!"

"If you don't wish to spend the night here, chew—and chew fast," says Ann.

So he chewed. We all chewed. And with the three fresh gobs Ann did a first aid plumbin' job that didn't look so worse. She got the funnel so it would stick on the pipe.

"But it must be held there," she announces. "I'll tell you, Barry; you will have to hang out over the back and keep the funnel in place with one hand and pour in the gas with the other, while I drive."

"Oh, I say!" says Barry. "I'd look nice, wouldn't I?"

"Torchy will hold you by the legs to keep you from falling off," she goes on. "Come, unbutton the back curtain and roll it up. There! Now out you go. And don't spill a drop, mind."

It sure was an ingenious way of feedin' gas to an engine, and I had my doubts about whether it would work or not. But it does. First thing I knew we'd started off with a roar and were tearin' up the hill on second. We made the top, too.

"Now hold tight and save the gas," sings out Ann. "I'm going to coast down this one full tilt."

Which she does. Barry bounces around a lot on his elbows and stomach, but I had a firm grip on his legs and we didn't lose him off.

"More gas now!" calls Ann as we hits the bottom.

"Ouch! My tummy!" groans Barry.

"Never mind," says Ann. "Only three miles more."

Say, it was the weirdest automobilin' I ever did, but Ann ran with everything wide open and we sure were coverin' the distance. Once we passed a big tourin' car full of young folks and as we went by they caught sight of Barry, actin' as substitute gas tank, and they all turned to give him the haw-haw.

"Probably they—they think I—I'm doing this on a bub-bet," says Barry. "I—I wish I were. I—I'd pay."

"Store ahead!" announces Ann. "Perhaps we can get some more gas."

It was a good guess. We fills the can and starts on again, with less than two miles to go. I think Barry must have been a bit reckless with that last quart for we hadn't gone more'n a mile before the engine begins to choke and splutter. We were almost to the top of a hill, too.

"Gas all gone," says Barry, tryin' to climb back in.

"Go back!" says Ann. "Take the funnel off and blow in the feed pipe. There! That's it. Keep on blowing."

You couldn't beat Ann. The machine takes a fresh spurt, we makes the top of the hill, and halfway down the other side we sees Birch Crest. Hanged if we don't roll right up to the front door too, before the engine gives its last gasp, and Barry, covered with dust and red in the face, is hauled in. We're only half an hour late, at that.

Course, the whole weddin' party is out there to see our swell finish. They'd been watchin' for us this last hour, wonderin' what had happened, and now they crowds around to ask Barry why he arrives hangin' over the back that way. And you should have heard 'em roar when they gets the explanation.

"See!" says Barry on the side to Ann. "I told you folks would laugh at me."

"Poor boy!" says Miss McLeod, hookin' her arm into his. "Don't mind. I think you were perfectly splendid about it."

"By Jove, though! Do you?" says he. "Would—would you risk another ride with me, Ann? I know Adelbaran didn't show up very well but——"

"But your disposition did," cuts in Ann. "And if you're going to insist on driving around the country in such a rattle-trap machine I—I think I'd better be with you—always."

And say, I don't think I ever heard so much pep thrown into the weddin' march as when Barry Crane pumps it out that afternoon. He's wearin' a broad grin, too.

Soon as I has a chance I whispers the news to Vee. "Really?" says she. "Isn't that fine! And I must say Barry is a lucky chap."

"Well, he's some whizz himself," says I. "Bound to be or else he couldn't run a car a mile and a half just on his breath."



CHAPTER XIV

SUBBING FOR THE BOSS

How's that? Has something happened to me? Course there has. Something generally does, and if I ever get to the point where it don't I hope I shall have pep enough left to use the self-starter. Uh-huh. That's the way I give the hail to a new day—grinnin' and curious.

Now some folks I know of works it just opposite, and they may be right, too. Mr. Piddie, our office manager, for instance. He's always afraid something will happen to him. I've heard him talk about it enough. Not just accidents that might leave him an ambulance case, or worse, but anything that don't come in his reg'lar routine; little things, like forgettin' his commutation ticket, or gettin' lost in Brooklyn, or havin' his new straw lid blow under a truck and walkin' bareheaded a few blocks. Say, I'll bet he won't like it in Heaven if he can't punch a time card every mornin', or if they shift him around much to different harp sections.

While me, I ain't worryin' what tomorrow will be like if it's only some different from yesterday. And generally it is. Take this last little whirl of mine. I'll admit it leaves me a bit dizzy in the head, like I'd been side-swiped by a passing event. Also my pride had had a bump when I didn't know I had such a thing. Maybe that's why I look so dazed.

What led up to it all was a little squint into the past that me and Old Hickory indulged in here a week or so back. I'd been openin' the mornin' mail, speedy and casual as a first-class private sec. ought to do, and sortin' it into the baskets, when I runs across this note which should have been marked "Personal." I'd only glanced at the "Dear old pal" start and the "Yours to a finish, Bonnie," endin' when I lugs it into the private office.

"I expect this must have been meant for Mr. Robert; eh, Mr. Ellins?" says I, handin' it over.

It's written sort of scrawly and foreign on swell stationery and Old Hickory don't get many of that kind, as you can guess. He reads it clear through, though, without even a grunt. Then he waves me into a chair.

"As it happens, Torchy," says he, "this was meant for no one but me."

"My error," says I. "I didn't read it, though."

He don't seem to take much notice of that statement, just sits there gazin' vacant at the wall and fingerin' his cigar. After a minute or so of this he remarks, sort of to himself: "Bonnie, eh? Well, well!"

I might have smiled. Probably I did, for the last person in the world you'd look for anything like mushy sentiments from would be Old Hickory Ellins. Couldn't have been much more than a flicker of a smile at that. But them keen old eyes of his don't miss much that's going on, even when he seems to be in a trance. He turns quick and gives me one of them quizzin' stares.

"Funny, isn't it, son," says he, "that I should still be called Dear Old Pal by the most fascinating woman in the world?"

"Oh, I don't know," says I, tryin' to pull the diplomatic stuff.

"You young rascal!" says he. "Think I'm no judge, eh? Here! Wait a moment. Now let's see. Um-m-m-m!"

He's pullin' out first one desk drawer and then another. Finally he digs out a faded leather photograph case and opens it.

"There!" he goes on. "That's Bonnie Sutton. What about her?"

Course, her hair is done kind of odd and old-fashioned, piled up on top of her head that way, with a curl or two behind one ear; and I expect if much of her costume had showed it would have looked old-fashioned, too. But there wasn't much to show, for it's only a bust view and cut off about where the dress begins. Besides, she's leanin' forward on her elbows. A fairly plump party, I should judge, with substantial, well-rounded shoulders and kind of a big face. Something of a cut-up, too, I should say, for she holds her head a little on one side, her chin propped in the palm of the left hand, while between the fingers of the right she's holdin' a cigarette. What struck me most, though, was the folksy look in them wide-open eyes of hers. If it hadn't been for that I might have sized her up for a lady vamp.

"Good deal of a stunner, I should say, Mr. Ellins," says I; "and no half portion, at that."

"Of queenly stature, as the society reporters used to put it," says Old Hickory. "She had her court, too, even if some of the sessions were rather lively ones."

At that he trails off into what passes with him as a chuckle and I waits patient while he does a mental review of old stuff. I could guess near enough how some of them scenes would show up: the bunch gatherin' in one of the little banquet rooms upstairs at Del's., and Bonnie surrounded three deep by admirin' males, perhaps kiddin' Ward McAllister over one shoulder and Freddie Gebhard whisperin' over the other; or after attendin' one of Patti's farewell concerts there would be a beefsteak and champagne supper somewhere uptown—above Twenty-third Street—and some wild sport would pull that act of drinking Bonnie's health out of her slipper. You know? And I expect they printed her picture on the front page of the "Clipper" when she broke into private theatricals.

"And she's still on deck?" I suggests.

Old Hickory nods. He goes on to say how the last he heard of her she'd married some rich South American that she'd met in Washington and gone off to live in Brazil, or the Argentine. That had been quite a spell back, I take it. He didn't say just how long ago. Anyway, she'd dropped out for good, he'd supposed.

"And now," says he, "she has returned, a widow, to settle on the old farm, up somewhere near Cooperstown. It appears, however, that she finds it rather dull. I can't fancy Bonnie on a farm somehow. Anyway, she has half a mind, she says, to try New York once more before she finally decides. Wants to see some of the old places again. And by the great cats, she shall! No matter what my fool doctors say, Torchy, I mean to take a night or two off when she comes. If Bonnie can stand it I guess I can, too."

"Yes, sir," says I, grinnin' sympathetic.

Well, that was 1:15 a.m. And at exactly 2:30 he limps out with his hand to his right side and his face the color of cigar ashes. He's in for another spell. I gets his heart specialist on the 'phone and loads Mr. Ellins into a taxi. Just before closin' time he calls up from the house to say that he's off to the sanitarium for another treatment and may be gone a couple of weeks. I must tell Mr. Robert about those options, have him sub. in at the next directors' meetin', and do a lot of odd jobs that he'd left unfinished.

"And by the way, Torchy," he winds up, "about Bonnie."

"Oh, yes," says I. "The lady fascinator."

"If she should show up while I am away," says Old Hickory, "don't—don't bother to tell her I'm a sick old man. Just say I—I've been called out of town, or something."

"I get you," says I. "Business trip."

"She'll be disappointed, I suppose," goes on Mr. Ellins. "No one to take her around town. That is, unless—By George, Torchy!—You must take my place."

"Eh?" says I, gaspy.

"Yes," says he. "You lucky young rascal! You shall be the one to welcome Bonnie back to New York. And do it right, son. Draw on Mr. Piddie for any amount you may need. Nothing but the best for Bonnie. You understand. That is, if she comes before I get back."

Say, I've had some odd assignments from Old Hickory, but never one just like this before. Some contract that, to take an ex-home wrecker in tow and give her the kind of a good time that was popular in the days of Berry Wall. If I could only dig up some old sport with a good memory he might coach me so that I might make a stab at it, but I didn't know where to find one. And for three days there I made nervous motions every time Vincent came in off the gate with a card.

But a week went by and no Bonnie blew in from up state. Maybe she'd renigged on the proposition, or had hunted up some other friend of the old days. Anyway, I'd got my nerves soothed down considerable and was almost countin' the incident as closed, when here the other day as I drifts back from lunch Vincent holds me up.

"Lady to see Mr. Ellins," says he. "She's in the private office."

"Sad words, Vincent," says I. "Don't tell me it's Bonnie."

"Nothing like that," says he. "Here's her name," and he hands me a black-bordered card.

"Huh!" says I, taking a glance. "Senora Concita Maria y Polanio. All of that, eh? Must be some whale of a female?"

"Whale is near it," says Vincent. "You ought to see her."

"The worst of it is," says I, "I gotta see her."

He's no exaggerator, Vincent. This female party that I finds bulgin' Old Hickory's swing desk chair has got any Jonah fish I ever saw pictured out lookin' like a pickerel. I don't mean she's any side-show freak. Not as bad as that. But for her height, which is about medium, I should say, she sure is bulky. The way she sits there with her skirts spreadin' wide around her feet, she has all the graceful outlines of a human water tower. Above the wide shoulders is a big, high-colored face, and wabblin' kind of unsteady on top of her head is a black velvet hat with jet decorations. You remember them pictures we used to see of the late Queen Victoria? Well, the Senora is an enlarged edition.

I was wonderin' how long since she came up from Cuba, and if I'd need a Spanish interpreter to find out why she thinks she has to call on the president of the Corrugated Trust, when she rolls them big dark eyes of hers my way and remarks, in perfectly good United States: "Ah! A ray of sunshine!"

It comes out so unexpected that for a second or so I just gawps at her, and then I asks: "Referrin' to my hair?"

"Forgive me, young man," says she. "But it is such a cheerful shade."

"Yes'm," says I. "So I've been told. Some call it fire-hydrant red, but I claim it's only super-pink."

"Anyway, I like it very much," says she. "I hope they don't call you Reddy, though?"

"No, ma'am," says I. "Torchy."

"Why, how clever!" says she. "May I call you that, too? And I suppose you are one of Mr. Ellins' assistants?"

"His private secretary," says I. "So you can see what luck he's playin' in. Did you want to talk to him 'special, or is it anything I can fix up for you?"

"It's rather personal, I'm afraid," says she. "The boy at the door insisted that Mr. Ellins wasn't in, but I told him I didn't mind waiting."

"That's nice," says I. "He'll be back in a week or so."

"Oh!" says she. "Then he went away before my note came?"

Which was where I begun to work up a hunch. Course, it's only a wild suspicion at first. She don't fit the description at all. Still, if she should be the one—I could feel the panicky shivers chasin' up and down my backbone just at the thought. I expect my voice wavered a little as I put the question.

"Say," says I, "you don't happen to be Bonnie Sutton, do you?"

That got a laugh out of her. It's no throaty, old-hen cackle, either. It's clear and trilly.

"Thank you, Torchy," says she. "You've guessed it. But please tell me how?"

"Why," says I, draggy, "I—er—you see——" And then I'm struck with this foolish idea. Honest, I couldn't help pullin' it. "Mr. Ellins," I goes on, "happened to show me your picture."

"What!" says she. "My picture? I—I can hardly believe it."

"Wait," says I. "It's right here in the drawer. That is, it was. Yep! This one. There!"

And say, as I flashed that old photo on her I didn't have the nerve to watch her face. You get me, don't you? If you'd changed as much as she had how would you like to be stacked up sudden against a view of what you was once? So I looked the other way. Must have been a minute or more before I glanced around again. She was still starin' at the picture and brushin' something off her eyelashes.

"Torchy," says she, "I could almost hug you for that. What a really talented young liar you are! And how thoroughly delightful of you to do it!"

"Oh, I don't know," says I. "Anyway, it's the picture he showed me when he was tellin' about you."

"Perhaps you wouldn't mind, Torchy," she goes on, "telling me just what he said."

"Why, for one thing," says I, "he let out that you was the most fascinatin' woman in the world."

Another ripply laugh from Bonnie. "The old dear!" says she. "But then, he always was a little silly about me. Think of his never having gotten over it in all these years, though! But he didn't stay to meet me. How was that?"

I hope I made it convincin' about his being called before a Senate Committee and how he was hoping to get back before she showed up. I told it as well as I could with them wise friendly eyes watchin' me.

"Perhaps, after all," says she, "it's just as well. If I had known he had this photo I never would have risked coming. Now that I'm here, however, I wish there was someone who——"

"Oh, he fixed that up," says I. "I'm the substitute."

"You!" says she. Then she shakes her head. "You're a dear boy," she goes on, "but I couldn't ask it of you. Really!"

"Sure you can," says I. "You want to see what the old town looks like, have a little dinner in one of the old joints, and maybe make a little round of the bright spots afterwards. Well, I got it all planned out. Course, I can't do it just the way Mr. Ellins would but——"

"Listen, Torchy," she breaks in. "I regret to admit the fact, but I am a fat, shapeless, freaky-looking old woman. Ordinarily that doesn't worry me in the least. After fifteen years in the tropics one doesn't worry about how one looks. It has been a long time since I've given it a thought. But now—Well, it's different. Seeing that picture. No, I can't ask it of you."

"Mr. Ellins will ask me, though, when he gets back," says I. "Besides, I don't mind. Maybe you are a little overweight, but I'm beginnin' to suspect you're a reg'lar person, after all; and if I can qualify as a guide——"

Say, don't let on to Vee, but that's where I got hugged. It seems Bonnie does want to have one glimpse of New York with the lights on; wants it the worst way. For when she'd come up from Rio her one idea was to get back to the old farm, fix it up regardless of expense, and camp down there quiet for the rest of her days. She'd had a bully time doin' it, too, for three or four months. She'd enjoyed havin' people around her who could talk English, and watchin' the white clouds sail over the green hills, and seein' her cattle and sheep browsin' about the fields. It had rested her eyes and her soul.

And then, all of a sudden, she had this hunch that maybe she was missin' something. Not that she thought she could come back reg'lar, or break into the old life where she left off. She says she wasn't so foolish in the head as all that. Her notion was that she might be happier and more contented if she just looked on from the side-lines.

"I wanted to hear music," says she, "and see the lights, and watch gay and beautiful young people doing the things I used to do. It might—Well, it might shake off some of my years. Who knows?"

"Sure! That's the dope," says I. "Course, a lot of their old-time joints ain't runnin' now—Koster & Bial's, Harrigan's, the Cafe Martin but maybe some you remember are still open."

"Silly!" says she, shakin' a pudgy forefinger at me. "That isn't what I want at all. Not the old, but the new; the very newest and most fashionable. I'm not trying to go back, but trying to keep up."

"Oh!" says I. "In that case it'll be easy. How about startin' in with the tea dance at the Admiral, just opened? Begins at 4:15."

"Tell me, Torchy," says she, "did you ever see anyone as—as huge as I am at a tea dance? No, I think we'll not start with that."

"Then suppose we hop off with dinner on the Plutoria roof?" I suggests. "The Tortonis are doing a dancin' turn there and they have the swellest jazz band in town."

"It sounds exciting," says Bonnie. "I will try to be ready by 7:30. And you surely are a nice boy. Now if you will help me out to the elevator——"

And it's while I'm tryin' to steady her on one side as she goes rollin' waddly through the main office that I gets a little hint of what's comin' to me. Maybe you've seen a tug-boat bobbin' alongside a big liner in a heavy sea. I expect we must have looked something like that. Even so, that flossy bunch of lady typists showed poor taste in cuttin' loose with the smothered snickers as we wobbles past.

And I could get a picture of myself towin' the Senora Concita Maria What's-Her-Name, alias Bonnie Sutton, through the Plutoria corridors. What if her feet should skid and after ten or a dozen bell hops had boosted her up again they should find me underneath? Still I was in for it. No scoutin' around for back-number restaurants, as I'd planned at first. No, Bonnie had asked to be brought up-to-date. So she should, too. But I did wish she'd come to town in something besides that late Queen Victoria costume.

Yet I maps out the evenin' as if I had a date with Peggy Hopkins or Hazel Dawn. At 5:30 I'm slippin' a ten-spot into the unwillin' palm of a Plutoria head waiter to cinch a table for two next to the dancin' surface, and from there I drops into a cigar store where I pays two prices for a couple of end seats at the Midnight Follies. Then I slicks up a bit at a Turkish bath and at 7:25 I'm waitin' with the biggest taxi I can find in front of Bonnie's hotel.

I expect I must have let out a sigh of relief when she shows up and I notice that she's shed the unsteady velvet lid. It's some creation she's swapped it for, a pink satin affair with a wing spread of about three feet, but I must admit it kind of sets off that big face of hers and the grayish hair.

That's nothing to the jolt I gets, though, after she's been loaded into the cab and the fur-trimmed opera cape slips back a bit. Say, take it from me, Bonnie has bloomed out. She must have speeded up some Fifth Avenue modiste's establishment to the limit, but she's turned the trick, I'll say. Uh-huh! Not only the latest model evening gown, but she's had her hair done up spiffy, and she's got on a set of jewels that would make a pawnbroker's bride turn green.

"Z-z-zing!" says I, catchin' my breath. "Excuse me, but I didn't know you were going to dress the part."

"You didn't think I could, did you, Torchy?" says she. "Well, I haven't quite forgotten, you see."

So all them gloomy thoughts I'd indulged in was so much useless worry, as is usually the case. I'll admit we was some conspicuous durin' the evenin', with folks stretchin' their necks our way, but I didn't hear any snickers. They gazed at Bonnie sort of awed and impressed, like tourists starin' at the Woolworth Buildin' when it's lighted up.

Some classy dinner that was we had, even if I did order it myself, with only two waiters to coach me. I couldn't say exactly what it was we had for nourishment, only I know it was all tasty and expensive. You wouldn't expect me to pick out the cheap things for a lady plutess from Brazil, would you? So we dallies with Canaps Barbizon, Portage de la Reine, breasts of milk-fed pheasants, and such trifles as that. Bonnie says it's all good. But she can't seem to get used to the band brayin' out impetuous just as she's about to take another bite of something.

"Tell me," says she, "is that supposed to be music?"

"Not at all," says I. "That's jazz. We've got so we can't eat without it, you know."

Also I suspect the Tortonis' dancin' act jarred her a bit. You've seen 'em do the shimmy-plus?

"Well!" says she, drawin' in a long breath and lookin' the other way. "So that is an example of modern dancing, is it?"

"It's the kind of stunt the tired business man has to have before he gets bright in the eyes again," says I. "But wait until we get to the Follies if you want to see him really begin to live."

We had to kill a couple of hours between times so we took in the last half of the latest bedroom farce and I think that got a rise or two out of Bonnie. I gathered from her remarks that Lillian Russell or Edna Wallace Hopper never went quite that far in her day.

"It's pajamas or nothing now," says I.

"And occasionally," she adds, "I suppose it is—Well, I trust not, at least."

After the Follies she hadn't a word to say. Only, as I landed her back at her hotel, along about 2:30 a.m., she slumps into a big chair in the Egyptian room and lets her chin sag.

"It's no use, Torchy," says she. "I—I couldn't."

"Eh?" says I.

"End my days to jazz time," says she. "No. I shall go back to my quiet hills and my calm-eyed Holsteins. And I shall go entirely contented. I can't tell you either, how thankful I am that it was you who showed me my mistake instead of my dear old friend. You've been so good about it, too."

"Me?" says I. "Why, I've had a big night. Honest."

"Bless you!" says she, pattin' my hand. "And just one thing more, Torchy. When you tell Mr. Ellins that I've been here, and gone, couldn't you somehow forget to say just how I looked? You see, if he remembers me as I was when that photo was taken—Well, where's the harm?"

"Trust me," says I. "And I won't be strainin' my conscience any at that."

But I didn't need to juggle even a word. When Old Hickory hears how I've subbed in for him with Bonnie he just pulls out the picture, gazes at it fond for a minute or so, and then remarks:

"Ah, you lucky young rascal!" Then he picks up a note from his desk. "Oh, by the way," he goes on, "here's a little remembrance she sent you in my care."

Little! Say, what do you guess? Oh, only an order for a 1920 model roadster with white wire wheels to be delivered to me when I calls for it! She's merely tipped me an automobile, that's all. And after I'd read it through for the third time, and was sure it was so, I manages to gasp out:

"Lucky is right, Mr. Ellins; that's the only word."



CHAPTER XV

A LATE HUNCH FOR LESTER

You might not guess it, but every now and then I connect with some true thought that makes me wiser above the ears. Honest, I do. Sometimes they just come to me by accident, on the fly, as it were. And then again, they don't come so easy.

Take this latest hunch of mine. I know now that my being a high-grade private sec. don't qualify me to hand out any fatherly advice to the female sex. Absolutely it doesn't. And yet, here only a few weeks back, that was just what I was doin'. Oh, I don't mean I was scatterin' it around broadcast. It had to be a particular and 'special case to tempt me to crash in with the Solomon stuff. It was the case of Lester Biggs—and little Miss Joyce.

Now you'd almost think I'd seen too many lady typists earnin' their daily bread and their weekly marcelle waves for me to get stirred up over anything they might do. And as a rule, I don't waste much thought on 'em unless they develop the habit of parkin' their gum on the corner of my desk, or some such trick as that. I sure would be busy if I did more, for here in the Corrugated general offices we have fifteen or twenty more or less expert key pounders most of the time. Besides, it's Mr. Piddie's job to worry over 'em, and believe me he does it thorough.

But somehow this little Miss Joyce party was different. I expect it was the baby blue tam-o'-shanter that got me noticin' her first off. You know that style of lid ain't worn a great deal by our Broadway stenogs. Not the home crocheted kind. Hardly. I should judge that most of our flossy bunch wouldn't be satisfied until they'd swapped two weeks' salary for some Paris model up at Mme. Violette's. And how they did snicker when Miss Joyce first reported for duty wearin' that tam and costumed tacky in something a cross-roads dressmaker had done her worst on.

Miss Joyce didn't seem to mind. By rights she should have been a shy, modest little thing who would have been so cut up that she'd have rushed into the cloak room and spilled a quart of salt tears. But she never even quivers one of her long eyelashes, so Piddie reports. She just comes back at 'em with a sketchy, friendly little smile and proceeds to tackle her work business-like. And inside of ten days she has the lot of 'em eatin' out of her hand.

But while I might feel a little sympathetic toward this stray from the kerosene circuit I didn't let it go so far but what I kicked like a steer when I finds that Piddle has wished her on me for a big forenoon's work.

"What's the idea, Piddie?" says I. "Why do I get one of your awkward squad who'll probably spell 'such' with a t in it and punctuate by the hit-or-miss method?"

"Miss Joyce?" says he, raisin' his eyebrows, pained. "I beg your pardon, Torchy, but she is one of our most efficient stenographers. Really!"

"She don't look the part," says I. "But if you say she is I'll take a chance."

Well, she was all he'd described. She could not only scribble down that Pitman stuff as fast as I could feed the dictation to her, but she could read it straight afterward and the letters she turns out are a joy to look over. From then on I picks her to do all my work, being careful not to let either Mr. Robert or Old Hickory know what an expert I've discovered in disguise.

For one thing she's such a quiet, inoffensive little party. She don't come in all scented with Peau d'Espagne, nor she don't stare at you bored, or pat her hair or polish her nails while you're waitin' to think of the right word. She don't seem to demand the usual chat or fish for an openin' to confide what a swell time she had last night. In fact, she don't make any remarks at all outside of the job in hand, which is some relief when you're scratchin' your head to think what to tell the assistant Western manager about renewin' them dockage contracts.

Yet she ain't one of the scared-mouse kind. She looks you square in the eye when there's any call for it and she don't mumble her remarks when she has something to say. Not Miss Joyce. Her words come out clear and crisp, with a slight roll to the r's and all the final letters sounded, like she'd been taking elocution or something.

In the course of five or six weeks she has shed the blue tam for a neat little hat and has ditched the puckered seam effect dress for a black office costume with white collar and cuffs. She still sticks to partin' her hair in the middle and drawin' it back smooth with no ear tabs or waves to it. So she does look some old-fashioned.

That was why I'm kind of surprised to notice this Lester Biggs begin hoverin' around her at lunch time and toward the closin' hour. She ain't the type Lester usually picks out to roll his eyes at. Not in the least. For of all them young hicks in the bond room I expect Lester is about the most ambitious would-be sport we've got.

You see, I've known Lester Biggs more or less for quite some time. He started favorin' the Corrugated with his services back in the days when I was still on the gate and rated myself the highest paid and easiest worked office boy between Greeley Square and Forty-second Street. And all the good I ever discovered about him wouldn't take me long to tell.

As for the other side of the case—Well, I ain't much on office scandal, but I will say that it always struck me Lester had the kind of a mind that needed chloride of lime on it. I never saw the time when he wasn't stretchin' his neck after some flossy typist or other, and as sure as a new one with the least hint of hair bleach showed up it would mean another affair for Lester. Maybe you know the kind.

And he sure dressed the part, on and off. The Tin-Horn Sport Cut clothes that you see advertised so wide must be made and designed 'special for Lester. I remember he sprung the first pinch-back coat that came into the office. Same way with the slit pockets, the belted vest and other cute little innovations that the Times Square chicken hounds drape themselves in.

I wouldn't quite say that he'd pass for the perfect male, either. Not unless you count the bat ears, face pimples, turkey neck and the cast in one eye as points of beauty. But that don't seem to bother Lester in the least. He knows he has a way with him. His reg'lar openin' is "Hello, Girlie, what you got on the event card for tonight?" and from that to makin' a date at Zinsheimer's dance hall is just a step. Oh, yes, Lester is some gay bird, if you want to call it that.

And all on twenty a week. So of course that interferes some with his great ambition. He used to tell me about it back in the old days when I was on the gate and hadn't sized him up accurate. Chorus girls! If he could only get to know some squab pippin from the Winter Garden or the Follies that would be all he'd ask. He would pick out his favorite from the new musical shows, lug around half-tone pictures of 'em cut from newspapers, and try to throw the bluff that he expected to meet 'em early next week; but as we all knew he never got nearer than the second balcony he never got away with the stuff.

"Suppose by some miracle you did, Lester?" I'd ask him. "What then? Would you blow her to a bowl of chow mein at some chop suey joint, or could you get by with a nut sundae at a cut-rate drug store? And suppose some curb broker was waitin' to take her out to Heather Blossom Inn? You'd put up a hot competition, you would, with nothing but the change from a five left in your jeans."

"Ah, just leave that to me, old son," he'd say, winkin' devilish.

And the one time when he did pull it off I happened to hear about. A friend of his who was usher at the old Hippodrome offered to tow him to a little Sunday night supper at the flat of one of the chorus ladies. Lester went, too, and found a giddy thing of about forty fryin' onions for a fam'ly of five, includin' three half-grown kids and a scene-shiftin' hubby.

That blow seems to discourage Lester for a week or so, since which he has run true to form. He'll run around with lady typists, or girls from the cloak department, or most anything that wears skirts, until they discover what a tight-wad he is and give him the shunt. But his great aim in life is to acquire a lady-friend that he can point out in the second row and hang around for at the stage door about midnight.

So when I sees him flutterin' about Miss Joyce, and her making motions like she was fallin' for him, I didn't quite know what to make of it. Course, now that she's bucked up a bit on her costume she is more or less easy to look at. For a little thing, almost a half portion, as you might put it, she has quite a figure, slim and graceful. And them pansy brown eyes can light up sort of fascinatin', I expect. And being so fresh from the country I suppose she can't dope out what a cheap shimmy lizard Lester is. It's a wonder some of the other typists hadn't put her wise. They're usually good at that. But it looks like they'd missed a trick in her case, for one noon I overhears Lester datin' her up for an evenin' at Zinsheimer's. And when he drifts along I can't resist throwin' out a hint, on my own account.

"With Lester, eh?" says I, humpin' my eyebrows.

"Oh, I know," says Miss Joyce. "But I do love to dance and I—I've been rather lonely, you see."

I saw. And of course after that there was nothing more to say. She didn't tell me as much, but I understand that it got to be a regular thing. You could tell that by the intimate way Lester tips her the wink as he swaggers by. He didn't take any pains to hide it, or to lower his voice when he remarks, "Well, kiddo, see you at eight thirt., eh?"

As long as she kept her work up to the mark, which she does, it wasn't any funeral of mine. I never have yearned to be a volunteer chaperon. But I was kind of sorry for little Miss Joyce. I expect I said something of the kind to Vee, and she was all for having Mr. Piddie give her a good talking to.

"No use," says I. "Piddie wouldn't know how. All he can do is hire 'em and fire 'em, and even that's turnin' his hair gray. It'll all work out one way or another, I expect."

It does, too. But not exactly along the lines I was looking for it to develop. First off, Lester quits the Corrugated. As he'd been on the same job for more'n six years, and gettin' worse at it right along, the blow didn't quite put us out of business. We're still staggerin' ahead.

"What's the scheme, Lester?" says I. "Beatin' the office manager to it?"

"Huh!" says Lester. "I've been plannin' to make a shift for more'n a year. Just waitin' for the right openin'. I got it now."

"The Morgan people sent for you, did they?" says I.

"They might have, at that," says Lester, "only I'm through bein' an office slave for anybody. I'm goin' in with some live wires this time, where I'll have a chance."

But it turns out that he's been taken on as a sidewalk man by a pair of ticket speculators—Izzy Goldman and his pal, who used to run the cigar stand down in the arcade. They handled any kind of pasteboards, from grandstand parade tickets to orchestra seats.

"Yes," says I, "that'll be a great career. Almost in the theatrical game, eh? You'll be knowin' all the pippins now, I expect."

"Watch me," says Lester.

Well, I didn't strain my eyes. I'd have been just as pleased to know that Lester was going to slip out of my young life forever and to forget him complete within the next two days. Only I couldn't. There was Miss Joyce to remind me. Not that she says a word. She ain't the chatty, confidential kind. But it was natural for me to wonder now and then if they was still as chummy as at the start.

He'd been away a month or more I expect, before either of us passed his name, and then it came out accidental. I starts dictatin' a letter to a firm in St. Louis, Lester & Riggs. The name sort of startles Miss Joyce.

"I beg pardon?" says she, her pencil poised over the pad.

"No, not Lester Biggs," says I. "By the way, how is he these days?"

"I'm sure I don't know," says she. "I—I haven't seen him for weeks."

"Oh!" says I. "Kind of thought you'd be droppin' him down the coal shute or something."

She shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head. "It was he who dropped me," says she. "Flat."

"Considerin' Lester," says I, "that's more or less of a compliment."

"I am not so sure of that," says Miss Joyce. "You see, he was quite frank about it. He—he said I had no style or zipp about me. Well, I'm afraid it's true."

"Even so," says I, "it was sweet of him to throw it at you, wasn't it?"

She indulges in a sketchy, quizzin' smile. "I think some of the girls at Zinsheimer's had been teasing him about me," she goes on. "They called me 'the poor little working girl,' I believe. I've no doubt I looked it. But I haven't been able to spend much for clothes—as yet."

"Of course," says I, throwin' up a picture of an invalid mother and a coon-huntin' father back in the alfalfa somewhere. "And so far you ain't missed much by not havin' 'em. I should put Lester's loss down on the credit side if I was makin' the entry."

"He could dance, though," says Miss Joyce, as she gets busy with her pencil again.

Then a few weeks later I was handed my big jolt. We was gettin' out a special report for the directors' meetin' one day after lunch when right in the middle of a table of costs Miss Joyce glances anxious at the clock and drops her note book.

"I'm so sorry," says she, "but couldn't we finish this tomorrow morning?"

"Why, I suppose we might," says I, "if it's anything important."

"It is," says she. "If I'm not there by 3 o'clock the stage manager will not see me at all, and I do so want to land an engagement this time."

"Eh?" says I gawpin'. "Stage manager! You?"

"Why, yes," says she. "You see, I tried once before. I was almost taken on, too. They liked my voice, they said, but I wasn't up on my dancing. So I've been taking lessons of a ballet master. Frightfully expensive. That's where all my money has gone. But I think they'll give me a chance this time. It's for the chorus of that new 'Tut! Tut! Marie' thing, you know, and they've advertised for fifty girls."

I suppose I must have let loose a gasp. This meek, modest young thing, who looked like she wouldn't know a lip-stick from a boiled carrot, plannin' cold-blooded to throw up a nice respectable job and enter herself in the squab market! Why, I wouldn't have been jarred more if Piddie had announced that next season he was going to do bareback ridin' for some circus.

"Excuse me, Miss Joyce," says I, "but I wouldn't say you was just the kind they'd take on."

"Oh, they take all kinds," says she.

"Better brace yourself for a turndown, though," says I, "I see it coming to you. You ain't the type at all."

"Perhaps you don't know," says she, trippin' off to get her hat.

Ever see one of them mobs that turns out when there's a call for a new chorus? I've had to push my way through 'em once or twice up in some of them office buildings along the Rialto, and believe me, it's a weird collection; all sorts, from wispy little flappers who should be in grammar school still, to hard-faced old battle axes who used to travel with Nat Goodwin. So I couldn't figure little Miss Joyce gettin' anything more'n a passing glance in that aggregation. Yet when she shows up in the mornin' she's lookin' sort of smilin' and chirky.

"Well," said I, "did you back out after lookin' 'em over?"

"Oh, no," says she. "I was tried out with the first lot and engaged right away. They're rushing the production, you see, and I happened to fit in. Why, inside of an hour they had twenty of us rehearsing. I'm to be in the first big number, I think—one of the Moonbeam girls. Isn't that splendid?"

"If that's what you want," says I, "I expect it is. But how about the folks back home? What'll they say to this wide jump of yours?"

"I've decided not to tell them anything about it," says she. "Not for a long time, anyway."

"They might hear, though," I suggests. "Just where do you come from?"

"Why, Saskatoun," says she, without battin' an eyelash.

"Oh, all right, if you don't want to tell," says I.

"But I have told you," says she. "Saskatoun."

"Is it a new hair tonic, or what?" says I.

"It's a city," says she. "One of the largest in British Columbia."

"Think of that!" says I. "They don't care how they mess up the map these days, do they? And your folks live there?"

"Most of them," says she. "Two of my brothers are up at Glen Bow, raising sheep; one of my sisters is at Alberta, giving piano lessons; and another sister is doing church singing in Moose Jaw. If I had stayed at home I would be doing something like that. We are a musical family, you know. Daddy is a church organist and wanted me to keep on in the choir and perhaps get to be a soloist, at $50 a month. But I couldn't see it. If I am going to make a living out of my music I want to make a good one. And New York is the place, isn't it!"

"It depends," says I. "You don't think you'll get rich in the 'Tut! Tut! Marie' chorus, do you?"

"Perhaps they'll not keep me in the chorus," says she. "It's the back door, I know, but it was the only way I could get in. And I'm going to work for something better. You'll see."

Yep, I saw. Miss Joyce resigned at the end of the week, and it wasn't ten days before I gets a little note from her saying how she'd been picked out to do a specialty dance and duet with Ronald Breen. Mr. Breen had done the picking himself. And she did hope I would look in some night when the company opened on Broadway.

"I expect we'll have to go; eh, Vee?" says I when I gets home.

"Surely," says Vee.

Well, maybe you've noticed what a hit this "Tut! Tut!" thing has been making. It's about the zippiest, peppiest girl show in town, and that's saying a lot. It's the kind of stuff that makes the tired business man get bright in the eyes and forget how near the sixteenth of January is. I thought first off we'd have to put off seeing it until after Christmas, for when I finally got to the box office there was nothing doing in orchestra seats. Sold out five weeks in advance. But by luck I happens to run across Lester Biggs in the lobby and for five a throw he fixes me up with two places in G, middle row.

"It's a big winner," says he.

"Seen it yourself?" I asks.

"Not yet," says he. "Think I can pull it off tonight, though."

"Good!" says I. "I'll be looking for you out front after the first act."

And, say, when this party who's listed on the program as Jean Jolly comes boundin' in with Ronald Breen I'll admit she had me sittin' up with my ears tinted pink. No use goin' into details about her costume. It's hardly worth while—a little white satin here and there and a touch of black tulle.

"Well!" gasps Vee. "Is that your little Miss Joyce?"

"I can hardly believe it," says I.

"I should hope not," says Vee. "But she is cute, isn't she? And see that kick! Oh-h-h-h!"

I was still red in the face, I expect, when I trails out at the end of the act and discovers Lester leanin' against the lobby wall.

"Say, Torchy," says he husky, "did—did you see her?"

"Miss Joyce?" says I. "Sure. Some pippin in the act, isn't she? Didn't she send you word she was goin' to be in this with Ronald Breen?"

"Me?" says he. "No."

"That's funny," says I. "She told me weeks ago. I hear she's pulling down an even hundred and fifty a week. By next season she'll be starrin'."

"And to think," moans out Lester, "that I passed her up only a few months ago!"

"Yes," says I, "considerin' your chronic ambition, that was once when you were out of luck. And the worst of it is that maybe she was only usin' you to practice on all along. Eh?"

Perhaps it wasn't a consolin' thought to leave with Lester, but somehow I couldn't help grinnin' as I tossed it over. And me, I'm doping out no more advice to young ladies from Saskatoun or elsewhere. I'm off that side-line permanent.



CHAPTER XVI

TORCHY TACKLES A MYSTERY

I'll admit I didn't get all stirred up when Mr. Robert comes in from luncheon and announces that this Penrhyn Deems person is missing.

"On how many cylinders?" says I.

I might have added, too, that even if he'd been mislaid permanent I could struggle along. First off, anybody with a name like that could be easy spared. Penrhyn! Always reminded me of a headache tablet. Where did he get such a fancy tag? I never could believe that was sprinkled on him. Listened to me like something he'd thought up himself when he saw the chance of its being used so much on four sheets and billboards. And if you'd ask me I'd said that the prospect of his not contributin' any more of them musical things to the Broadway stage wasn't good cause for decreein' a lodge of sorrow. Them last two efforts of his certainly was punk enough to excuse him from tryin' again. What if he had done the lines and lyrics to "The Buccaneer's Bride"? That didn't give him any license to unload bush-league stuff for the rest of his career, did it? Begun to look like his first big hit had been more or less of an accident. That being the case maybe it was time for him to fade out.

Course, I didn't favor Mr. Robert with all this. Him and Penrhyn Deems was old college chums together, and while they ain't been real thick in late years they have sort of kept in touch. I suspect that since Penrhyn got to ratin' himself as kind of a combination of Reggie DeKoven and George Cohan he ain't been so easy to get along with. Maybe I'm wrong, but from the few times I've seen him blowin' in here at the Corrugated that was my dope. You know. One of these parties who carries his chest out and walks heavy on his heels. Yes, I should judge that the ego in Penrhyn's make-up would run well over 2.75 per cent.

But it takes more'n that to get him scratched from Mr. Robert's list. He's strong for keepin' up old friendships, Mr. Robert is. He remembers whatever good points they have and lets it ride at that. So he's always right there with the friendly hail whenever Penrhyn swaggers in wearin' them noisy costumes that he has such a weakness for, and with his eyebrows touched up and his cutie-boy mustache effect decoratin' that thick upper lip. How a fat party like him could work up so much personal esteem I never could understand. But they do. You watch next time you're on a subway platform, who it is that gazes most fond into the gum-machine mirrors and if it ain't mostly these blimp-built boys with a 40 belt measure then I'm wrong on my statistics. Anyway, Penrhyn is that kind.

"This is the third day that he has been missing, Torchy," says Mr. Robert, solemn.

"Yes?" says I. "Seems to me I saw an item about him in the theatrical notes yesterday, something about his being a. w. o. l. Kind of joshing, it read, like they didn't take it serious."

"That's the disgusting part of it," says Mr. Robert. "Here is a man who disappears suddenly, to whom almost anything may have happened, from being run over by a truck to robbery and murder; yet, because he happens to be connected with the theatrical business, it is referred to as if it were some kind of a joke. Why, he may be lying unidentified in some hospital, or at the bottom of the North River."

"Anybody out looking for him?" I asks.

"Not so far as I can discover," says Mr. Robert. "I have 'phoned up to the Shuman offices—they're putting on his new piece, you know—but I got no satisfaction at all. He hadn't been there for several days. That was all they knew. Yes, there had been talk of giving the case to a detective agency, but they weren't sure it had been done. And here is his poor mother up in New Rochelle, almost on the verge of nervous prostration. There is his fiancee, too; little Betty Parsons, who is crying her eyes out. Nice girl, Betty. And it's a shame that something isn't being done. Anyway, I shall do what I can."

"Sure!" says I. "I hadn't thought about his having a mother—and a girl. But say, Mr. Robert, maybe I can put you next to somebody at Shuman's who can give you the dope. I got a friend up there—Whitey Weeks. Used to do reportin'. Last time I met him though, he admitted modest that Alf. Shuman had come beggin' him to take full charge of the publicity end of all his attractions. So if anybody has had any late bulletins about Mr. Deems it's bound to be Whitey."

"Suppose you ring him up, then," says Mr. Robert.

"When I'm trying to extract the truth from Whitey," says I, "I want to be where I can watch his eyes. He's all right in his way, but he's as shifty as a jumpin' bean. If you want the facts I'd better go myself. Maybe you'd better come, too, Mr. Robert."

He agrees to that and inside of half an hour we've pushed through a mob of would-be and has-been chorus females and have squeezed into the little coop where Whitey presides important behind a big double-breasted roll-top. And when I explains how Mr. Robert is an old friend of Penrhyn's, and is actin' for the heart-broken mother and the weepin' fiancee as well, Whitey shakes his head solemn.

"Sorry, gentlemen," says he, "but we haven't heard a word from him since he disappeared. Haven't even a clue. It's an absolute mystery. He seems to have vanished, that's all. And we don't know what to make of it. Rather embarrassing for us, too. You know we've just started rehearsals for his new piece, 'Oh, Say, Belinda!' Biggest thing he's done yet. And Mr. Shuman has spent nearly $10,000 for the setting and costumes of one number alone. Yet here Deems walks off with the lyrics for that song—the only copy in existence, mind you—and drops out of sight. I suppose he wanted to revise the verses. You see the hole it put us in, though. We're rushing 'Belinda' through for an early production, and he strays off with the words to what's bound to be the big song hit of the season. Why, Miss Ladue, who does that solo, is about crazy, and as for Mr. Shuman——"

"Yes, I understand, Whitey," I breaks in. "That's good press agent stuff, all right. But Mr. Ellins here ain't so much worried over what's going to happen to the show as he is over what has happened to Penrhyn Deems. Now how did he disappear? Who saw him last?"

Whitey shrugs his shoulders. "All a mystery, I tell you," says he. "We haven't a single clue."

"And you're just sitting back wondering what has become of him," demands Mr. Robert, "without making an effort to trace him?"

"Well, what can we do?" asks Whitey. "If the fool newspapers would only wake up to the fact that a prominent personage is missing, and give us the proper space, that might help. They will in time, of course. Got to come to it. But you know how it is. Anything from a press bureau they're apt to sniff over suspicious. As if I'd pull one as raw as this on 'em! Huh! But I'm working up the interest, and by next Sunday I'll bet they'll be carrying front page headlines, 'Where is Penrhyn Deems?' You'll see."

"Suppose he should turn up tomorrow, though?" I asks.

"Oh, but he couldn't," says Whitey quick. "That is, if he's really lost or—or anything has happened to him. What makes you think he might show up, Torchy?"

"Just a hunch of mine," says I. "I was thinking maybe some of his friends might find him somewhere."

"I'd like to see 'em," says Whitey emphatic. "It—it would be worth a good deal to us."

"Yes," says I, "I know how you feel about it. Much obliged, Whitey. I guess that's all we can do; eh, Mr. Robert?"

But we're no sooner out of the office than I gives him the nudge.

"Bunk!" says I. "I'd bet a million of somebody else's money that this is just one of Whitey's smooth frame-ups."

"I hardly think I follow you," says Mr. Robert.

"Here's the idea," says I. "When 'The Buccaneer's Bride' was having that two-year run Penrhyn Deems was a good deal in the spotlight. He had write-ups reg'lar, full pages in the Sunday editions, new pictures of himself printed every few weeks. He didn't hate it, did he? But these last two pieces of his were frosts. All he's had recent have been roasts, or no mention at all. And it was up to Whitey to bring him back into the public eye, wasn't it? Trust Whitey for doing that."

"But this method would be so thoroughly cold-blooded, heartless," protests Mr. Robert.

"Wouldn't stop Whitey, though," says I.

"Then we must do our best to find Penrhyn," says he.

"Sure!" says I. "Sleuth stuff. How about startin' at his rooms and interviewin' his man?"

"Good!" says Mr. Robert. "We will go there at once."

We did. But what we got out of that pie-faced Nimms of Penrhyn's wasn't worth taking notes of. He's got a map about as full of expression as the south side of a squash, Nimms. A peanut-headed Cockney that Penrhyn found somewhere in London.

"Sure I cawn't say, sir," says he, "where the mawster went to, sir. It was lawst Monday night 'e vanished, sir."

"Whaddye mean, vanished?" says I.

"'E just walked out, sir, and never came back," says Nimms. "See, sir, I've 'ad 'is morning suit all laid out ever since, sir."

"Then he went in evening clothes?" puts in Mr. Robert.

"Not exactly, sir," says Nimms. "'E was attired as a court jester, sir; in motley, you know, sir, and cap and bells."

"Wha-a-at?" says Mr. Robert. "In a fool's costume? You say he went out in that rig? Why the deuce should he——"

"I didn't ask the mawster, sir," says Nimms, "but my private opinion of the matter, sir, is that he was on 'is way to a masked banquet of some sort. I 'appened to see a hinvitation, sir, that——"

"Dig it up, Nimms," says I. "Might be a clue."

Sure enough, Nimms had it stowed away; and the fathead hadn't said a word about it before. It's an invite to the annual costume dinner of the Bright Lights Club.

"Huh!" says I. "I've heard of that bunch—mostly producers, stage stars and dramatists. Branch of the Lambs Club. Whitey would have known about that event, too. And Alf. Shuman. If Deems had been there they'd have known. So he didn't get there. I expect he wore a rain coat or something over his costume, and went in a taxi; eh, Nimms?"

"Quite so, sir," says Nimms. "A long raincoat, sir."

"But," breaks in Mr. Robert, "a man couldn't wander around New York dressed in a fool's costume without being noticed. That is, not for several days."

"You bet he couldn't," says I. "So he didn't."

That's a good line to pull, that "he couldn't, so he didn't," when you're doin' this Sherlock-Watson stuff. Sounds professional. Mr. Robert nods and then looks at me expectant as if he was waitin' to hear what I'd deduce next. But as a matter of fact my deducer was runnin' down. Yet when you've got a boss who always expects you to cerebrate in high gear, as he's so fond of puttin' it, you've got to produce something off-hand, or stall around.

"Now, let's see," says I, registerin' deep thought, "if Penrhyn was to go anywhere on his own hook, where would it be? You know his habits pretty well, Mr. Robert. What's your guess?"

"Why, I should say he would make for the nearest golf course," says he.

"He's a golf shark, is he?" says I.

"Not in the sense you mean," says Mr. Robert. "Hardly. Penrhyn is a consistent but earnest duffer. The ambition of his life is to break 100 on some decent course. He has talked enough about it to me. Yes, that is probably where he is, if he's still alive, off playing golf somewhere."

"Begging your pardon, sir," puts in Nimms, "but that could 'ardly be so, sir, seeing as 'ow 'is sticks are still 'ere. That's the strange part of 'is disappearance, sir. 'E never travels without 'is bag of sticks. And they're in that closet, sir."

"Couldn't he rent an outfit, or borrow one?" I suggests.

"He could," says Mr. Robert, "but he wouldn't. No more than you would rent a toothbrush. That is one of the symptoms of the golf duffer. He has his pet clubs and imagines he can play with no others. I think we must agree with Nimms. If we do, the case looks serious again, for Penrhyn would certainly not go away voluntarily unless it was to some place where he could indulge in his mania."

"That's it!" says I. "Then he's been steered somewhere against his will. That's the line! Which brings us back to Whitey Weeks. Who else but Whitey would want him shunted off out of sight for a week or so?"

"But you don't think he would go so far as to kidnap Penrhyn, do you?" asks Mr. Robert.

"Who, Whitey?" says I. "He'd kidnap his grandmother if he saw a front page story in it. Maybe he'd had this disappearance stunt all worked up when Mr. Deems balked. So he gets him when he's rigged up in some crazy costume, with all his regular clothes at home, and tolls him off to some out of the way spot. See? In that rig Penrhyn would have to stay put, wouldn't he? Couldn't show himself among folks without being mobbed. So he'd have to lay low until someone brought him a suit of clothes."

"That would be an ingenious way of doing it," admits Mr. Robert.

"Believe me, Whitey has that kind of a mind," says I, "or else he wouldn't be handling the Alf. Shuman publicity work."

"But where could he have taken him?" asks Mr. Robert.

"We're just gettin' to that," says I. "Where would he? Now if this was a movie play we was dopin' out it would be simple. He'd be taken off on a yacht. But Whitey couldn't get the use of a yacht. He don't travel in that class, and Shuman wouldn't stand for the charter price in an expense bill. A lonesome farm would be a good spot. But Penrhyn could borrow a rube outfit and escape from a farm. A lighthouse would be a swell place to stow away a leading librettist dressed up in a fool's costume, wouldn't it? Or an island? Say, I'll bet I've got it!"

"Eh?" says Mr. Robert.

"He's on an island," says I. "High Bar Island. It's a place where Whitey goes duck shootin' every fall. He belongs to a club that owns it. Anyway, he did. Used to feed me an earful about what a great gunner he was, and what thrillin' times he had at the old shack. Down somewhere in Barnegat Bay, back of the lighthouse. Yep! He's there, if he's anywhere."

"Sounds rather unlikely," says Mr. Robert. "Still, you seem to have an uncanny instinct for being right in such matters. Perhaps we ought to go down and see. Come."

"What, now?" says I. "Right away?"

"There is his mother, almost in hysterics," says Mr. Robert, "and his sweetheart. Think of the suspense, the mental strain they must be under. If we can find Penrhyn we must do so as quickly as possible. Let's go back to the office and look up train connections."

Well, if we'd started half an hour earlier we'd been all right. As it was we could hang up all night at some dinky junction or wait over until next morning. Neither suited Mr. Robert. He 'phones for his tourin' car and decides to motor down into Jersey. Also he has a kit bag packed for two of us and collects from Nimms a full outfit of daylight clothes for Penryhn.

We got away about five o'clock and as Mr. Robert figures by the Blue Book that we have only a hundred and some odd miles to run he thinks we ought to make some place near Barnegat Light by nine o'clock. Maybe we would have, too, if we'd caught the Staten Island ferries right at both ends, and hadn't had two blow-outs and strayed off the road once. As it is we finally lands at little joint that shows on the map as Forked River about 1 a.m. There wasn't a light in the whole place and it took us half an hour to pry the landlord of the hotel out of the feathers. No, he couldn't tell us where we could get a boat to take us out to High Bar at that time of night. It wasn't being done. Folks didn't go there often anyway, and when they did they started after breakfast.

"It'll be there in the morning, you know," says he.

"That's so," says Mr. Robert. "Have a motor boat ready at nine o'clock. Not much use getting there before 10:30. Penrhyn wouldn't be up."

That sounded sensible to me. When I go huntin' for lost dramatists I like to take it easy and be braced up for the day with a good shot of ham and eggs. This part of the program was carried out smooth. And it's a nice little sail across old Barnegat Bay with the oyster fleet busy and the fishin' boats dotted around. But the native who piloted us out was doubtful about anybody's being on High Bar.

"I seen some parties shootin' around on Love Ladies yesterday," says he, "an' a couple more was snipin' on Sea Dog, but I didn't hear nary gun let off on th' Bar."

"Oh, my friend doesn't shoot, anyway," says Mr. Robert.

"Ain't nothin' else for him to do on High Bar," says the native, "less'n he wants to collect skeeter bites."

When we got close enough to see the island I begun to suspicion I'd missed out on my hunch, for there ain't a soul in sight. We could see the whole of it, too, for the highest part isn't much over two feet above tide-water mark. Near the boat landing is the club house, set up on piling, with a veranda across the front. The rest of High Bar is only a few acres of sedge and marsh.

"Yea-uh!" says the native. "Must be somebody thar. Door's open. Yea-uh! Thar's old Lem Robbins, who allus does the cookin'. Hey, Lem!"

Lem waves cordial and waddles down to meet us. He's a fat, grizzled old pirate who looked bored and discontented.

"Got anybody with you, Lem?" asks the native.

"Not to speak of," says Lem. "Only a loony sort of gent that wears skin-tight barber-pole pants and cusses fluent."

"That's Penrhyn!" says Mr. Robert. "Dressed as a fool, isn't he?"

"You've said it," says Lem. "Acts like one, too. Hope you gents have come to take him back where he belongs. Needs to be shut up, he does."

"But where is he?" demands Mr. Robert.

"Out back of the house, swingin' an old boat-hook and carryin' on simple," says Lem. "I'll show you."

It was some sight, too. For there is the famous author of "The Buccaneer's Bride," rigged out complete in a more or less soiled jester's costume, includin' the turkey red headpiece with the bells on it. He's standing on a heap of shells and waving this rusty boat-hook around. Course, I expects when he sees Mr. Robert and realizes how he's been rescued he'll come out of his spell and begin to act rational once more. But it don't work out that way. When Mr. Robert calls out to him and he sees who it is, he keeps right on swingin' the boat-hook.

"Glory be, Bob!" he sings out. "I've got it at last."

"Got what, Penny?" demands Mr. Robert.

"My drive," says he. "Watch, Bob. How's that, eh? Notice that carry through? Wouldn't that spank the pill 200 yards straight down the fairway? Wouldn't it, now?"

"Oh, I say, Penny!" says Mr. Robert. "Don't be more of an ass than you can help. Quit that golf tommyrot and tell me what you're doing here in this forsaken spot when all New York is thinking that maybe you've been murdered or something."

"Eh?" says Penrhyn. "Then—then the news is out, is it? Did you bring any papers?"

"Papers?" says Mr. Robert. "No."

"Wish you had," says Penrhyn. "Got everyone stirred up, I suppose? Tell me, though, how are people taking it?"

"If you mean the public in general," says Mr. Robert, "I think they are bearing up nobly. But your mother and Betty——"

"By George!" breaks in Penrhyn. "That's so! They might be rather disturbed. I—I never thought about them."

"Didn't, eh?" says Mr. Robert. "No, you wouldn't. You were thinking about Penrhyn Deems, as usual. And I must say, Penny, you're the limit. I've a good notion to leave you here."

"No, no, Bob! Don't do that," pleads Penrhyn. "Disgusting place. And I dislike that cook person, very much. Besides, I must get back. Really."

"Want to relieve your poor old mother and Betty, eh?" asks Mr. Robert.

"Yes, of course," says Penrhyn. "Besides, I want to try this swing with my driver. Bob, I'm sure I can put in that wrist snap at last. And if I can I—I'll be playing in the 90's. Sure!"

He's a wonder, Penrhyn. He has this hoof and mouth disease, otherwise known as golf, worse than anybody I ever met before. Took Mr. Robert another ten minutes to get him calmed down enough so he could tell how he come to be marooned on this island in that rig.

"Why, it was that new press agent of Shuman's, of course," says Penrhyn. "That Weeks person. He did it."

"You don't mean to say, Penny," says Mr. Robert, "that you were kidnapped and brought here a prisoner?"

"Not at all," says Penny. "We drove down here at night and came in a boat just at daylight. Silly performance. Especially wearing this costume. But he insisted that it would make the disappearance more plausible, more dramatic. Wouldn't tell me where we were going, either. Said it was a club house, so I thought of course there would be golf. But look at this hole! And I've had four days of it. Mosquitoes? Something frightful. That's why I've kept on the cap and bells. At first I put in the time working over one of the songs in the new piece. Wrote some ripping verses, too. They'll go strong. Best thing I've done. But after I had finished that job I wanted to play golf; practice, anyway. And I was nearly crazy until I found this old boat-hook and began knocking oyster shells into the water. That's how it came to me—the drive. If I can only hold it!"

I suggests how Mr. Weeks is probably plannin' for him to stay lost until over Sunday anyway, so he can work some big space in the newspapers.

"Oh, bother Mr. Weeks!" says Penrhyn. "I've had enough of this. The new piece is going to go big, anyway. Come along, Bob. Let's start. I'll 'phone to mother and Betty, and maybe I can get in eighteen holes this afternoon. Brought some clothes for me, didn't you? I must change from this rig first."

"I wouldn't," says Mr. Robert. "It's quite appropriate, Penny."

But Penrhyn wouldn't be joshed and makes a dive for his suitcase. We lands him back on Broadway at 4:30 that same afternoon. My first move after gettin' to the Corrugated general offices is to ring up Whitey Weeks.

"This is Torchy," says I. "And ain't it awful about Penrhyn Deems?"

"Eh?" gasps Whitey. "What about him?"

"He's been found," says I. "Uh-huh! Discovered on an island by some fool friends that brought him back to town. I just saw him on Broadway."

"The simp!" groans Whitey.

"You're a great little describer, Whitey," says I. "Simp is right. But next time you want to win front page space by losing a dramatist I'd advise you to lock him in a vault. Islands are too easy located."



CHAPTER XVII

WITH VINCENT AT THE TURN

It was Mr. Piddie who first begun workin' up suspicions about Vincent, our fair haired super-office boy. But then, Piddie has that kind of a mind. He must have been born on the dark of the moon when the wind was east in the year of the big eclipse. Something like that. Anyway, he's long on gloom and short on faith in human nature, and he goes gum-shoein' through life lookin' as slit-eyed as a tourist tom-cat four blocks from his own backyard.

Course, he has his good points, lots of 'em, or else he never would have held his job as office manager in the Corrugated Trust so long. And there's at least two human beings he thinks was made perfect from the start—Old Hickory Ellins and Mr. Robert. The rest of us he ain't sure of. We'll bear watchin'. And Piddie's idea of earnin' his salary is to be right there with the restless eye from 8:43 until 5:02, when he grabs his trusty commutation ticket and starts for the wilds of Jersey, leavin' the force to a whole night of idleness and wicked ways.

Still, I am a little surprised when he picks out Vincent.

"I regret to say it, Torchy," says he, "but someone ought to have an eye on that boy."

"Oh, come, Piddie!" says I. "Not Vincent! Why, he's a model youth. You've always said so yourself—polite, respectful, washes behind the ears, takes home his pay envelope uncracked to mother, all that sort of thing. Why the mournful headshake over him now?"

"I can't say what it is," says Piddie, "but there has been a change. Recently. Twice this week he has overstayed his luncheon hour. Yesterday he asked for his Liberty bond and war saving stamps from the safe. I believe he is planning to do something desperate."

"Huh!" says I. "Most likely he's plotting to pay off the mortgage on the little bungalow as a birthday present for mother."

Piddie won't have it that way, though. "I think there's a woman in the case," says he, "and I'm sure it isn't his mother."

"A woman; Vincent?" says I. "Ah, quit your kiddin', Piddie. I'd as soon think it of you."

That brings the pink to his ears and he stiffens indignant. But in a minute or so he gets over it enough to explain that he's noticed Vincent fussin' with his necktie and slickin' his hair back careful before quittin' time. Also that Vincent has taken to gettin' shaved once a week reg'lar now, instead of every month.

"And he seemed very nervous when he took away his savings," adds Piddie. "Of course, in my position I could ask for no confidences of a personal nature; but if someone else could have a talk with him.—Well, you, for example, Torchy."

"What a cute little idea!" says I. "What would be the openin' lines for that scene? Something like, 'Come, my erring lad, rest your fair, sin-soaked head on my knee and tell your Uncle Torchy how you are secretly scheming to kidnap the rich gum profiteer's lovely daughter and carry her off to Muckhurst-on-the-Marsh.' Piddie, you're a wonder."

I was still chucklin' over the notion as I breezed out to lunch, but as I pushes out of the express elevator and starts across the arcade toward the Broadway exit I lamps something over by the candy booth that leaves me with my mouth open. There is Vincent hung up against the counter gazin' mushy into the dark dangerous orbs of Mirabelle, the box-trade queen.

Course, we all know Mirabelle in the Corrugated buildin', for she's been presidin' over the candy counter almost as long as the arcade shops have been open. She's what you might call an institution; like Apollo Mike, the elevator starter; or old Walrus Smith, the night watchman. And I expect there ain't a young hick or a middle-aged bookkeeper on all them twenty-odd floors but what has had his little thrill from gettin' in line, some time or another, with a cut-up look from them high voltage eyes. She's just one of the many perils, Mirabelle is, that line the path of the poor working man in the great city. That is, she looks the part.

As a matter of fact, I've always had Mirabelle sized up as a near-vamp who had worked up the act to boost sales and cinch her job. Anyway, I never knew of her lurin' her victims into anything more desperate than a red-ink table d'hote dinner or a six-dollar orgie at a cabaret. And somehow they all seem to wriggle out of the net within a week or so with no worse casualties than a feverish yearnin' for next pay day and a wise look in the eyes. I've watched some of them young sports from the bond room have their little fling with Mirabelle and not one of 'em has come out a human wreck.

Maybe they discover that Mirabelle has turned thirty. I'll admit she don't look it, 'specially under the pink-shaded counter light when she's had a henna treatment lately and been careful to spread the make-up artistic. The jet ear danglers helps some, too. Then there are them misbehavin' eyes. Also when it comes to light and frivolous chat Mirabelle is right there with the zippy patter. Oh my, yes! Try shootin' anything fresh across when she's wrappin' a pound of mixed chocolates and you'll get a quick one back from Mirabelle. Probably a quizzin', twisty smile, too that sends you off kiddin' yourself that you're quite a gay bird when you really cut loose, and where's the harm once in a while? You know the kind.

But to think that Vincent should be fallin' for Mirabelle. Why, he sits there all day behind the gate in plain sight of a battery of twenty lady typists, some of 'em as kittenish young things as ever blew a week's salary into a permanent wave and I've never even seen him so much as roll an eye at one. Besides, he's as perfect a specimen of a Mommer's boy as you could find between here and the Battery. Not that he's a male ingenue. He's just a nice boy, Vincent, always neat and polite and ready to admit that he has the best little mother in the world. I don't blame him for thinkin' so either, for I've seen her a couple of times and if I'm any judge she fits the description. She's a widow, you know, and she and Vincent are strugglin' along on the life insurance until they make Vincent general manager or vice-president or something.

So, as I was telling you, it gives me more or less of a jolt to see Vincent flutterin' around Mirabelle. There's no mistakin' the motions, either. He's draped himself careless over the end of the counter and them big innocent blue eyes of his are fairly glued on Mirabelle, while a simple smile comes and goes, dependin' on whether she's lookin' his way or not. Just as I stops to gawp at the proceedin's he seems to be askin' her something, real eager and earnest. For a second Mirabelle arches her plucked eyebrows and puckers her lips coy as if she was lettin' on to be shocked. Then she glances around cautious to see if the coast is clear, reaches out and pats Vincent tender on the cheek and whispers something in his ear.

A minute later Mirabelle is smilin' mechanical at a fat man who's stopped to buy a box of chocolate peppermints and Vincent is swingin' past me with his chin up and his eyes bright. It don't take any seventh son work to guess that Vincent has made a date. If it had been anybody else that wouldn't have meant nothing at all to me, but as it is I can't help feelin' that this was my cue. Just how or why I don't stop to figure out, but I falls in behind and trails along.

Vincent should have been headin' for the dairy lunch, but he starts in the other direction and after followin' him for five blocks I sees him dive into a jewelry store. Maybe that don't get a gasp out of me, too. Looks like our little Vincent was some speedy performer, don't it? And sure enough, by rubberin' in through the door, I can see a clerk haulin' out a tray of rings. Think of that! Vincent.

He must have been in there before and looked over the stock, for inside of ten minutes out he comes again. And by makin' a quick maneuver I manages to bump into him as he's leavin' the front door with the little white box in his fist.

"Well, well!" says I. "What's all this mean, old son? Been buyin' out the spark shop? I expect somebody's going to get a weddin' present, eh?"

"Not—not exactly," says Vincent, his cheeks pinkin' up and his right hand slidin' toward his coat pocket.

"Oh, ho!" says I, grabbin' the wrist and exposin' the little square package. "A ring or I'm a poor guesser. And it's for the sweetest girl in the world, ain't it?"

"It is," says Vincent, just a bit defiant.

"Congratulations, old man," says I, poundin' him friendly on the shoulder. "I don't suppose I could guess who, could I?"

"I—I don't think you could," says Vincent.

"Then it's my blow to luncheon—reg'lar chop-house feed in honor of the big event," says I. "Come along, Vincent, while I order a bottle of one and a half per cent. to drink to your luck."

Course, he can't very well get away from that, me being one of his bosses, as you might say. But he acts a little uneasy.

"You see, sir," says he, "it—it isn't quite settled."

"I get you," says I. "Going to spring it on her tonight, eh?"

He admits that is the plan.

"Durin' the course of a little dinner, eh?" I goes on.

Vincent nods.

"That's taking the high dive, all right," says I. "Lets you in deep, you know, when you go shovin' solitaires at 'em. But I expect you've thought it over careful and picked out the right girl."

"She is perfectly splendid," says Vincent.

"Well, that helps some," says I. "One that Mother approves of, I'll bet."

"Why," says Vincent, his chin droppin', "I am sure she will like her when—when she sees her."

"Let's see, Vincent," says I, "you're all of nineteen, ain't you?"

"Nearly twenty," says he.

"How we do come along!" says I. "Why, when you took my old place on the gate you was still wearin' knickers, wasn't you? And now—I suppose it'll be a case of your bringin' home a new daughter to help Mother, eh?"

"Ye-e-es," says Vincent draggy.

"Lucky she's the right kind, then," I suggests.

"She's a wonderful girl, Torchy. Wonderful," says he.

"Well, I expect you're a judge," says I.

"I've never known anyone just like her," he goes on, "and if she'll have me——" He wags his head determined.

I was hardly lookin' for such a stubborn streak in Vincent. He's always seemed so mild and modest. But you never can tell. There's no doubt about his having his mind all made up about Mirabelle, and while her name ain't mentioned once he consents to tell me what a perfectly sweet and lovely person she is. If I hadn't had a hunch who he was talking about I'm afraid I never would have guessed from the description. She'd put the spell on him for fair. That being the way things stood what was the use of my coming in with an argument? The most I could do was to hint that Vincent's salary as head office boy might be a bit strained when it came to providin' for two.

He has the answer to that, though. He's got the promise of a filing clerk's job the first of the year, with a raise every six months if he makes good.

"Besides," he adds, "I may pick up a little something extra very soon."

"Eh?" says I. "You ain't been plungin' on a curb tip, have you?"

He nods. "It came to me very straight, sir," says he. "Oil stocks."

"Good-night!" I groans. "Say, Vincent, you're off in high gear, all right. Matrimony and gushers, all at one clip! Lemme get my breath. Have you put up for the margins?"

"Oh, yes," says Vincent.

"Then have another piece of pie and a second cup of coffee," says I. "You're going to need bracin' up."

Not that I proceeds to deal out the wise stuff about oil stocks along the Talk to Investors line. It's too late for that. Besides, Vincent was due to get a lesson in the folly of piker speculatin' that would last him a long time. Maybe it was best for him to get it early in his young career.

But it was going to be rough on the little mother when she hears how her darling boy has sneaked out the nest egg and tossed it reckless into the middle of Broad Street. That would be some bump. And then on top of that if Mirabelle is introduced as her future daughter-in-law—Well, you can frame up the picture for yourself. And right there I organizes myself into a relief expedition to rescue the Lost Battalion.

I got to admit that my plan of campaign was a trifle vague. About as far as I could get was decidin' that somebody ought to have speech with Mirabelle on the subject. And when we hurries back through the arcade again, ten minutes behind schedule, and I catches the little exchange of fond looks between the two, I knows that whatever is done needs to be started right away. So I mumbles something about having forgotten an errand, makes a round trip in the elevator, and am back at the candy counter almost as soon as Vincent has hung up his hat.

"Yes-s-s, sir?" says Mirabelle inquirin', with her best dollar-fifty-quality smile playin' around where the lip-stick has given nature a boost.

"Hard gum drops," says I, "or chocolate marshmallows, or most anything in half-pound size. The main idea is a little chat with you."

"Naughty, naughty!" says Mirabelle, shaking her head until the jet ear danglers are doing a one-step. "But you men are all alike, aren't you?"

"Is that why you've taken to cradle snatchin'?" says I.

Mirabelle executes the wide shutter movement with her eyes and finishes with what she thinks is a Mary Pickford pout. "Really, I don't think I get you," says she. "In other words, meaning what?"

"Referring to the boy, Vincent," says I.

"Oh!" says she, eying me curious. "Dear little fellow, isn't he?"

"Of course," I goes on, "if it's only a case of adoption——"

"Say," she breaks in, her eyelids gettin' narrow, "some of you cerise blondes ought to be confined to the comic strips. Who do you think you're kidding, anyway?"

"Sorry, Mirabelle," says I, "but you're all wrong. This is straight heart-to-heart stuff. You know you've been stringin' Vincent along."

"Suppose I have?" demands Mirabelle. "Where do you get a license to crash in?"

"Just what I was working up to," says I. "For one thing, he's the only perfect office boy in captivity. The Corrugated can't spare him. Then again, there's Mother. Honest, Mirabelle, you ought to see Mother—reg'lar stage widow, with the sad sweet smile, the soft gray hair, 'n'everything. If you could, you'd lay off this Theda Bara act the next minute."

It was a poor hunch, pullin' out that sympathy stop for Mirabelle. I knew that when I saw them black eyes of hers begin to give off sparks.

"Listen, son," says she, "if you feel as bad as all that run down in the sub-cellar and sob in the coal bins. I'll be getting nervous, next thing I know, listening to ravings like that."

"My error," says I. "Course, you didn't know how a few kind words and a little off-hand target practice with the eyes would affect Vincent. How should you? But he's taking it all serious. Uh-huh! Been buying the ring."

"What!" says Mirabelle, startled.

"A real blue-white, set in platinum," says I. "On the instalments, of course. And he's plungin' with all his war savings on wild cat stocks to make good. Oh, he's in a reg'lar trance, Vincent. So you see?"

Mirabelle seems to see a good deal more than I was expectin' her to. Just now she's glancin' approvin' into one of the display mirrors and is pattin' down the hair puffs over her ears.

"He is a dear boy," she remarks, more to the mirror than to me.

"But look here," says I, "you—you wouldn't let him go on with this, would you?"

"I beg pardon?" says Mirabelle. "Still chattering, are you? Well, stretch your ear once, young feller. When I want your help in this I'll send out a call. If you don't get one you'll know you ain't needed. Here's your package, sir. Sixty cents, please."

And I'm given the quick shunt, just like that. Whatever it was I thought I was doing, I'd bugged it. The rescue expedition had gone on the rocks. Absolutely. I might have known better, too; spillin' all that dope about the solitaire. As if that would throw a scare into Mirabelle! Of all the bush-league plays! Instead of untanglin' Vincent any from the net I'd only got him twisted up tighter. With that ring on him he was just as safe as an exposed pocket flask at an Elks' picnic.

I was retreatin' draggy with my chin down when I happens to get a grin from this wise guy Marcus, in charge of the cigar booth opposite.

"You don't have no luck with Mirabelle, eh?" says he winkin'. "That's too bad, ain't it? But there's lots of others. She keeps 'em all guessin'. Hard in the heart, Mirabelle has been, ever since she got thrown overboard herself."

"Eh?" says I. "When was that? Who did it?"

"Oh, near a year now," says Marcus. "You know the feller who was in with me here—Chuck Dempsey?"

"The big husk with the bushy black eyebrows?" says I.

Marcus nods. "He had Mirabelle goin' all right," says he. "She was crazy over him. And Chuck, he was pretty strong for her, too. They had it all fixed up, the flat picked out and all, when something or other bust it up. I dunno what. Chuck, he quits the next day. Lucky thing, too, for if he'd stuck here he wouldn't have met up with them automobile sundries people and landed his new job. I hear he's manager of their Harlem branch now, seventy-five a week. Wouldn't Mirabelle be sore if she knew about that, eh?"

"She'd have cause for grindin' her teeth," says I. "Bully for Chuck, though. I must call him up and give him the hail. What's his number?"

I will admit too, that once I got started, I worked fast. It took me less'n three minutes to pump out of Vincent the time and place of this fatal little dinner party he was about to pull off, and shortly after that I had Mr. Dempsey on the wire. Yes, he says he remembers me well enough, on account of my hair. Most of 'em do.

"It's a shame you've forgot someone else so quick, though," I adds.

"Who's that?" says he.

"Mirabelle," says I.

"Oh, I don't know," says Chuck. "Maybe it's just as well."

"She don't think so," says I.

"Who was feedin' you that?" asks Dempsey.

"A certain party," says I. "But you know how easy a queen like her can pick up an understudy. Some have been mighty busy lately, too; one in particular. And I don't mind sayin' I'd hate to see him win out."