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Torchy and Vee

by Sewell Ford · English · Gutenberg #20628 · 400,410 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Torchy and Vee

Author: Sewell Ford


        
Release date: February 19, 2007 [eBook #20628]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20628

Credits: Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TORCHY AND VEE ***




Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net





TORCHY AND VEE

BY
SEWELL FORD
AUTHOR OF TORCHY, THE HOUSE OF TORCHY, SHORTY McCABE, Etc.

GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

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Copyright, 1918, 1919, by SEWELL FORD
Copyright, 1919, BY EDWARD J. CLODE
All rights reserved

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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FOREWORD

In the Nature of an Alibi


Some of these stories were written while the Great War was still on. So
the setting and local coloring and atmosphere and all that sort of
thing, such as it is, came from those strenuous days when we heroic
civilians read the war extras with stern, unflinching eye, bought as
many Liberty bonds as we were told we should, and subscribed to various
drives as cheerfully as we might. Have you forgotten your reactions of a
few short months ago? Perhaps then, these may revive your memory of some
of them.

You may note with disappointment that Torchy got no nearer to the
front-line trenches than Bridgeport, Conn. That is a sentiment the
writer shares with you. But the blame lies with an overcautious
government which hesitated, perhaps from super-humane reasons, from
turning loose on a tottering empire a middle-aged semi-literary person
who was known to handle a typewriter with such reckless abandon. And
where he could not go himself he refused to send another. So Torchy
remained on this side, and whether or not his stay was a total loss is
for you to decide.
                                                               S. F.

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CONTENTS

  CHAPTER                                     PAGE

       I. The Quick Shunt for Puffy              1
      II. Old Hickory Bats Up One               19
     III. Torchy Pulls the Deep Stuff           37
      IV. A Frame-up for Stubby                 56
       V. The Vamp in the Window                73
      VI. Turkeys on the Side                   91
     VII. Ernie and His Big Night              108
    VIII. How Babe Missed His Step             126
      IX. Hartley and the G. O. G.'s           145
       X. The Case of Old Jonesey              164
      XI. As Lucy Lee Passed By                182
     XII. Torchy Meets Ellery Bean             200
    XIII. Torchy Strays from Broadway          222
     XIV. Subbing for the Boss                 238
      XV. A Late Hunch for Lester              256
     XVI. Torchy Tackles a Mystery             272
    XVII. With Vincent at the Turn             290

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TORCHY AND VEE

CHAPTER I

THE QUICK SHUNT FOR PUFFY


I must say I didn't get much excited at first over this Marion Gray
tragedy. You see, I'd just blown in from Cleveland, where I'd been
shunted by the Ordnance Department to report on a new motor kitchen. And
after spendin' ten days soppin' up information about a machine that was
a cross between a road roller and an owl lunch wagon, and fillin' my
system with army stews cooked on the fly, I'm suddenly called off.
Someone at Washington had discovered that this flying cook-stove thing
was a problem for the Quartermaster's Department, and wires me to drop
it.

So I was all for enjoyin' a little fam'ly reunion, havin' Vee tell me
how she's been gettin' along, and what cute little tricks young Master
Richard had developed while I'm gone. But right in the midst of our
intimate little domestic sketch Vee has to break loose with this outside
sigh stuff.

"I can't help thinking about poor Marion," says she.

"Eh?" says I, lookin' up from the crib where young Snookums has just
settled himself comfortable and decided to tear off a few more hours of
slumber. "Which Marion?"

"Why, Marion Gray," says she.

"Oh!" says I. "The old maid with the patient eyes and the sad smile?"

"She is barely thirty," says Vee.

"Maybe," says I; "but she's takin' it hard."

"Who wouldn't?" says Vee.

And havin' got that far, I saw I might as well let her get the whole
story off her chest. She's been seein' more and more of this Marion Gray
person ever since we moved out here to Harbor Hills. Kind of a plump,
fresh-colored party, and more or less bright and entertainin' in her
chat when she was in the right mood. I'd often come in and found Vee
chucklin' merry over some of the things Miss Gray had been tellin' her.
And while she was at our house she seemed full of life and pep. Just the
sort that Vee gets along with best. She was the same whenever we met her
up at the Ellinses. But outside of that you never saw her anywhere. She
wasn't in with the Country Club set, and most of the young married crowd
seemed to pass her up too.

I didn't know why. Guess I hadn't thought much about it. I knew she'd
lost her father and mother within the last year or so, so I expect I put
it down to that as the reason she wasn't mixin' much.

But Vee has all the inside dope. Seems old man Gray had been a chronic
invalid for years. Heart trouble. And durin' all the last of it he'd
been promisin' to check out constant, but had kept puttin' it off.
Meanwhile Mrs. Gray and Marion had been fillin' in as day and night
nurses. He'd been a peevish, grouchy old boy, too, and the more waitin'
on he got the more he demanded. Little things. He had to have his food
cooked just so, the chair cushions adjusted, the light just right. He
had to be read to so many hours a day, and played to, and sung to. He
couldn't stand it to be alone, not for half an hour. Didn't want to
think, he said. Didn't want to see the women folks knittin' or
crocheting: he wanted 'em to be attending to him all the while. He had a
little silver bell that he kept hung on his chair arm, and when he rang
it one or the other of 'em had to jump. Maybe you know the kind.

Course, the Grays traveled a lot; South in the winter, North in
summer--always huntin' a place where he'd feel better, and never findin'
it. If he was at the seashore he'd complain that they ought to be in the
mountains, and when they got there it wouldn't be a week before he had
decided the air was bad for him. They should have known better than to
take him there. Most likely one more week would finish him. Another long
railroad trip would anyway. So he might as well stay. But wouldn't
Marion see the landlord and have those fiendish children kept quiet on
that tennis court outside? And wouldn't Mother try to make an eggnog
that didn't taste like a liquid pancake!

Havin' been humorin' his whims a good deal longer than Marion, and not
being very strong herself, Mrs. Gray finally wore out. And almost before
they knew anything serious was the matter she was gone. Then it all fell
on Marion. Course, if she'd been a paid nurse she never would have stood
for this continuous double-time act. Or if there was home inspectors,
same as there are for factories, the old man would have been jacked up
for violatin' the labor laws. But being only a daughter, there's nobody
to step in and remind him that slavery has gone out of style and that in
most states the female of the species was gettin' to be a reg'lar
person. In fact, there was few who thought Marion was doin' any more'n
she had a right to do. Wasn't he her father, and wasn't he payin' all
the bills?

"To be sure," adds Vee, "he didn't realize what an old tyrant he was.
Nor did Marion. She considered it her duty, and never complained."

"Then I don't see who could have crashed in," said I.

"No one could," said Vee. "That was the pity."

And it seems for the last couple of years the old boy insisted on
settlin' down in his home here, where he could shuffle off comfortable.
He'd been mighty slow about it, though, and when he finally headed West
it was discovered that, through poor managin' and war conditions, the
income they'd been livin' on had shrunk considerable. The fine old house
was left free and clear, but there was hardly enough to keep it up
unless Marion could rustle a job somewhere.

"And all she knows how to do is nurse," says Vee. "She's not even a
trained nurse at that."

"Ain't there anybody she could marry?" I suggests.

"That's the tragic part, Torchy," says Vee. "There is--Mr. Biggies."

"What, 'Puffy' Biggles!" says I. "Not that old prune face with the shiny
dome and the baggy eyes?"

Vee says he's the one. He's been hoverin' 'round, like an old buzzard,
for three or four years now, playin' chess with the old man while he
lasted, but always with his pop-eyes fixed on Marion. And since she's
been left alone he'd been callin' reg'lar once a week, urging her to be
his tootsy-wootsy No. 3. He was the main wheeze in some third-rate life
insurance concern, I believe, and fairly well off, and he owned a classy
place over near the Country Club. But he had a 44 belt, a chin like a
pelican, and he was so short of breath that everybody called him
"Puffy" Biggles. Besides, he was fifty.

"A hot old Romeo he'd make for a nice girl like that," says I. "Is he
her best bet? Ain't there any second choice?"

"There was another," says Vee. "Rather a nice chap, too--that Mr. Ellery
Prescott, who played the organ so well and was some kind of a broker.
You remember?"

"Sure!" says I. "The one who pulled down a captain's commission at
Plattsburg. Did she have him on the string?"

"They had been friends for a long time," says Vee. "Were as good as
engaged once; though how he managed to see much of Marion I can't
imagine, with Mr. Gray so crusty toward him. You see, he didn't play
chess. Anyway, he finally gave up. I suppose he's at the front now, and
even if he ever should come back---- Well, Marion seldom mentions him.
I'm sure, though, that they thought a good deal of each other. Poor
thing! She was crazy to go across as a canteen worker. And now she
doesn't know what to do. Of course, there's always Biggles. If we could
only save her from that!"

At which remark I grows skittish. I didn't like the way she was gazin'
at me. "Ah, come, Vee!" says I. "Lay off that rescue stuff. Adoptin'
female orphans of over thirty, or matin' 'em up appropriate is way out
of my line. Suppose we pass resolutions of regret in Marion's case, and
let it ride at that?"

"At least," goes on Vee, "we can do a little something to cheer her up.
Mrs. Robert Ellins has asked her for dinner tomorrow night. Us too."

"Oh, I'll go that far," says I, "although the last I knew about the
Ellinses' kitchen squad, it's takin' a chance."

I was some little prophet, too. I expect Mrs. Robert hadn't been havin'
much worse a time with her help than most folks, but three cooks inside
of ten days was goin' some. Lots of people had been longer'n that
without any, though. But when any pot wrestler can step into a munition
works or an airplane factory and pull down her three or four dollars a
day for an eight-hour shift, what can you expect?

Answer: What we got that night at the Ellinses'. The soup had been
scorched once, but it had been cooled off nicely before it got to us.
The fish had been warmed through--barely. And the roast lamb tasted like
it had been put through an embalmin' process. But the cookin' was high
art compared to the service, for since their butler had quit to become a
crack riveter in a shipyard they've been havin' maids do their plate
jugglin'.

And this wide-built fairy, with the eyes that didn't track, sure was
constructed for anything but glidin' graceful around a dinner table.
For one thing, she had the broken-arch roll in her gait, and when she
pads in through the swing-door she's just as easy in her motion as a cow
walkin' the quarter-deck with a heavy sea runnin'. Every now and then
she'd scuff her toe in the rug, and how some of us escaped a soup or a
gravy bath I can't figure out. Maybe we were in luck.

Also, she don't mind reachin' in front of you and sidewipin' your ear
with her elbow. Accidents like that were merry little jokes to her.

"Ox-cuse me, Mister!" she'd pipe out shrill and childish, and then
indulged in a maniac giggle that would get Mrs. Robert grippin' the
chair arms.

She liked to be chatty and folksy while she was servin', too. Her motto
seemed to be, "Eat hearty and give the house a good name." If you
didn't, she tried to coax you into it, or it into you.

"Oh, do have some more of th' meat, Miss," she says to Vee. "And another
potato, now. Just one more, Miss."

And all Mrs. Robert can do is pink up, and when she's out of hearin'
apologize for her. "As you see," says Mrs. Robert, "she is hardly a
trained waitress."

"She'd make a swell auctioneer, though," I suggests.

"No doubt," says Mrs. Robert. "And I suppose I am fortunate enough to
have anyone in the kitchen at all, even to do the cooking--such as it
is."

"You ain't lonesome in feelin' that way," says I. "It seems to be a
general complaint."

Which brings out harrowin' tales of war-wrecked homes, where no buttling
had been done for months, where chauffeurs and gardeners were only
represented by stars on the service flag, and from which even personal
maids had gone to be stenographers and nurses. But chiefly it was the
missin' cook who was mourned. Some had quit to follow their men to
trainin' camps, a lot had copped out better payin' jobs, and others had
been lured to town, where they could get the fake war extras hot off the
press and earn higher wages as well.

Course, there were some substitute cooks--reformed laundresses, raw
amateurs and back numbers that should have reached the age limit long
before. And pretty awful cookin' they were gettin' away with. Vee had
heard of one who boiled the lettuce and sent in dog biscuit one mornin'
for breakfast cereal. Miss Gray told what happened at the Pemberton
Brookses when their kitchen queen had left for Bridgeport, where she had
a hubby makin' seventy-five dollars a week. The Brookses had lived for
three days on cream toast and sardines, which was all the upstairs girl
had in her culinary repertoire.

"And look at me," added Marion, "with our old family cook, who can make
the best things in the world, and I can hardly afford to keep her! But I
couldn't drive her away if I tried."

Course, with our havin' Professor and Madame Battou, the old French
couple we'd annexed over a year ago in town, we had no kick comin'. Not
even the sugar and flour shortage seemed to trouble them, and our fancy
meals continued regular as clock work. But on the way home Vee and I got
to talkin' about what hard times the neighbors was havin'.

"I guess what they need out here," says I, "is one of them army
kitchens, that would roll around two or three times a day deliverin' hot
nourishment from door to door."

And I'd hardly finished what I'd meant for a playful little remark
before Vee stops sudden, right in the middle of the road, and lets out
an excited squeal.

"Torchy!" says she. "Why on earth didn't you suggest that before!"

"Because this foolish streak has just hit me," says I.

"But it's the very thing," says she, clappin' her hands.

"Eh?" says I, gawpin'.

"For Marion," says she. "Don't you see?"

"But she's no perambulatin' rotisserie, is she?" says I.

"She might be," says Vee. "And she shall."

"Oh, very well," says I. "If you've decided it that way, I expect she
will. But I don't quite get you."

When Vee first connects with one of her bright ideas, though, she's apt
to be a little puzzlin' in her remarks about it. As a matter of fact,
her scheme is a bit hazy, but she's sure it's a winner.

"Listen, Torchy," says she. "Here are all these Harbor Hills
people--perhaps a hundred families--many of them with poor cooks, some
with none at all. And there is Marion with that perfectly splendid old
Martha of hers, who could cook for all of them."

"Oh, I see," says I. "Marion hangs out a table-board sign?"

"Stupid!" says Vee. "She does nothing of the sort. People don't want to
go out for their meals; they want to eat at home. Well, Marion brings
them their meals, all deliciously cooked, all hot, and ready to serve."

"With the kitchen range loaded on a truck and Martha passin' out soup
and roasts over the tailboard, eh?" says I.

But once more I've missed. No, the plan is to get a lot of them army
containers, such as they send hot chow up to the front trenches in; have
'em filled by Martha at home, and delivered by Marion to her customers.

"It might work," says I. "It would need some capital, though. She'd have
to invest in a lot of containers, and she'd need a motor truck."

"I will buy those," says Vee. "I'm going in with her."

"Oh, come!" says I. "You'd look nice, wouldn't you!"

"You mean that people would talk?" comes back Vee. "What do I care? It's
quite as patriotic and quite as necessary as Red Cross work, or anything
else. It would be scientific food conservation, man-power saving, all
that sort of thing. And think what a wonderful thing it would be for the
neighborhood."

"Maybe Marion wouldn't see it that way," I suggests. "Drivin' a dinner
truck around might not appeal to her. You got to remember she's more or
less of an old maid. She might have notions."

"Trust her," says Vee. "But I mean to have my plan all worked out before
I tell her a word. When you go to town tomorrow, Torchy, I want you to
find out all about those containers--how much the various compartments
will hold, and how much they cost. Also about a light motor truck. There
will be other details, too, which I will be thinking about."

Yes, there were other details. Nobody seemed to know much about such a
business. It had been tried in places. Vee heard of something of the
sort that was being tested up on the East Side. So it was three or four
days before she was ready to spring this new career on Marion. But one
night, after dinner, she announces that she's all set and drags me down
there with her. Outside of the old Gray house we finds a limousine, with
the driver dozin' inside.

"It's the Biggles car!" whispers Vee. "Oh, what if he should be----
Come, Torchy! Quick!"

"You wouldn't break in on a fond clinch, would you?" I asks.

"If it came to that, certainly," says Vee, pushin' the front-door button
determined.

I expect she would have, too. But Biggles hadn't got that far--not
quite. He's on the mat all right, though, with his fat face sort of
flushed and his eyes popped more'n usual. And Marion Gray seems to be
sort of fussed, too. She is some tinted up under the eyes, and when she
sees who it is she glances at Vee sort of appealin'.

"Oh, I'm so sorry to interrupt," says Vee, marchin' right in and takin'
Marion by the arm. "You'll pardon me, I hope, Mr. Biggles, but I must
speak to Miss Gray at once about--about something very important."

And almost before "Puffy" Biggles knows what's happened he's left
staring at an empty armchair.

In the cozy little library Vee pushes Marion down on a window seat and
camps beside her. Trust Vee for jabbin,' the probe right in, too.

"Tell me," she demands whispery, "was--was he at it again?"

Marion pinks up more'n ever. And, say, with them shy brown eyes of hers,
and all the curves, she ain't so hard to look at. "Yes," admits Marion.
"You see, I had promised to give him a final answer tonight."

"But surely, Marion," says Vee, "you'd never in the world tell him that
you----"

"I don't know," breaks in Marion, her voice trembly. "There seems to be
nothing else."

"Isn't there, though!" says Vee. "Just you wait until you hear."

And with that she plunges into a rapid outline sketch of this dinner
dispensary stunt, quotin' facts and figures and givin' a profit estimate
that sounded more or less generous to me.

"So you see," she goes on enthusiastic, "you could keep your home, and
you could keep Martha, and you would be doing something perfectly
splendid for the whole community. Besides, you would be entirely
independent of--of everyone."

"But do you think I could do it?" asks Marion.

"I know you could," says Vee. "Anyway, we could between us. I will
furnish the capital, and keep the accounts and help you plan the daily
menus. You will do the marketing and delivering. Martha will do the
cooking. And there you are! We may have to start with only a few family
orders at first, but others will come in fast. You'll see."

By that time Marion was catching the fever. Her eyes brighten and her
chin comes up.

"I believe we could do it," says she.

"And you're willing to try?" asks Vee.

Marion nods.

"Then," says Vee, "Mr. Biggles ought to be told that he needn't wait
around any longer."

"Oh, I don't see how I can," wails Marion. "He--he's such a----"

"A sticker, eh? I know," says Vee. "And it's a shame that he should have
another chance to bother you. Torchy, don't you suppose you could do it
for her?"

"What?" says I. "Break it to Biggles? Why, I could do it swell. Leave it
to me. I'll shunt him on the siding so quick he won't know he's ever
been on the main track."

I don't waste any diplomatic language doin' it, either. On my way in
where he's waiting I passes through the hall and gathers up his new
derby and yellow gloves, holdin' 'em behind me as I breaks in on him.

"Excuse me, Mr. Biggles," says I, "but it's all off."

"I--I beg pardon?" says he, gazin' at me fish-eyed and stupid.

"Ah, let's not run around in circles," says I. "Miss Gray presents her
compliments, and all that sort of stuff, but she's goin' into another
line. If you must know, she's going to bust up the cook combine, and
from now on she'll be mighty busy. Get me?"

Biggles stiffens and stares at me haughty. "I don't in the least
understand anything of all this," says he. "I had an appointment with
Marion for this evening; something quite important to--to us both. I may
as well tell you that I had asked Marion a momentous question. I am
waiting for her answer."

"Well, here it is," says I, holdin' out the hat.

Biggles, he gurgles something indignant and turns purple in the gills,
but he ends by snatchin' away the derby and marchin' stiff to the door.

"Understand," says he, with his hand on the knob, "I do not accept your
impertinence as a reply. I--I shall see Marion again."

"Sure you will," says I. "She'll be around to get your dinner order
early next week."

"Bah!" says Biggles, bangin' the door behind him.

But, say, inside of five minutes he'd been wiped off the slate, and them
two girls was plannin' their hot-food campaign as busy and excited as if
it was Marion's church weddin' they were doping out. It's after midnight
before they breaks away, too.

You know Vee, though. She ain't one to start things and then quit. She's
a stayer. And some grand little hustler, too. By Monday mornin' the
Harbor Hills Community Kitchen Co. was a going concern. And before the
week was out they had more'n forty families on the standin' order list,
with new squads of soup scorchers bein' fired every day.

What got a gasp out of me was the first time I gets sight of Marion Gray
in her working rig. Nothing old-maidish about that costume. Not so you'd
notice. She's gone the limit--khaki riding pants, leather leggins and a
zippy cloth cap cut on the overseas pattern. None of them Women's Motor
Corps girls had anything on her. And maybe she ain't some picture, too,
as she jumps in behind the wheel of the truck and steps on the gas
pedal!

Also, I was some jarred to learn that the enterprise was a payin' one
almost from the start. Folks was just tickled to death with havin'
perfectly good meals, well cooked, well seasoned and pipin' hot, set
down at their back doors prompt every day, with no fractious fryin'-pan
pirates growlin' around the kitchens, and no local food profiteers
soakin' 'em with big weekly bills.

This has been goin' on a month, when one day as I comes home Vee greets
me with a flyin' tackle.

"Oh, Torchy!" she squeals, "what do you think has happened?"

"I know," says I. "Baby's cut a tooth."

"No," says she. "It's--it's about Marion."

"Oh!" says I. "She ain't bumped somebody with the truck, has she?"

"How absurd!" says Vee. "But, listen, Captain Ellery Prescott has come
back."

"What! The old favorite?" says I. "But I thought he was over with
Pershing?"

"Not yet," says Vee. "He has been out at some Western camp training
recruits all this time. But now he has his orders. He is to sail very
soon. And he's seen Marion."

"Has he?" said I. "Did it give him a jolt, or what?"

Vee giggles and pulls my head down so she can whisper in my ear. "He
thought her perfectly stunning, as she is, of course. And they're to be
married day after tomorrow."

"Z-z-z-zing!" says I. "That puts a crimp in the ready-made dinner
business, I expect."

"Not at all," says Vee. "Until he comes back, after the war, Marion is
going to carry on."

"Anyway," says I, "it ends 'Puffy' Biggies as an impendin' tragedy,
don't it? And I expect that's worth while, too."




CHAPTER II

OLD HICKORY BATS UP ONE


Anybody would most think I'd been with the Corrugated Trust long enough
to know that Old Hickory Ellins generally gets what he wants, whether
it's quick action from an office boy or a two-thirds majority vote from
the board of directors. But once in a while I seem to forget, and
shortly after that I'm wonderin' if it was a tank I went up against so
solid, or if someone threw the bond safe at me.

What let me in wrong this last time was a snappy little remark I got
shot my way right here in the general offices. I was just back from a
three-days' chase after a delayed shipment of bridge girders and steel
wheelbarrows that was billed for France in a rush, and I'd got myself
disliked by most of the traffic managers between here and Altoona, to
say nothing of freight conductors, yard bosses and so on. But I'd
untangled those nine cars and got 'em movin' toward the North River, and
now I was steamin' through a lot of office detail that had piled up
while I was gone. I'd lunched luxurious on an egg sandwich and a war
doughnut that Vincent had brought up to me from the arcade automat, and
I'd 'phoned Vee that I might not be out home until the 11:13, when in
blows this potty party with the poison ivy leaves on his shoulder straps
and demands to see Mr. Ellins at once. Course, it's me with my heels
together doin' the zippy salute.

"Sorry, major," says I, "but Mr. Ellins won't be in until 10:30."

"Hah!" says he, like bitin' off a piece of glass. "And who are you,
lieutenant!"

"Special detail from the Ordnance Department, sir," says I.

"Oh, you are, eh?" he snorts. "Another bomb-proofer! Well, tell Mr.
Ellins I shall be back at 11:15--if this sector hasn't been captured in
the meantime," and as he double-quicks out he near runs down Mr. Piddie,
our rubber-stamp office manager, who has towed him in.

As for me, I stands there swallowin' air bubbles until my red-haired
disposition got below the boiling point once more. Then I turns to
Piddie.

"You heard, didn't you?" says I.

Piddie nods. "But I don't quite understand," says he. "What did he mean
by--er--bomb-proofer?"

"Just rank flattery, Piddie," says I. "The rankest kind. It's his way of
indicatin' that I'm a yellow dog hidin' under a roll-top desk for fear
someone'll kick me out where a parlor Pomeranian will look cross at me.
Excuse me if I don't seem to work up a blush. Fact is, though, I'm
gettin' kind of used to it."

"Oh, I say, though!" protests Piddie. "Why, everyone knows that you----"

"That's where you're dead wrong, Piddie," I breaks in. "What everybody
really knows is that while most of the young hicks who've been
Plattsburged into uniforms are already across Periscope Pond helpin'
swat the Hun, I'm still floatin' around here with nothing worse than car
dust on my tailor-built khaki. Why, even them bold Liberty bond patriots
who commute on the 8:03 are tired of asking me when I'm going to be sent
over to tell Pershing how it ought to be done. But when it comes to an
old crab of a swivel chair major chuckin' 'bomb-proofer' in my
teeth--well, I guess that'll be about all. Here's where I get a revise
or quit. Right here."

And it was sentiments like that, only maybe worded not quite so brash,
that I passed out to Old Hickory a little later on. He listens about as
sympathetic as a traffic cop hearin' why you tried to rush the stop
signal.

"I think we have discussed all that before, young man," says he. "The
War Department has recognized that, as the head of an essential
industry, I am entitled to a private secretary; also that you might
prove more useful with a commission than without one. And I rather
think you have. So there you are."

"Excuse me, Mr. Ellins," says I, "but I can't see it that way. I don't
know whether I'm private seccing or getting ready for a masquerade ball.
Any one-legged man could do what I'm doing. I'm ready to chuck the
commission and enlist."

"Really!" says he. "Well, in the first place, my son, a war-time
commission is something one doesn't chuck back at the United States
government because of any personal whim. It isn't being done. And then
again, you tried enlisting once, didn't you, and were turned down?"

"But that was early in the game," says I, "when the recruiting officers
weren't passing any but young Sandows. I could get by now. Have a heart,
Mr. Ellins. Lemme make a try."

He chews his cigar a minute, drums thoughtful on the mahogany desk, and
then seems to have a bright little idea.

"Very well, Torchy," says he, "we'll see what my friend, Major Wellby,
can do for you when he comes in."

"Him!" says I. "Why, he'd do anything for me that the law didn't stop
him from."

And sure enough, when the major drifts in again them two was shut in the
private office for more'n half an hour before I'm called in. I could
guess just by the way the major glares fond at me that if he could work
it he'd get me a nice, easy job mowin' the grass in No Man's Land, or
some snap like that.

"Huh!" says he, givin' me the night court up and down. "Wants an active
command, does he? And his training has been what? Four years as office
boy, three as private secretary! It's no use, Ellins. We're not fighting
this war with waste baskets or typewriters, you know."

"Oh, come, major!" puts in Old Hickory. "Why be unreasonable about this?
I will admit that you may be right, so far as it's being folly to send
this young man to the front. But I do insist that as a lieutenant he is
rather useful just where he is."

"Bah!" snorts the major. "So is the farmer who's raising hogs and corn.
He's useful. But we don't put shoulder straps on him, or send him to
France in command of a company. For jobs like that we try to find
youngsters who've been trained to handle men; who know how to get things
done. What we don't want is--eh? Someone calling me on the 'phone? All
right. Yes, this is Major Wellby. What? Oh, it can't be done today! Yes,
yes! I understand all that. But see here, captain, that transport is due
to sail at--hey, central! I say, central! Oh, what's the use?"

And as the major bangs up the receiver his face looks like a strawb'ry
shortcake just ready to serve. Somehow Mr. Ellins seems to be enjoyin'
the major's rush of temperament to the ears. Anyhow, there's a familiar
flicker under them bushy eyebrows of his and I ain't at all surprised
when he remarks soothin': "I gather, major, that someone can't seem to
get something done."

"Precisely," says the major, moppin' a few pearly beads off his shiny
dome. "And when a regular army captain makes up his mind that a thing
can't be done--well, it's hopeless, that's all. In this instance,
however, I fear he's right, worse luck!"

"Anyway," suggests Mr. Ellins, "he has made you think that the thing is
impossible, eh?"

"Think!" growls the major, glancin' suspicious at Old Hickory. "I say,
Ellins, what are you getting at? Still harping on that red tape notion,
are you? Perhaps you imagine this to be a case where, if you could only
turn loose your wonderful organization, you could work a miracle?"

"No, major," says Old Hickory. "We don't claim to work in miracles; but
when we decide that a thing ought to be done at a certain time--well,
generally it gets done."

"Just like that, eh?" grins the major sarcastic. "Really, Ellins, you
big business men are too good to be true. But see here; why not tap your
amazing efficiency for my benefit. This little job, for instance, which
one of our poor misguided captains reports as impossible within the time
limit. I suppose you would merely press a button and----"

"Not even that," breaks in Mr. Ellins. "I would simply turn it over to
Torchy here--and he'd do it."

The major glances at me careless and shrugs his shoulders. "My dear
Ellins," says he, "you probably don't realize it, but that's the sort of
stuff which adds to the horrors of war. Here you haven't the vaguest
idea as to what----"

"Perhaps," cuts in Old Hickory, "but I'll bet you a hundred to
twenty-five."

"Taken," says the major. Then he turns to me. "When can you start,
lieutenant?"

"As soon as I know where I'm starting for, sir," says I.

"How convenient," says he. "Well, then, here is an order on the New York
Telephone Co. for five spools of wire which you'll find stored somewhere
on Central Park South. See if you can get 'em."

"Yes, sir," says I. "And suppose I can?"

"Report to me at the Plutoria before 5:30 this afternoon," says he. "I
shall be having tea there. Ellins, you'd better be on hand, too, so that
I can collect that hundred."

And that's all there was to it. I'm handed a slip of paper carrying the
Quartermaster General's O. K., and while these two old sports are still
chucklin' at each other I've grabbed my uniform cap off the roll-top and
have caught an express elevator.

Course, I expected a frame-up. All them army officers are hard boiled
eggs when it comes to risking real money, and I knew the major must
think his twenty-five was as safe as if he'd invested it in thrift
stamps. As for Old Hickory Ellins, he'd toss away a hundred any time on
the chance of pulling a good bluff. So I indulges in a shadowy little
grin myself and beats it up town.

Simple enough to locate them spools of wire. Oh, yes. They're right in
the middle of the block between Sixth and Broadway, tucked away
inconspicuous among as choice a collection of contractor's junk as you
can find anywhere in town, and that's sayin' a good deal. But maybe
you've noticed what's been happenin' along there where Fifty-ninth
street gets high-toned? Looks like an earthquake had wandered by, but
it's only that down below they're connectin' the new subway with another
East river tunnel. And if there's anything in the way of old derricks,
or scrap iron, or wooden beams, or construction sheds that ain't been
left lying around on top it's because they didn't have it on hand to
leave.

Cute little things, them spools are, too; about six feet high, three
wide, and weighin' a ton or so each, I should judge. And to make the
job of movin' 'em all the merrier an old cement mixer has been at work
right next to 'em and the surplus concrete has been thrown out until
they've been bedded in as solid as so many bridge piers. I climbs around
and takes a look.

"How cunnin'!" says I. "Why, they'd make the Rock of Ages look like a
loose front tooth. And all I got to do is pull 'em up by the roots, one
at a time. Ha, ha! Likewise, tee-hee!"

It sized up like a bad case of bee bite with me at the wrong end of the
stinger. Still, I was just mulish enough to stick around. I had nearly
three hours left before I'd have to listen to the major's mirthsome
cackle, and I might as well spend part of it thinkin' up fool schemes.
So I walks around that cluster of cement-set spools some more. I even
climbs on top of one and gazes up and down the block.

They were still doing things to make it look less like a city street and
more like the ruins of Louvain. Down near the Fifth Avenue gates was the
fenced-in mouth of a shaft that led somewhere into the bowels of
Manhattan. And while I was lookin' out climbs a dago, unrolls a dirty
red flag, and holds up the traffic until a dull "boom" announces that
the offensive is all over for half an hour or so. Up towards Columbus
Circle more industry was goin' on. A steam roller was smoothin' out a
strip of pavement that had just been relaid, and nearer by a gang was
tearin' up more of the asphalt. I got kind of interested in the way they
was doin' it, too. You know, they used to do this street wreckin' with
picks and crowbars, but this crowd seemed to have more modern methods.
They was usin' three of these pneumatic drills and they sure were
ripping it up slick and speedy. About then I noticed that their
compressor was chugging away nearly opposite me and that the lines of
hose stretched out fifty feet or more.

"Say!" says I jerky and breathless, but to nobody in particular. I was
just registerin' the fact that I'd had a sudden thought.

A few minutes before, too, I'd seen a squad of rookies wander past and
into the park. I remembered noticin' what a husky, tanned lot they were,
and from their hat cords that they belonged to the artillery branch.
Well, that was enough. In a flash I'd shinned over the stone wall and
was headin' 'em off.

You know how these cantonment delegations wander around town aimless
when they're dumped down here on leave waiting to be shunted off quiet
onto some transport? No friends, mighty little money, and nothing to do
but tramp the streets or hang around the Y. They actually looked kind of
grateful when I stops 'em and returns their salute. As luck would have
it there's a top sergeant in the bunch, so I don't have to make a
reg'lar speech.

"It's this way, sergeant," says I. "I'm looking for a few volunteers."

"There's ten of us, sir," says he, "with not a thing on our hands but
time."

"Then perhaps you'll help me put over something on a boss ditch digger,"
says I. "It's nothing official, but it may help General Pershing a whole
lot."

"We sure will," says the sergeant. "Now then, men. 'Shun! And forget
those dope sticks for a minute. How'll you have 'em, lieutenant--twos or
fours?"

"Twos will look more impressive, I guess," says I. "And just follow me."

"Fall in!" says the sergeant. "By twos! Right about! March!"

So when I rounds into the street again and bears down on this gang
foreman I has him bug-eyed from the start. He don't seem to know whether
he's being pinched or not.

"What's your name, my man?" says I, wavin' the Q. M.'s order
threatenin'.

It's Mike something or other, as I could have guessed without him near
chokin' to get it out.

"Very well, Mike," I goes on, as important as I knew how. "See those
spools over there that you people have done your best to bury? Well,
those have been requisitioned from the Telephone Company by the U. S.
army. Here's the order. Now I want you to get busy with your drill gang
and cut 'em loose."

"But--but see here, boss," sputters Mike, "'tis a private contract
they're workin' on and I couldn't be after----"

"Couldn't, eh?" says I. "Lemme tell you something. That wire has to go
on a transport that's due to sail the first thing in the morning. It's
for the Signal Corps and they need it to stretch a headquarters' line
into Berlin."

"Sorry, boss," said Mike, "but I wouldn't dast to----"

"Sergeant," says I, "do your duty."

Uh-huh! That got Mike all right. And when we'd yanked him up off his
knees and convinced him that he wouldn't be shot for an hour or so yet
he's so thankful that he gets those drills to work in record time.

It was a first-class hunch, if I do have to admit it myself. You should
have seen how neat them rapid fire machines begun unbuttonin' those big
wooden spools, specially after a couple of our doughboy squad, who'd
worked pneumatic riveters back home, took hold of the drills. Others
fished some hand sledges and crowbars out of a tool shed and helped the
work along, while Mike encourages his gang with a fluent line of foreman
repartee.

Course, I didn't have the whole thing doped out at the start, but
gettin' away with this first stab only showed me how easy it was if you
wasn't bashful about callin' for help. From then on I didn't let much
assistance get away from me, either. Yankin' the spools out to the
street level by hookin' on the steam roller was my next play, but
commandeerin' a sand blast outfit that was at work halfway down the
block was all Mike's idea.

"They need smoothin' up a bit, boss," says he.

And inside of half an hour we had all five of them spools lookin' new
and bright, like they'd just come from the mill.

"What next, sir?" asks the sergeant.

"Why," says I, "the fussy old major who's so hot for getting these
things is waiting at the Plutoria, about ten blocks down. Maybe he wants
'em there. I wonder if we could----"

"Sure!" says the sergeant. "This heavy gun bunch can move anything.
Here! I'll show 'em how."

With that he runs a crowbar through the center of one of the spools,
puts a man on either side to push, and rolls it along as easy as
wheelin' a baby carriage.

"Swell tactics, sergeant," says I. "And just for that I'm goin' to
provide your squad with a little music. Might as well do this in style,
eh? Wait a minute."

And it wasn't long before I was back from another dash into the park
towin' half a drum corps that I'd borrowed from some Junior Naval
Reserves that was drillin' over on the ballfield.

So it was some nifty little parade that I finally lines up to lead down
Fifth Avenue. First there's me, then the drum corps, then the sergeant
and his men rollin' them spools of wire. We strings out for more'n a
block.

You'd think New Yorkers were so used to parades by this time that you
couldn't get 'em stretchin' their necks for anything less'n a regiment
of hand-picked heroes. They've seen the French Blue Devils at close
range, gawped at the Belgians, and chummed with the Anzacs. But, say,
this spool-pushin' stunt was a new one on 'em. Folks just lined the curb
and stared. Then some bird starts to cheer and it's taken up all down
the line, just on faith.

"Hey, pipe the new rollin' tanks!" shouts someone.

"Gwan!" sings out another wise guy. "Them's wooden bombs they're goin'
to drop on Willie."

It's the first time I've been counted in on any of this hooray stuff,
and I can't say I hated it. At the same time I tried not to look too
chesty. But when I wheeled the procession into the side street and got
'em bunched two deep in front of the Plutoria's carriage entrance I
ain't sure but what I was wearin' kind of a satisfied grin.

Not for long, though. The six-foot taxi starter in the rear admiral's
uniform jumps right in with the prompt protest. He wants to know what
the blinkety-blink I think I'm doin', blockin' up his right of way in
that fashion.

"You can't do it! Take 'em away!" says he.

"Ah, keep the lid on, old Goulash," says I. "Sergeant, if he gets messy,
roll one of those spools on him. I'll be back shortly."

With that I blows into the Plutoria and hunts up the tea room. The
major's there, all right, and Mr. Ellins, also a couple of ladies.
They're just bein' served with Oolong and caviar sandwiches.

"Ah!" says the major, as he spots me. "Our gallant young office
lieutenant, eh? Well, sir, anything to report?"

"The spools are outside, sir," says I.

"Wh--a--at!" he gasps.

"Where'll you have 'em put, sir?" says I.

About then, though, in trails the taxi starter, the manager and a brace
of house detectives.

"That's him!" says the starter, pointin' me out. "He's the one that's
blockin' traffic."

I will say this for the major, though, he's a good sport. He comes right
to the front and takes all the blame.

"I'm responsible," he tells the manager. "It's perfectly all right, too.
Military necessity, sir. Well, perhaps you don't like it, but I'll have
you understand, sir, I could block off your whole street if I wished. So
clear out, all of you."

"Why, Horace!" puts in one of the ladies, grabbin' him by the arm.

"Yes, yes, my dear," says the major. "I know. No scene. Certainly not.
Only these hotel persons must be put in their place. And if you will
excuse me for a moment I'll see what can be done. Come, lieutenant. I
want to get a look at those spools myself."

Well, he did. "But--but I understood," says he, "that they were stuck in
concrete or something of the kind."

"Yes, sir," says I. "We had to unstick 'em. Pneumatic drills and a steam
roller. Very simple."

"Great Scott!" says he. "Why didn't that fool captain think of---- But,
see here, I don't want 'em here. Now, if we could only get them to Pier
14----"

"That would be a long way to roll 'em, sir," says I, "but it could be
done. Loadin' 'em on a couple of army trucks would be easier, though.
There's a Quartermaster's depot at the foot of Fifty-seventh Street, you
know."

"So there is," says he. "I'll call them up. Come in, will you,
lieutenant and--and join us at tea? You've earned it, I think."

Three minutes more and the major announces that the trucks are on the
way.

"Which means, Ellins," he adds, "that you win your twenty-five. Here you
are."

"If you don't mind," says Old Hickory, "I'll keep this and pass on my
hundred to Torchy here. He might like to entertain his volunteer squad
with it."

Did I? Say, when I got through showin' that bunch of far West artillery
husks how to put in a real pleasant evening along Broadway there wasn't
enough change left to buy a sportin' extra. But they'd had chow in the
giddiest lobster palace under the white lights, they'd occupied two
boxes at the zippiest girl show in town and they was loaded down with
cigarettes and chocolate enough to last 'em clear to France.

The next mornin', when Old Hickory comes paddin' into the general
offices, he stops to pat me friendly on the shoulder.

"I think we have succeeded in revising the major's opinion," he remarks,
"as to the general utility of bomb-proofers in certain instances."

I grins up at him. "Then," says I, "do I get a recommend for active duty
within jabbin' distance of the Huns?"

"We did consider that," says Old Hickory, "but the decision was just as
I suspected from the first. The major says it would be a shame to waste
you on anything less than a divisional command, and there aren't enough
of those to go around. Chiefly, though, he thinks that anyone who is
able to get things done in New York in the wizard-like way that you can
should be kept within call of Governor's Island. So I fear, Torchy,
that you and I will have to go on serving our country right here."

"All right, Mr. Ellins," says I. "I expect you win--as per usual."




CHAPTER III

TORCHY PULLS THE DEEP STUFF


Course, I didn't know what Old Hickory was stackin' me up against when
he calls me into the private office and tells me to shake hands with
this Mr. McCrea. Kind of a short, stubby party he is, with a grayish
mustache and sort of sleepy gray eyes. He's one of these slow motioned,
quiet talking ginks, with restful ways, such as would fit easy into a
swivel chair and hold down a third vice-president's job for life. Or he
might be a champion chess player.

So when the boss goes on to say how Mr. McCrea is connected with the
Washington sleuth bureau I expect I must have gawped at him a bit
curious. Some relic of the old office force, was my guess; a hold-over
from the times when the S. S. people called it a big day if they could
locate a lead nickel fact'ry in Mulberry Street, or drop on a few Chink
laundrymen bein' run in from Canada in crates. Maybe he was a
thumb-print expert.

"Howdy," says I, glancin' up at the clock to see if the prospects was
good for makin' the 5:17 out to Harbor Hills.

"I am told you know the town rather well," suggests McCrea, sort of
mild and apologetic.

"Me!" says I. "Oh, I can usually find my way back to Broadway even in
foggy weather."

He indulges in a flickery little smile. "I also understand," he goes on,
"that you have shown yourself to be somewhat quick witted in
emergencies."

"I must have a good press agent, then," says I, glancin' accusin' at Mr.
Ellins.

But Old Hickory shakes his head. "I suspect that was my friend, Major
Wellby," says he.

"Oh!" says I. "The one I rescued the wire spools for? A lucky break,
that was."

"Mr. McCrea is working on something rather more important," goes on Old
Hickory, "and if you can help him in any way I trust you will do it."

"Sure," says I. "What's the grand little idea?"

He don't seem enthusiastic about openin' up, McCrea, and I don't know as
I blame him much. After he's fished a note book out of his inside pocket
he stops and looks me over sort of doubtful. "Perhaps I had better say
at the start," says he, "that some of our best men have been on this job
for several weeks."

"Nursin' it along, eh?" says I.

That brings a smothered chuckle from Old Hickory. But Mr. McCrea don't
seem so tickled over it. In fact, he develops a furrow between the eyes
and his next remark ain't quite so soothin'.

"No doubt if they could have had the assistance of your rapid fire
mentality a little sooner," says he, "it would have been but a matter of
a few hours."

"There's no telling," says I. "Are you one of the new squad?"

Here Old Hickory chokes down another gurgle and breaks in hasty with:
"Mr. McCrea, Torchy, is assistant chief of the bureau, you know."

"Gosh!" says I, under my breath. "My mistake, sir. And I expect I'd
better back out now, while the backin's good."

"Wouldn't that be rather hard on us?" asks McCrea, liftin' his eyebrows
sarcastic. "Besides, think how disappointed the major will be if we fail
to make use of such remarkable ability as he has assured us you
possess."

It's a kid, all right, even if he does put it so smooth. And by the
twinkle in Old Hickory's eye I can see he's enjoyin' it just as much as
McCrea. Nothing partial about the boss. His sympathies are always with
the good performer. And rather than let this top-liner sleuth put it
over me so easy I takes a chance on shootin' a little more bull.

"Oh, if you're goin' to feel bad over it," says I, "course I got to help
you out. Now what part of Manhattan is it that's got your
super-Sherlocks guessin' so hard?"

He smiles condescendin' and unfolds a neat little diagram showin' a
Broadway corner and part of the cross street. "It is a matter of three
policemen and a barber shop," says he. "Here, in the basement of this
hotel on the corner, is the barber shop."

"Yes, I remember," says I. "Otto something or other runs it. And on the
side, I expect, he does plain and fancy spyin', eh?"

"We should be much interested to have you furnish proof of that," says
McCrea. "What we suspect, however, is something slightly different. We
believe that the place is rather a clearing house for spy information.
News seems to reach there and to leave there. What we wish to know is,
how."

"Had anyone on the inside?" I asks.

"Yes, that bright little idea occurred to us," says McCrea. "One of our
men has been operating a chair there for three weeks. He discovered
nothing of importance. Also we have had the place watched from the
outside, to no purpose. So you see how crude our methods must have
been."

"Oh, I ain't knockin' 'em," says I. "Maybe they was out of luck. But
what about the three cops?"

"Their beats terminate at this corner," says McCrea, "one from uptown,
one from downtown, and the third from the east. And we have good reason
to suppose that one of the three is crooked. Now if you can tell us
which one, and how information can come and go----"

"I get you," I breaks in. "All you want of me is the answer to a lot of
questions you've been all the fall workin' up. That's some he-sized
order, ain't it?"

McCrea shrugs his shoulder. "As I mentioned, I think," says he, "it was
Major Wellby who suggested your assistance; and as the major happens to
enjoy the confidence of--well, someone who is a person of considerable
importance in Washington----"

"Uh-huh!" says I. "It's a case of my bein' wished on you and you
standin' by with the laugh when I fall down. Oh, very well! I'll be the
goat. But the major's a good scout, just the same, and I don't mean to
throw him without making a stab. How long do I get on this?"

"Oh, as long as you like," says McCrea.

"Thanks," says I. "Where do I find you when I want to turn in a report,
blank or otherwise?"

He gives me the name of his hotel and after collectin' the diagram of
the mystery I does a slow exit to my desk in the next office. I was
sittin' there half an hour later with my hair rumpled, makin' a noise
like deep thinkin', when in walks the hand of fate steppin' heavy on
his heels, as usual.

Not that I suspected at the time this Barry Wales could be anything much
more than a good natured pest. He didn't used to be even that. No, the
change in Barry is only another little item in the score we got against
the Kaiser; for back in the days before we went into the war Barry was
just one of Mr. Robert's club friends who dropped around casual to date
up for an after-luncheon game of billiards, or tip him off to a new
cabaret act that was worth engagin' a table next to the gold ropes.
Besides, holdin' quite a block of Corrugated stock, I expect Barry
figured it as a day's work when he got me to show him the last
semi-annual report and figure out what his dividends would tot up to.
Outside of that he was a bar-hound and more or less of a window
ornament.

But the war sure had made a mess of Barry. I don't mean that he went
over and got shell shocked or gassed. Too far past thirty for that, and
he had too many things the matter with him. Oh, I had all the details
direct; bad heart, plumbing out of whack, nerves frazzled from too many
all-night sessions. He was in that shape to begin with. But he didn't
start braggin' about it until so many of his bunch got to makin'
themselves useful in different ways. Mr. Robert, for instance, gettin'
sent out in command of a coast patrol boat; others breakin' into Red
Cross work, ship buildin' and so on. Barry claims he tried 'em all and
was turned down.

But is he discouraged? Not Barry. If they won't put him in uniform, with
cute little dew-dads on his shoulder, or let him wear $28 puttees that
will take a mahogany finish, there's nothing to prevent him from turnin'
loose that mighty intellect of his and inventin' new ways to win the
war. So when he's sittin' there in his favorite window at the club,
starin' absent minded out on Fifth Avenue with a tall glass at his
elbow, he ain't half the slacker he looks to the people on top of the
green buses.

Not accordin' to Barry. Ten to one he's just developin' a new idea.
Maybe it's only a design for a thrift stamp poster, but it might be a
scheme for inducin' the Swiss to send their navy down the Rhine. But
whatever it is, as soon as Barry gets it halfway thought out, he has to
trot around and tell about it.

So when I glance up and see this tall, well tailored party standin' at
my elbow, and notice the eager, excited look in his pale blue eyes, I
know about what to expect.

"Well, what is it this time, Barry?" says I. "Have you doped out an
explosive pretzel, or are you goin' to turn milliner and release some
woman for war work?"

"Oh, I say, Torchy!" he protests. "No chaffing, now. I'm in dead
earnest, you know. Of course, being all shot to pieces physically, I
can't go to the front, where I'd give my neck to be. Why, with this
leaky heart valve of mine I couldn't even----"

"Yes, yes," I broke in. "We've been over all that. Not that I'd mind
hearing it again, but just now I'm more or less busy."

"Are you, though?" says Barry. "Isn't that perfectly ripping! Something
important, I suppose?"

"Might be if I could pull it off," says I, "but as it stands----"

"That's it!" says Barry. "I was hoping I'd find you starting something
new. That's why I came."

"Eh?" says I.

"I'm volunteering--under you," says he. "I'll be anything you say; top
sergeant, corporal, or just plain private. Anything so I can help. See!
I am yours to command, Lieutenant Torchy," and he does a Boy Scout
salute.

"Sorry," says I, "but I don't see how I could use you just now. The fact
is, I can't even say what I'm working on."

"Oh, perfectly bully!" says Barry. "You needn't tell me a word, or drop
a hint. Just give me my orders, lieutenant, and let me carry on."

Well, instead of shooin' him off I'd only got him stickin' tighter'n a
wad of gum to a typewriter's wrist watch, and after trying to do some
more heavy thinkin' with him watchin' admirin' from where I'd planted
him in a corner, I gives it up.

"All right," says I. "Think you could stand another manicure today?"

Barry glances at his polished nails doubtful but allows he could if it's
in the line of duty.

"It is," says I. "I'm goin' to sacrifice some of my red hair on the
altar of human freedom. Come along."

So, all unsuspectin' where he was goin', I leads him down into Otto's
barber shop. And I must say, as a raid in force, it was more or less of
a fizzle. The scissors artist who revises my pink-plus locks is a
gray-haired old gink who'd never been nearer Berlin than First Avenue.
Two of the other barbers looked like Greeks, and even Otto had clipped
the ends of his Prussian lip whisker. Nobody in the place made a noise
like a spy, and the only satisfaction I got was in lettin' Barry pay the
checks.

"I got to go somewhere and think," says I.

"How about a nice quiet dinner at the club?" says Barry.

"That don't listen so bad," says I.

And it wasn't, either. Barry insists on spreadin' himself with the
orderin', and don't even complain about havin' to chase out to the bar
to take his drinks, on account of my being in uniform.

"Makes me feel as if I were doing my bit, you know," says he.

"Talk about noble sacrifices!" says I. "Why, you'll be qualifyin' for a
D. S. O. if you keep on, Barry."

And along about the _baba au rhum_ period I did get my fingers on the
tall feathers of an idea. Nothing much, but so long as Barry was anxious
to be used, I thought I saw a way.

"Suppose anybody around the club could dig up a screwdriver for you?" I
asks.

Inside of two minutes Barry had everybody in sight on the jump, from the
bus boy to the steward, and in with the demi tasse came the screwdriver.

"Now what, lieutenant?" demands Barry.

"S-s-s-h!" says I, mysterious. "We got to drill around until midnight."

"Why not at the Follies, then?" suggests Barry.

"Swell thought!" says I.

And for this brand of active service I couldn't have picked a better man
than Barry. From our box seats he points out the cute little squab with
the big eyes, third from the end, and even gets one of the soloists
singin' a patriotic chorus at us. On the strength of which Barry makes
two more trips down to the café. Not that he gets primed enough so you'd
notice it. Nothing like that. Only he grows more enthusiastic over the
idea of being useful in the great cause.

"Remember, lieutenant," says he as we drifts out with the midnight push,
"I'm under orders. Eh?"

"Sure thing," says I. "You're about to get 'em, too. Did you ever do
such a thing as steal a barber's pole?"

Barry couldn't remember that he ever had.

"Well," says I, "that's what you're goin' to do now."

"Which one?" asks Barry.

"Otto's," says I. "From the joint where we were just before dinner."

"Right, lieutenant," says Barry, givin' his salute.

"And listen," says I. "You're dead set on havin' that particular pole.
Understand? You want it bad. And after you get it you ain't goin' to let
anybody get it away from you, no matter what happens, until I give the
word. That's your cue."

"Trust me, lieutenant," says Barry, straightenin' up. "I shall stand by
the pole."

Sounds simple, don't it? But that's the way all us great minds work,
along lines like that. And the foolisher we look at the start the deeper
we're apt to be divin' after the plot of the piece. Don't miss that.
What's a bent hairpin in the mud to you? While to us--boy, page old Doc
Watson.

How many times, for instance, do you suppose you've walked past the
Hotel Northumberland? Yet did you ever notice that the barber shop
entrance was exactly twenty paces east on Umpteenth Street from the
corner of Broadway; that you go down three iron steps to a landin'
before you turn for the other 15; or that the barber pole has a gilt top
with blue stars in it, and is swung out on a single bracket with two
screws on each side? I points out all this to Barry as we strolls down
from the theater district.

"By jove!" says Barry. "Wonderful!"

"Ain't it?" says I. "And all done without a change of wig or a jab of
the needle. Now your part is easy. You simply drift down the side
street, step into the shadow where the cab stand juts out, and when
nobody's passin' you work the screws loose. Me, I got to drop into the
writin' room and dash something off. Here we are. Go to it."

Course, he could have bugged things. Might have dropped the screwdriver
through a grating, or got himself caught in the act. But Barry has
surrounded the idea nicely. He couldn't have done better if he'd been
sent out to a listenin' post. And when I strolls out again five minutes
later there he stands with the pole tucked careful under one arm.

"Fine work!" says I. "But we don't want to hide it altogether. Carry it
careless like, with your overcoat unbuttoned, so both ends will show.
That's the cheese!"

It ain't one of these big, vulgar barber poles, you know; not over four
feet long and about as many inches thick. But it's a brilliant one, and
with Barry in evenin' dress he's bound to be some conspicuous luggin'
it. Yet I starts him straight up Broadway, me trailin' 25 or 30 feet
behind.

If it had been further up town he might have collected quite a mob of
followers, but down here there's only a few passing at that time of
night. Most of 'em only turns to look after him and smile. One or two
gives him the merry hail and asks where the Class of 1910 is holdin' the
banquet.

He'd done nearly five blocks before a flatfoot steps out of a doorway
and waves a nightstick at him.

"Hey, whaddye mean, pullin' that hick stuff?" demands the cop.

"Sir!" says Barry, wavin' him off dignified.

Then I mixes in. "It's perfectly all right, officer," says I. "I know
him."

"Oh, do you?" says the cop. "Well, some of you army guys know a lot; and
then again some of you don't. But you can't get away with any such
cut-up motions on my beat."

"But listen," I begins, "I can explain how----"

"Ah, feed it to the sergeant," says he. "Come along, you," and he takes
Barry by the arm.

Being a quiet night in the precinct the desk sergeant had plenty of time
to listen. He'd just decided against Barry, too, when I sprung my scrap
of paper on him. It's a receipt in full for one barber's pole, signed by
Otto Krumpheimer. I knew it was O. K. because I'd signed it myself.

"How about that?" asks the sergeant of the cop.

And all the flatty can do is gaze at it and scratch his head.

"No case," says the sergeant. "Beat it, you."

Then I nudges Barry. He speaks up prompt, too. "I want my little barber
pole," says he.

"Ah, take it along," says the sergeant, disgusted.

"Sorry, officer," says I, as we drifts out, and I slips him a five
casual.

"Enjoy yourselves, boys," says he. "But pick out another beat."

Which we done. This time we starts from the Northumberland and walks
east. Barry had got almost to Madison Avenue before another eagle-eyed
copper holds him up. He does it more or less rough, too.

"Drop that, now!" says he.

"Certainly not," says Barry, lyin' enthusiastic. "It's my pole."

"Is it, then?" says the cop. "Maybe you can show the sergeant yet? And
maybe I don't know where you pinched it. Walk along, now."

You should have seen the desk sergeant grow purple in the gills when we
shows up in front of the rail the second time. "Say, what do you sports
think you're doin', anyway?" he demands.

"I'll make a charge of petty larceny and disorderly conduct," says the
cop, layin' the evidence on the desk.

"Will you, Myers?" says the sergeant sarcastic. "Didn't ask him if he
had a receipt, I suppose? Show it to him, lieutenant."

I grins and hands over the paper.

"Hah!" grunts Myers. "But Otto Krumpheimer don't sign his name like
that. Never."

"How do you know?" says I.

"Why," says Myers, scrapin' his foot nervous, "I--I just know, that's
all. I've seen his writin', plenty times."

"Hear that, sergeant," says I. "Just jot that down, will you?"

"Night court," says the sergeant.

"Never mind, Barry," says I. "Line of duty. And I'll be on hand by the
time your case is called."

"Right-o!" says Barry cheerful.

Myers, he was ambitious to lug us both along, but the sergeant couldn't
see it that way. So while Barry's bein' walked off to police court, I
jumps into a taxi and heads for McCrea's hotel. If he'd been in bed I
meant to rout him out. But he wasn't. I finds him in his room havin' a
confab with two other plain clothes gents. He seems surprised to see me
so quick.

"Well?" says he. "Giving up so soon?"

"Me?" says I. "Hardly! I've got the crooked cop."

McCrea gives a gasp. "You--you have?" says he.

"Yep!" says I. "But he's got my assistant. Can you pull a badge or
anything on the judge at the night court?"

Mr. McCrea thought he could. And he sure worked the charm, for after
whisperin' a few words across the bench it's all fixed up. Barry gets
the nod that he's free to go.

"May I take my little barber pole?" demands Barry.

"No, no!" speaks up Myers. "Don't let him have it, Judge."

"Silence!" roars the Justice. Then, turnin' to a court officer he says:
"Take this policeman to Headquarters for investigation. Yes, Mr. Wales,
you may have your pole, but I should advise you to carry it home in a
cab."

"Thank you kindly, sir," says Barry. But after he gets outside he asks
pleadin': "Don't I get arrested any more?"

I shakes my head. "It's all over for tonight, Barry," says I. "Objective
attained, and if you don't mind I'll take charge of this war loot. Drop
you at your club, shall we?"

So I still had the striped pole when we rolled up at McCrea's hotel. I
was shiftin' it around in the taxi, wonderin' where I'd better dump it,
when I made the big discovery.

"Say," I whispers husky to McCrea, "there's something funny about this."

"The pole?" says he.

"Uh-huh!" says I. "It's hollow. There's a little trap door in one side."

"Hah!" says McCrea. "Bring it up."

And you'd think by the way him and his friends proceeded to hog the
thing, that it was their find. After I'd shown 'em where to press the
secret spring they crowded around and blocked off my view. All I got was
a glimpse of some papers that they dug out of the inside somewhere. And
some excited they are as they paws 'em over.

"In the same old code," says McCrea.

But finally he leads me to one side. "Myers is the man, all right," says
he.

"Course he is," says I. "If he wasn't why would he be so wise as to
whose pole it was, or about Otto's handwritin'?"

"Ah!" says McCrea, noddin' enthusiastic. "So that was your system in
having your friend arrested? You tried out the officers. Very clever!
But how you came to suspect that the barber's pole was being used as a
mail box I don't understand."

"No," says I, "you wouldn't. That's where the deep stuff comes in."

McCrea takes that with a smile. "Lieutenant," says he, "I shall be
pleased to report to Major Wellby that his estimate of you was quite
correct. And allow me to say that I believe you have done for the
Government a great service tonight; though how you managed it so neatly
I'll be hanged if I see. And--er--I think that will be all." With which
he urges me polite towards the door.

But it wasn't all. Not quite. I hear there's something on the way to me
from the chief himself, and Old Hickory has been chucklin' around for
three days. Also I've had a hunch that one boss barber and one New York
cop have done the vanishing act. Anyway, when I was down to the
Northumberland yesterday for a shave there was no Otto in sight, and the
barber pole was still missin'. That's about all the information that's
come my way.

Barry Wales don't know even that much. But when he comes in to report
for further orders, as he does frequent now, he has his chest out and
his chin up.

"I say, lieutenant," he remarks confidential this last trip, "we put
something over, didn't we?"

"I expect we did," says I.

"But what was it all about, eh?" he whispers.

"Why," says I, "you got pinched twice without losin' your amateur
standin', and one of the stripes opened in the middle. When they tell me
the rest I'll pass it on to you."

"By George! Will you, though?" says Barry, and after executin' another
Boy Scout salute he goes off perfectly satisfied.




CHAPTER IV

A FRAME-UP FOR STUBBY


I expect I shouldn't have been so finicky. I ain't as a rule. My usual
play is to press the button and take whoever is sent in from the general
office. But the last young lady typist they'd wished on me must have
eased in on the job with a diploma from some hair-dressin'
establishment. She got real haughty when I pointed out that we was using
only one "l" in Albany now, but nothing I could say would keep her from
writing Bridgeport as two words.

And such a careless way she had of parking her gum on the corner of my
desk and forgettin' to retrieve it. So with four or five more folios to
do on a report I was makin' to the Ordnance Department, I puts it up to
Mr. Piddie personally to pick the best he can spare.

"Course," says I, "I don't expect to get Old Hickory's star performer,
but I thought you might have one of the old guard left; one that didn't
learn her spellin' by the touch method, at least."

Piddie sighs. Since so many of his key-pounders has gone to polishin'
shell noses, or sailed to do canteen work, he's been having a poor time
keeping up his office force. "Do you know, Torchy," says he, "I haven't
one left that I can guarantee; but suppose you try Miss Casey, who has
just joined."

She wouldn't have been my choice if I'd been doin' the pickin'. One of
these tall, limber young females, Miss Casey is, about as thick as a
drink of water, but strong on hair and eyes. She glides in willowy,
drapes herself on a chair, pats her home-grown ear-muffs into shape, and
unfolds her note book business-like. And inside of two minutes she's
doing the Pitman stuff in jazz time, with no call for repeats except
when I'd shoot a string of figures at her. I was handin' myself the
comfortin' thought, too, that I'd drawn a prize.

We breezes along on the report until near lunch time with never a hitch
until I gets to this paragraph where I mentions Camp Mills, and the next
thing I know she has stopped short and is snifflin' through her nose.

"Eh?" says I, gawpin' at her. "Have I been feedin' it at you too
speedy?"

"N--no," says she, "bub--but that's where Stub is--Camp Mills--and it
got to me sudden."

"Oh!" says I. "And Stub is a brother or something?"

"He--he--Well, there!" says she, holdin' out her left hand and
displayin' a turquoise set with chip diamonds.

"Sorry," says I, "but I couldn't tell from the service pin, you
understand, when some wears 'em for second cousins. And anyway, the name
of the camp had to----"

"'Sall right," snuffles Miss Casey. "I had no call spillin' the weeps
durin' business hours. I wouldn't of either, only I had another session
with his old lady this mornin' and she sort of got me stirred up."

"Mother taking it hard, is she?" I asks.

"You've said sumpin," admits Miss Casey, unbuttonin' a locket vanity
case and repairin' the damage done to her facial frescoin' with a few
graceful jabs. "Not but what I ain't strong for Stub Mears myself. He's
all right, Stub is, even if he never could qualify in a beauty
competition with Jack Pickford or Mr. Doug. Fairbanks. He's good comp'ny
and all that, and now he's in the army I expect he'll ditch that
ambition of his to be the champion heavy-weight pool player of the West
Side.

"But to hear Mrs. Mears talk you'd think he was one of the props of the
universe, and that when the new draft got Stub it was a case where
Congress ought to stop and draw a long breath. Uh-huh! She's 100 per
cent. mother, Mrs. Mears is, and it looks like some of it was catchin'
for me to get leaky-eyed just at mention of the camp he's in. Oh, lady,
lady! Excuse it, please, sir."

Which I does cheerful enough. And just to prove I ain't any slave
driver I sort of eggs Miss Casey on, from then until the noon hour, to
chat away about this war romance of hers. Seems Mr. Mears could have
been in Class B, on account of his widowed mother and him being a
plumber's helper when he had time to spare from his pool practicin'.
Livin' in the same block, they'd been acquainted for quite some time,
too.

No, it hadn't been anything serious first off. She'd gone with him to
the annual ball of Union 26 for two years in succession and to such like
important social events. But there'd been other fellers. Two or three.
And one had a perfectly swell job as manager of a United Cigar branch.
Stub had been a great one for stickin' around, though, and when he
showed up in his uniform--well, that clinched things.

"It wasn't so much the khaki stuff I fell for," confides Miss Casey,
gazin' sentimental at a ham sandwich she's just unwrapped, "as it was
the i-dear back of it. It's in the blood, you might say, for I had an
uncle in the Spanish-American and a grandfather in the Civil War. So
when Mr. Mears tells me how, when it comes time for him to go over the
top, the one he'll be thinkin' most of will be me--Say, that got to me
strong. 'You win, Stubby,' says I. 'Flash the ring.'

"That's how it was staged, all in one scene. And later when that Jake
Horwitz from the United shop comes around sportin' his instalment
Liberty bond button, but backin' his fallen arches to keep him exempt, I
gives him the cold eye. 'Nix on the coo business, Mister Horwitz,' says
I, 'for when I hold out my ear for that it's got to come from a reg'lar
man. Get me?' Which is a good deal the same I hands the others.

"But say, between you and I, it's mighty lonesome work. You see, I'd
figured how Stub would be blowin' in from camp every now and then, and
we'd be doin' the Sunday afternoon parade up and down the block, with
all the girls stretchin' their necks after us. You know? Well, he's been
at the blessed camp near three months now and not once since that first
flyin' trip has he showed up here.

"Which is why I've been droppin' in on his old lady so often, tryin' to
dope why he shouldn't be let off, same as the others. Mrs. Mears, she's
all primed with the notion that her Edgar has been makin' himself so
useful down there that the colonel would get all balled up in his work
if he didn't keep Stub right on the job. 'See,' says she, wavin' a
picture post card at me, 'he's been appointed on the K. P. squad again.'
Honest, she thinks he's something like a Knights of Pythias and goes
marchin' around important with a plume in his hat and a gold sword.
Mothers are easy, ain't they? You can bet though, that Stub don't try to
buffalo little old me with anything like that. What he writes me, which
ain't much, is mostly that his top sergeant's a grouch or that they've
been quarantined on account of influenza. So I sends him back the best
advice I've got in stock, askin' him why he don't buck up on his drill,
keep his equipment clean, and shift that potato peelin' work to some of
the new squads.

"Course, I don't spill any of this to Mrs. Mears. Poor soul! She's got
troubles enough, right in her joints. Rheumatism. Uh-huh. Most of the
time she has to get around in a wheel chair. Ain't that fierce? And she
was mighty nervy about sendin' Stubby off. Wouldn't let him say a word
about exemption. No, sir! 'Never mind me, Edgar,' says she. 'You kill a
lot of Huns. I'll get along somehow.' That's talkin', ain't it? And her
livin' with a sister-in-law that has a disposition like a green parrot!

"So I can't find much fault with her when she sort of overdoes the fond
mother act. Seems to me they might let him off now and then, even if he
does miss a few bugle calls, or forgets some of the rules and
regulations. And this bug of hers about wonderin' when and how what he's
doin' for his country is goin' to be reco'nized proper--Well, I don't
debate that with her at all. For one thing I don't get just exactly what
she wants; whether it's for the President to write her a special letter
of thanks, or for Mr. Baker to make Stubby a captain or something right
off. Anyway, she don't feel that Edgar's bein' treated right. He ain't
even had his name in the papers and only a few of the neighbors seem to
know he's a hero. Yep, it's foolish of her, I expect, but I let her
unload it all on me without dodgin'. I've even promised to see what can
be done about it. I--I'd been thinkin', sir, about askin' you."

"Eh?" says I, "Me? Oh, I couldn't think of a thing."

"But if I could, sir," goes on Miss Casey, "would--would you help out a
little? She's an old lady, you know, and all crippled up, and Stubby
he's all she's got left and----"

"Why, sure," I breaks in. "I'd do what I could."

I throws it off casual as I'm grabbin' my hat on my way out to lunch.
And I supposed that would be all there'd be to it. But I hadn't got
more'n half a line on Miss Casey. She's no easy quitter, that young
lady. Having let me in on her little affair, she seems to think it's no
more'n right I should be kept posted. A day or so later she lugs in a
picture of Private Mears, one of the muddy printed post-card effects
such as these roadside tripod artists take of the buddy boys around the
camps.

"That's him," says she. "Looks kind of swell in the uniform, don't he?"

It was a fact. Stubby not only looks swell--but swelling. And it's lucky
them army buttons are sewed on tight or else a good snappy salute would
wreck him from the chin down. He's a sturdy, bulgy party, 'specially
about the leggins.

"That's right, too," says Miss Casey. "Know what I tell him? If he can
fight like he can eat, good-night Kaiser Bill. But at that they've pared
fifteen pounds off him since he's been in the service."

"It's a great life," says I.

"Maybe," sighs Miss Casey, "but I wisht they'd let me have a close-up of
him before they risk loadin' him on a transport. That's all I got
against the Government. You ain't thought of any way it might be worked,
have you?"

I had to admit that I hadn't, not addin' I didn't expect to. And I must
have been stallin' along that line for a week or more until the forenoon
when Vee blows in unexpected durin' a shoppin' trip and announces that I
may take her out to luncheon.

"Fine!" says I. "Just as soon as I give two more letters to Miss Casey."

In the middle of the second one though, there's a call for me to go into
the private office, and when I comes back from a ten-minute interview
with Old Hickory I finds Vee and Miss Casey chattin' away like old
friends. Vee is being told all about Stubby and the hard-boiled eggs he
has for company officers.

"Three months without a furlough!" says Vee. "Isn't that a shame,
Torchy? What is the number of his regiment?"

Miss Casey reels it off, addin' the company and division.

"Really!" says Vee. "Why, that's the company Captain Woodhouse commands.
You remember him, Torchy?"

"Oh, yes! Woodie," says I. "I'd most forgotten him."

"I am going to call him up on the long distance right now," says Vee.

And in spite of all my lay-off signals she does it. Gets the captain,
too. Yes, Woodie knows the case and he regrets to report that Private
Mears's record isn't a good one; three times in the guardhouse and
another week of K. P. coming to him. Under these circumstances he don't
quite see how----

"Oh, come, captain!" puts in Vee coaxin'. "Don't be disagreeable. He's
engaged, you know. Such a nice girl. And then there is his poor old
mother who has seen him only once since he was drafted. Please, Woodie!"

I expect it was the "Woodie" that worked the trick. You see, this
Woodhouse party used to think he was in the runnin' with Vee himself,
way back when Auntie was doin' her best to discourage my little
campaign, and although he quit and picked another several years ago I
don't suppose he minds bein' called Woodie by Vee, even now. Anyway,
after consultin' one of his lieutenants he gives her the word that if
Private Mears don't pull any more cut-up stuff between now and a week
from Wednesday he'll probably have forty-eight hours comin' to him.

And for a minute there I thought both Vee and I were let in for a fond
clinch act with Miss Casey. As it is she takes it out in pattin' Vee's
hand and callin' her Dearie.

"A week Wednesday, eh?" says Miss Casey. "Say, ain't that grand! And
believe muh, I mean to work up some little party for Stubby. It's due
him, and the old lady."

"Of course it is," agrees Vee. "And Torchy, you must do all you can to
help."

"Very well, major," says I, salutin'.

And from then on I reports to Vee. It's only the next night that I gives
her the first bulletin from the front. "What do you know?" says I. "Miss
Casey has a hunch that she might organize a block party for the big
night. I don't know whether she can swing it or not, but that's her
scheme."

"But what on earth is a block party, Torchy?" Vee demands.

"Why," I explains, "it's a small town stunt that's being used in the
city these days. Very popular, too. They get all the people in the block
to chip in for a celebration--decorations, music, ice cream, all
that--and generally they raise a block service flag. It takes some
organizin', though."

"How perfectly splendid!" says Vee. "And that is just where you can be
useful."

So that's how I come to spend that next evenin' trottin' up and down
this block in the sixties between Ninth and Amsterdam. I must say it
didn't look specially promisin' as a place to work up community spirit
and that sort of thing. Just a dingy row of old style dumb-bell flats,
most of 'em with "Room to Rent" signs hung out and little basement shops
tucked in here and there. Maybe you know the kind--the asphalt always
littered with paper, garbage cans left out, and swarms of kids playin'
tip-cat or dashin' about on roller skates. Cheap and messy. And to judge
by the names on the letter boxes you'd say the tenants had been shipped
in from every country on the map. Anyway, our noble allies was well
represented--with the French and Italians in the lead and the rest made
up of Irish, Jews, Poles and I don't know what else. Everything but
straight Americans.

Yet when you come to count up the service flags in the front windows you
had to admit that Miss Casey's block must have a good many reg'lar
citizens in it at that. There was more blue stars in evidence than you'd
find on any three brownstone front blocks down on Madison or up in the
Seventies. One flag had four, and none of 'em stood for butlers or
chauffeurs. Course, some was only faded cotton, a few nothing but
colored paper, but every star stood for a soldier, and I'll bet there
wasn't a bomb-proofer in the lot.

Whether you could get these people together on any kind of a celebration
or not was another question. We begins with Mike's place, on the corner.

"Sure!" says Mike. "Let's have a party. I'll ante twenty-five. And, say,
I got a cousin in the Knights of Columbus who'll give you some tips on
how to manage the thing."

The little old Frenchy in the Parisian hand laundry gave us a boost,
too. Even J. Streblitz, high-class tailoring for ladies and gents,
chipped in a ten and told us about his boy Herman, who'd been made a
corporal and was at Chateau Thierry. Inside of three hours we'd made a
sketchy canvas of the whole block, got half a dozen of the men to go on
the committee, had over $100 subscribed, and the thing was under way.

"I just knew you could do it," says Vee, when I tells her about the
start that's been made.

"Me!" says I. "Why it was mostly Miss Casey. About all I did was tag
along and watch her work up the enthusiasm. She's some breeze, she is.
When I left her she was plannin' on two bands and free ice cream for
everyone who came."

As a matter of fact, that's about all I had to do with it, after the
first push. Miss Casey must have had a busy week, but she don't lay down
once on her reg'lar work nor beg for any time off. All she asks is if
Vee and me couldn't be persuaded to be on hand Wednesday night as guests
of honor.

"We wouldn't miss it for anything," says I.

Well, we didn't. I'd heard more or less about these block parties, but
I'd never been to one. Course, I wasn't sure just how Vee would take it
gettin' mixed up in a mob like that, but I was bankin' on her being a
good sport. Besides, she was wild to go and see how Miss Casey had made
out.

And say, when we swings in off Ninth Avenue and I gets my first glimpse
of what had been done to that scrubby, messy lookin' block, it got a
gasp out of me. First off there was strings of Japanese lanterns with
electric lights in 'em stretched across the street from the front of
every flat buildin' to the one opposite. Also every doorway and window
was draped and decorated with bunting. Then there was all kinds of
flags, from little ten centers to big twenty footers swung across the
street. There was a whackin' big Irish flag loaned by the A. O. H.; two
Italian flags almost as big; I don't know how many French tri-colors and
some I couldn't place; Czecho-Slovaks maybe. And besides the lanterns
and extra arc-lights there was red fire burnin' liberal. Then at either
end of the block was a truck backed up with a band in it and they was
tearin' away at all kinds of tunes from the "Marseillaise" to
"K-k-k-katie," while bumpin' and bobbin' about on the asphalt were
hundreds of couples doing jazz steps and gettin' pelted with confetti.

"Why, it's almost like the Mardi Gras!" says Vee.

"Looks festive, all right," says I. "And I should say Miss Casey has put
over the real thing. I wonder if we can find her in this mob."

Seemed like a hopeless search, but finally, down in the middle of the
block, I spots an old lady in a wheel chair, and I has a hunch it might
be Mrs. Mears. Sure enough, it is. Not much to look at, she ain't; sort
of humped over, with a shawl 'round her shoulders. But say, when you got
a glimpse of the way her old eyes was lighted up, and saw the smile
flickerin' around her lips, you knew that nobody in that whole crowd was
any happier than she was just at that minute.

"Oh, yes," says she. "Minnie Casey is looking for you two young folks.
She's dancing with Edgar now, but they'll be back soon. Haven't seen my
son Edgar, have you? Well, you must. He--he's a soldier, you know."

"We should be delighted," says Vee. And then she whispers to me: "Hasn't
she a nice face, though?"

We hadn't waited long before I sees a tall, willowy young thing wearin'
one of them zippy French tams come bearin' down on us wavin' energetic
and towin' along a red-faced young doughboy who looks like he'd been
stuffed into his uniform by a sausage machine. It's Minnie and Stub.

"Hello, folks!" she sings out. "Say, I was just wonderin' if you was
goin' to renig on me. Fine work! An' I want you to meet one of the most
prominent privates in the division, Mr. Mears. Come on, Stubby, pull
that overseas salute of yours. Ain't he a bear-cat, though? And how
about the show? Ain't it some party?"

"Why, it's simply wonderful," says Vee. "I had no idea, Miss Casey, that
you were planning anything like this."

"I didn't," says Minnie. "Only after we got started it kept gettin'
bigger and bigger until there wa'n't a soul on the block but what came
in on it. Know what one of the decorators told me? He says there ain't a
block on the West Side has had anything up to this, from Houston Street
up to the Harlem. That's goin' some, ain't it? You got here just in time
for the big doin's, too. It's comin' off right now. See who's standin'
up in the truck over there? That's one of the Paulist Fathers, who's
goin' to make the speech and bless the flag. There it comes, out of that
third-story window. Wow! Hear 'em cheer."

And as the red-bordered banner with the white field is pulled out where
the searchlight strikes it we can make out the figures formed by blue
stars.

"What!" says I. "Not 217 from this one block?"

"Uh-huh!" says Minnie. "And every one of 'em a Fritzie chaser. 'Most a
whole company. But ther'd been one less if it hadn't been for Stubby,
and everybody knows there's luck in odd numbers. That's why we're so
chesty about him. Eh, Mrs. Mears?"

Yes, it was some lively affair. After the speech Mme. Toscarelli, draped
in red, white and blue, sang the Star-Spangled Banner in spite of strong
opposition from one of the bands that got the wrong cue and played
"Indianola" all through the piece. And a fat boy rolled out of a
second-story window in the Princess flats, but caromed off on an awnin'
and wasn't hurt. Also a few young hicks started some rough stuff when
the ice-cream freezers were opened, but a squad of Junior Naval League
boys soon put a crimp in that. And when we had to leave, along about
nine-thirty, it was as gay a scene as was ever staged on any West Side
block, bar none. I remarked something of the sort to Mrs. Mears.

"Yes," says she, her eyes sort of dimmin' up. "And to think that all
this should be done for my Edgar!"

At which Minnie Casey tips us the private wink. "Why not, I'd like to
know?" says she. "Just look who he is."

"Yes, of course, dear," says Mrs. Mears, smilin' satisfied.

"Can you beat that for the genuine mother stuff?" whispers Minnie,
givin' us a partin' grin.

"I do hope," says Vee, as we settles ourselves in a Long Island train
for the ride home, "that Miss Casey gets her Edgar back safe and sound."

"If she don't," says I, "she's liable to go over and tear what's left of
Germany off the map. Anyway, they'd better not get her started."




CHAPTER V

THE VAMP IN THE WINDOW


It was a case of Vee's being in town on a shoppin' orgie and my being
invited to hunt her up about lunch time.

"Let's see," she 'phoned, "suppose you meet me about 12:30 at the Maison
Noir. You know, West Fifty-sixth. And if I'm having a dress fitted on
the second floor just wait downstairs for me, will you, Torchy?"

"In among all them young lady models?" says I. "Not a chance. You'll
find me hangin' up outside. And don't make it more'n half an hour behind
schedule, Vee, for this is one of my busy days."

"Oh, very well," says she careless.

So that's how I came to be backed up in the lee of the doorway at 12:45
when this stranger with the mild blue eyes and the chin dimple eases in
with the friendly hail.

"Excuse me," says he, "but haven't we met somewhere before?"

Which is where my fatal gift for rememberin' faces and forgettin' names
comes into play. After giving him the quick up and down I had him placed
but not tagged.

"Not quite," says I. "But we lived in the same apartment buildin' a
couple of years back. Third floor west, wasn't you?"

"That's it," says he. "And I believe I heard you'd just been married."

"Yes, we did have a chatty janitor," says I. "You were there with your
mother, from somewhere out on the Coast. We almost got to the noddin'
point when we met in the elevator, didn't we?"

"If we did," says he, "that was the nearest I came to getting acquainted
with anyone in New York. It's the lonesomest hole I was ever in.
Say----"

And inside of three minutes he's told me all about it; how he'd brought
Mother on from Seattle to have a heart specialist give her a three
months' treatment that hadn't been any use, and how he'd come East alone
this time to tie up a big spruce lumber contract with the airplane
department. Also he reminds me that he is Crosby Rhodes and writes the
name of the hotel where he's stopping on his card. It's almost like a
reunion with an old college chum.

"But how do you happen to be sizin' up a show window like this?" says I,
indicatin' the Maison Noir's display of classy gowns. "Got somebody back
home that you might take a few samples to?"

His big, square-cut face sort of pinks up and his mild blue eyes take on
kind of a guilty look as he glances over his shoulder at the window.
"Not a soul," says he. "The fact is, I'm not much of a ladies' man. Been
in the woods too much, I suppose. All the same, though, I've always
thought that if ever I ran across just the right girl----" Here he
scrapes his foot and works up that fussed expression again.

"I see," says I, grinnin'. "You have the plans and specifications all
framed up and think you'd know her on sight, eh?"

Crosby nods and smiles sheepish. "It's gone further than that," says he.
"I--I've seen her."

"Well, well!" says I. "Where?"

He looks around cautious and then whispers confidential. "In that show
window."

"Eh" says I, gawpin'. "Oh! You mean you got the idea from one of the
dummies? Well, that's playin' it safe even if it is a little unique."

Crosby seems to hesitate a minute, as if debatin' whether to let it ride
at that or not, and then he goes on:

"Say," he asks, "do--do they ever put live ones in there?"

"Never heard of it's being done," says I. "Why?"

"Because," says he, "there's one in this window right now."

"You don't say?" says I. "Are you sure?"

"Step around front and I'll point her out," says he. "Now, right over in
that far--Why--why, say! She's gone!"

"Oh, come!" says I. "You've been seein' things, ain't you? Or maybe it
was only one of the salesladies in rearrangin' the display."

"No, no," says Crosby emphatic. "I tell you I had been watching her for
several minutes before I saw you, and she never moved except for a
flutter of the eyelids. She was standing back to, facing that mirror, so
I could see her face quite plainly. More than that, she could see me. Of
course, I wasn't quite sure, with all those others around. That's why I
spoke to you. I wanted to see what you'd say about her. And now she's
disappeared."

"Uh-huh!" says I. "Most likely, too, she was hauled head first through
that door in the back and if you stick around long enough maybe you'll
see her shoved in again, with a different dress on. Say, Mr. Rhodes, no
wonder you're skirt-shy if you never looked 'em over close enough not to
know the dummies from the live ones. Believe me, there's a lot of
difference."

But the josh don't seem to get him at all. He's still gawpin' puzzled
through the plate glass. Finally he goes on: "If this was the first
time, I might think you were right. But it isn't. I--I've seen her
before; several times, in fact."

"As bad as that, eh?" says I. "Then if I was you I'd look up a doctor."

"Now listen," says he. "I don't want you to think I'm foolish in the
head. I'm giving you this straight. Only you haven't heard it all yet.
You see, I've been walking past here nearly every day since I've been in
town--almost three weeks--and at about this time, between twelve-thirty
and one, getting up a luncheon appetite. And about ten days ago I got a
glimpse of this face in the mirror. Somehow I was sure it was a face I'd
seen before, a face I'd been kind of day dreaming about for a year or
more. Yes, I know that may sound kind of batty, but it's a fact. Out in
the big woods you have time for such things. Anyway, when I saw that
reflection it seemed very familiar to me. So the next day I stopped and
took a good look. She was there. And I was certain she was no dummy. I
could see her breathe. She was watching me in the glass, too. It's been
the same every time I've been past."

"Well," says I, "what then?"

"Why," says he, "whether it's someone I've known or not, I want to find
out who she is and how I can meet her for--for--Well, she's the girl."

"Gee!" says I, "you're a reg'lar Mr. Zipp-Zipp when it comes to romantic
notions, ain't you?" And I looks him over curious. As I've always held,
though, that's what you can expect from these boys with chin dimples.
It's the Romeo trade-mark, all right, and Crosby had a deep one. "But
see here," I goes on, "suppose it should turn out that you're wrong;
that this shop window siren of yours was only one of the kind with a
composition head, a figure that they blow up with a bicycle pump, and
wooden feet? Where does that leave you?"

He shrugs his shoulders. "I wish you could have seen her," says he.

"What sort of a looker?" I asks. "Blonde or brunette?"

"I don't know," says he. "She has a wonderful complexion--like old
ivory. Her hair is wonderful, too, sort of a pale gold. But her eyebrows
are quite dark, and her eyes--Ah, they're the kind you couldn't
forget--sort of a deep violet, I think; maybe you'd call 'em plum
colored."

"Listens too fancy to be true," says I. "But they do get 'em up that way
for the trade."

There's no jarrin' Crosby loose from his idea, though, and he's just
proposin' that I meet him there at twelve-thirty next day when Vee
drifts out and I has to break away. "I'll let you know if I can," says I
as I walks off.

Course, Vee wants to know who my friend is and all about it, and when
I've sketched out the plot of the piece she's quite thrilled. "How
interesting!" says she. "I do hope he finds out it's a real girl Some of
those models are simply stunning, you know. And there is such a thing
as a face haunting you. Oh, by the way! Do you remember the Stribbles?"

"Should I?" I asks.

"The janitor's family in that apartment building where we used to live,"
explains Vee.

"Stribble?" says I. "Oh, yes, the poddy old party who did all the hard
sitting around while his wife did the work. What reminded you of them?"

"I'm sure I don't know," says Vee. "But a month or so ago I saw the name
printed in an army list of returned casualty cases--there was a boy, you
know, and a girl--and I thought then that we ought to look them up and
find out. Then I forgot all about it until just a few moments ago. Let's
go there, Torchy, before we go out home tonight?"

I must say I couldn't get very much excited over the Stribbles, but on
the chance that Vee would forget again I promised, and let her tow me
into one of those cute little tea rooms where we had a perfectly punk
lunch at a dollar ten per each. But even after a three hour session
among the white goods sales Vee still remembered the Stribbles, so about
five o'clock we finds ourselves divin' into a basement that's none too
clean and are being received by a tall, skinny female with a tously mop
of sandy hair bobbed up on her head.

It seems Ma Stribble was still shovelin' most of the ashes and
scrubbin' the halls as well; while Pa Stribble, fatter than ever and in
the same greasy old togs, continues to camp in a rickety arm chair by
the front window, with a pail of suds at his right elbow. Yes, the one
mentioned in the casualty list was their Jimmy. Only he hadn't come back
a trench hero, exactly. He'd collected his blighty ticket without being
at the front at all--by gettin' mixed up with a steel girder in some
construction work. A mashed foot was the total damage, and he was having
a real good time at the base hospital; would be as good as new in a week
or so.

"Isn't that fortunate?" says Vee. "And your daughter, where is she?"

"Mame?" says Ma Stribble, scowlin' up quick. "Gawd knows where she is. I
don't."

"Why, what do you mean?" asks Vee. "She--she hasn't left home, has she?"

"Oh, she sleeps here," goes on Ma Stribble, "and comes home for some of
her meals, but the rest of the time----" Here she hunches her shoulders.

"Huh!" grunts Pa Stribble. "If you could see the way she togs herself
out--like some chorus girl. I don't know where she gets all them flossy
things and she won't tell. Paint on her face, too. It's bringin' shame
on us, I tell her."

Mrs. Stribble sighs heavy. "And we was tryin' to bring her up decent,"
says she. "I got her a job, waitin' in a lunch room up on' the Circle.
But she was too good for that. Oh, my, yes! Chucked it after the first
week. And then she began bloomin' out in fine feathers. Won't say where
she gets 'em, either. And her always throwin' up to her father about not
workin', when he's got the rheumatism so bad he can hardly walk at
times! Gettin' to be too much of a lady to live in a basement, she is.
Humph!"

It looked like Vee had started something, for the Stribbles were
knockin' Mame something fierce, when all of a sudden they quits and we
hears the street door open. A minute later and in walks a tall, willowy
young party wearin' a near-leopard throw-scarf, one of these snappy
French tams, and a neat black suit that fits her like it had been run on
hot.

If it hadn't been for the odd shade of hair and the eyes I wouldn't have
remembered her at all for the stringy, sloppy dressed flapper I used to
see going in and out with the growler or helping with the sweepin'. Mame
Stribble had bloomed out, for a fact. Also she'd learned how to use a
lip-stick and an eyebrow pencil. I couldn't say whether she'd touched up
her complexion or not. If she had it was an artistic job--just a faint
rose-leaf tint under the eyes. And I had to admit that the whole effect
was some stunnin'. Course, she's more or less surprised to see all the
comp'ny, but Vee soon explains how we've come to hear about Brother Jim
and she shakes hands real friendly.

"I suppose you are working somewhere?" suggests Vee.

Mame nods.

"Where?" asks Vee, going to the point, as usual.

Miss Stribble glances accusin' at paw and maw. "Oh, they've been
roastin' me, have they?" she demands. "Well, I can't help it. What they
want to know is how much I'm gettin' so I'll have to give up more. But
it don't work. See! I pay my board--good board, at that--and I'm not
goin' to have paw snoopin' around my place tryin' to queer me. Let him
get out and rustle for himself."

With that Mame sheds the throw-scarf and tosses her velvet tam on the
table.

"I'm so sorry," says Vee. "I didn't mean to interfere at all. And I've
no doubt you have a perfectly good situation."

"It's good enough," says Mame, "until I strike something better."

"What a cunning little hat!" says Vee, pickin' up the tam. "Such a lot
of style to it, too."

"Think so?" says Mame. "Well, I built it myself."

"Really!" says Vee. "Why, you must be very clever. I wish I could do
things like that."

Trust Vee for smoothin' down rumpled feathers when she wants to. Inside
of two minutes she had Mame smilin' grateful and holdin' her hand as she
says good-by.

"Poor girl!" says Vee, as we gets to the street. "I don't blame her for
being dissatisfied with such a father as that. And it's just awful the
way they talk about her. I'm going to see if I can't do something for
her at the shop."

"Eh?" says I. "She didn't tell you where she was working."

"She didn't need to," says Vee. "The name was in the hat lining--the
Maison Noir."

"Say, you're some grand little sleuth yourself, ain't you?" says I.

"And that explains," Vee goes on, "why I happened to remember the
Stribbles today. I must have seen her there. Yes, I'm sure I did--that
pale gold hair and the old ivory complexion are too rare to----"

"Why!" I breaks in, "that's the description Crosby Rhodes gave me of
this show window charmer of his."

"Was it?" says Vee. "Then perhaps----"

"But what could she have been doing, posin' in the window?" I asks.
"That's what gets me."

It got Vee, too. "Anyway," says she, "you must meet that Mr. Rhodes
tomorrow and tell him what you've discovered. He's rather a nice chap,
isn't he?"

"Oh, he's all right, I guess," says I. "A bit soft above the ears,
maybe, but out in the tall timber I expect he passes for a solid
citizen. I don't just see how I'm going to help him out much, though."

"I'll tell you," says Vee. "In the morning I will 'phone to Madame
Maurice that I want you to see the frock I've picked out, and you can
take Mr. Rhodes in with you."

So that's the way we worked it. I calls up Crosby, makes the date, and
we meets on the corner at twelve-thirty. He's more or less excited.

"Then you think you know who she is?" he asks.

"If you're a good describer," says I, "there's a chance that I do. But
listen: suppose she's kind of out of your class--a girl who's been
brought up in a basement, say, with a janitor for a father?"

"What do I care who her father is?" says Crosby. "I was brought up in a
lumber camp myself. All I ask is a chance to meet her."

"You sure know what you want," says I. "Come on."

"See!" he whispers as we get to the Maison Noir's show window. "She's
there!"

And sure enough, standin' back to, over in the corner facin' the mirror,
is this classy figure in the zippy street dress, with Mame Stribble's
hair and eyes. She's doin' the dummy act well, too. I couldn't see
either breath or eye flutter.

"Huh!" says I. "It's by me. Let's go in and interview Madame Maurice."

We had to waste four or five minutes while I inspects the dress Vee has
bought, and I sure felt foolish standin' there watchin' this young lady
model glide back and forth.

"I trust Monsieur approves?" asks Madame Maurice.

"Oh, sure!" says I. "Quite spiffy. But say, I noticed one in the window
that sort of took my eye--that street dress, in the corner."

"Street dress?" says the Madame, lookin' puzzled. "Is M'sieur certain?"

"Maybe I'd better point it out."

But by the time I'd towed her to the front door there was nothing of the
kind in sight.

"As I thought," says Madame. "A slight mistake."

"Looks so, don't it?" says I, as we trails back in. "But you have a Miss
Mamie Stribble working here, haven't you; a young lady with kind of
goldy hair, dark eyebrows and a sort of old ivory complexion?"

"Ah!" says the Madame. "Perhaps you mean Marie St. Ribble?"

"That's near enough," says I. "Could I have a few words with her?"

"But yes," says Madame Maurice. "It is her hour for luncheon. I will
see." With that she calls up an assistant, shoos me into a back parlor
and asks me to wait a moment, leavin' Crosby out front with his mouth
open.

And two minutes later in breezes the Madame leadin' Mame Stribble by the
arm. The lady boss seems somewhat peeved, too. "Tell me," she demands,
"is this the street dress which you observed in the window?"

"That's the very one," says I.

"Hah!" says she. "Then perhaps Marie will explain to me later. For the
present, M'sieur, I leave you."

"Sorry if I've put you in bad, Miss Stribble," says I, as the Madame
sweeps out.

"Oh, that's all right," says Mame, tossin' her chin. "She'll get over
it. And, anyway, I was takin' a chance."

"So I noticed," says I. "What was the big idea, though?"

"Just sizin' up the people who pass by," says Mame. "It's grand sport
havin' 'em stretch their necks at you and thinkin' you're just a dummy.
I got onto it one day while I was changin' a model. Course, it cuts into
my lunch time, and I have to sneak a dress out of stock, but it's kind
of fun."

"'Specially when you've got one particular young gent coming to watch
regular, eh?" I suggests.

That seems to give her sort of a jolt and for a second she stares at me,
bitin' her upper lip. "Who do you mean, now?" she asks.

"He has a chin dimple and his name's Crosby Rhodes," says I. "You've put
the spell on him for fair, too. He's out front, waiting to meet you."

"Oh, is he?" says Mame, lettin' on not to care. "And yet when he was
livin' in one of our apartments he passed me every day without seein' me
at all."

"Oh, ho!" says I. "You took notice of him, though, did you?"

Miss Stribble pinks up at that. "Yes, I did," says she. "He struck me as
a reg'lar feller, one of the kind you could tie to. And when he'd almost
step over me without noticin'--well, I'll admit that sort of hurt. I
expect that's why I made up my mind to shake the mop and pail outfit and
break in some place where I could pick up a few tricks. After a few
stabs I landed here at the Maison. I remember I had on a saggy skirt and
a shirtwaist that must have looked like it had been improvised out of a
coffee sack. It's a wonder they let me past the door. But they did. For
the first six weeks, though, they kept me in the work rooms. Then I got
one of the girls to help me evenings on a black taffeta; I saved up
enough for two pairs of silk stockin's, blew myself to some pumps with
four inch heels, and begun carryin' a vanity box. It worked. Next thing
I knew they had me down on the main floor carryin' stock to the models
and now and then displayin' misses' styles to customers. I had a hunch
I was gettin' easier to look at, but you never can tell by the way women
size you up. All they see is the dress. And in the window there I had a
chance to see whether I was registerin' with the men. That's the whole
tragic tale."

"Leaving out Crosby Rhodes."

"That's so," admits Mame. "And it was some satisfaction, bringin' him to
life."

"You've done more'n that," says I. "He's one of these guys that wants
what he wants, and goes after it strong. Just now it seems to be you."

"How inter-estin'!" says Mame. "Tell me, what's his line?"

"Airplane timber," says I. "He's from out on the Coast."

"Oh!" says she. "From one of these little
straight-through-on-Main-street burgs, I suppose?"

"Headquarters in Seattle, I understand," says I. "That's hardly on the
Tom show circuit."

"Yes, I guess I've heard of the place," says Mame. "But what's his
proposition!"

"First off," says I, "Crosby wants to get acquainted. If he has any
hymen stuff up his sleeve, I expect you'd better hear that from him
personally. The question now is, do you want to meet him?"

"Oh, I dunno," says Mame careless. "I guess I'll take a chance."

"Then forget that vanishing act of yours," says I, "and I'll run him
in."

And, honest, as I slips out of the Maison Noir and beats it for my
lunch, I felt like I'd done a day's work. What it would come to was by
me. They was off my hands, anyway.

That couldn't have been over a week ago. And here only yesterday Crosby
comes crashin' into the Corrugated general offices, pounds me
enthusiastic on the back, and announces that I'm the best friend he's
got in the world.

"Meanin', I expect," says I, "that Miss Stribble and you have been
gettin' on?"

"Old man," says Crosby, his mild blue eyes sparklin', "she's a wonderful
girl--wonderful! And within a week she's going to be Mrs. Crosby Rhodes.
We start for home just as soon as the Maison Noir can turn out her
trousseau; which is going to be some outfit, take it from me."

I hope I said something appropriate. If I didn't I expect Crosby was too
excited to notice. Also that night I carried home the bulletin to Vee.

"There!" says Vee. "I just knew, the moment I saw her, that she wasn't
at all as that horrid old man tried to make us believe."

"No," says I, "Mame's vamping was just practice stuff. A lot of it is
like that, I expect."

"But wasn't it odd," goes on Vee, "about her meeting the very man she'd
liked from the first?"

"Well, not so very," says I. "With that show window act she had the net
spread kind of wide. The only chance Crosby had of escape was by staying
out of New York, and nobody does that for very long at a time."




CHAPTER VI

TURKEYS ON THE SIDE


Say, I hope this Mr. Hoover of ours gets through trying to feed the
world before another fall. It's a cute little idea all right and ought
to get us in strong with a whole lot of people, but if he don't quit I
know of one party whose reputation as a gentleman farmer is going to be
wrecked beyond repair. And that's me.

I don't know whether it was Vee's auntie that started me out reckless on
this food producin' career, or old Leon Battou, or Mr. G. Basil Pyne.
Maybe they all helped, in their own peculiar way. Auntie's method, of
course, is by throwin' out the scornful sniff. It was while she was
payin' us a month's visit one week way last summer, out at our four-acre
estate on Long Island, that she pulls this sarcastic stuff. Havin'
inspected the baby critical without findin' anything special to kick
about, she suggests that she'd like to look over the grounds.

"Oh, yes, Torchy," chimes in Vee, "do show Auntie your garden."

Maybe you don't get that "your garden." It's only Vee's way of playin'
me as a useful and industrious citizen. Course, I did buy the seeds and
all the shiny hoes and rakes and things, and I studied up the catalogues
until I could tell the carrots from the cucumbers; but I must admit that
beyond givin' the different beds the once-over every now and then, and
pullin' up a few tomato plants that I thought was weeds, I didn't do
much more than underwrite the enterprise.

As a matter of fact, it was mostly Leon Battou, the old Frenchy who does
our cookin', that really ran the garden. Say, that old boy would have
something green growin' if he lived in the subway and had to bring down
his real estate in paper bags. It was partly on his account, you know,
that we left our studio apartment and moved out in the forty-five
minutes commutin' zone. Then, too, there was Joe Cirollo, who comes in
by the day to cut the grass and keep the flower beds slicked up, and do
the heavy spadin'. And with Vee keepin' books on what was spent and what
we got you can guess I wasn't overworked. Also it's a cinch that garden
plot just had to hump itself and make good.

Auntie ain't wise to all this, though. So she raises her eyebrows and
remarks: "A garden? Really! I should like to see it. A few radishes and
spindly lettuce, I suppose?"

"Say, come have a look!" says I.

And when I'd pointed out the half acre of potatoes, and the long rows of
corn and string beans and peas--and I hope I called 'em all by their
right names--I sure had the old girl hedgin' some. But trust her!

"With so much land, though," she goes on, "it seems to me you ought to
be raising your eggs and chickens as well."

"Oh, we've planned for all that," says I, "ducks and hens and geese and
turkeys; maybe pheasants and quail."

"Quail!" says Auntie. "Why, I didn't know one could raise quail. I
thought they----"

"When I get started raisin' things," says I, "I'm apt to go the limit."

"I shall be interested to see what success you have," says she.

"Sure!" says I. "Drop around again--next fall."

You wouldn't have thought she'd been disagreeable enough to go and
rehearse all this innocent little bluff of mine to Vee, would you? But
she does, it seems. And of course Vee has to back me up.

"But, Torchy!" she protests, after Auntie's gone. "How could you tell
her such whoppers?"

"Easiest thing I do," says I. "But who knows what we'll do next in the
nourishment producin' line? Hasn't old Leon been beggin' to go into the
duck and chicken business for months? With eggs near a dollar a dozen
maybe it would be a good scheme. And if we go in for poultry, why not
have all kinds, turkeys as well?"

So a few days later I put it up to him. Leon shakes his head. "The
chickens and the ducks, yes; but the turkey----" Here he shrugs his
shoulders desperate. "Je ne connais pas."

"You jennie what?" says I. "Ah, come, Leon, don't be a quitter."

He explains that the ways of our national bird are a complete mystery to
him. He'd as soon think of tryin' to hatch out ostriches or canaries. So
for the time being we pass up the turkeys and splurge heavy on cacklers
and quackers. Between him and Joe they fixed up part of the old carriage
shed as a poultry barracks and with a mile or so of nettin' they fenced
off a run down to the little pond. And by the middle of August we had
all sorts of music to wake us up for an early breakfast. I nearly
laughed a rib loose watchin' them baby ducks waddle around solemn, every
one with that cut-up look in his eye. Say, they're born comedians, ducks
are. I'll bet if you could translate that quack-quack patter of theirs
you'd get lines that would be a reg'lar scream on the big time circuit.

And then along in the fall we begun gettin' acquainted with our new
neighbors that had taken that cute little stucco cottage halfway down
to the station from us. The Basil Pynes, a young English couple, we
found out they were. Course, Vee started it by callin' and followin'
that up by a donation of some of our garden truck. Pretty soon we were
swappin' visits reg'lar.

I can't say I was crazy over 'em. She's a little mouse of a woman, big
eyed and quiet, but Vee seems to like her. Pyne, he's a tall, slim gink
with stooped shoulders and so short sighted that he has to wear extra
thick eyeglasses. He'd come over to work for some book publishin' house
but it seems he wrote things himself. He'd landed one book and was
pluggin' away on another; not a novel, I understands, but something
different.

"Huh!" says I to Vee. "No wonder he had to go into the lit'ry game, with
that monicker hung on him. Basil Pyne! The worst of it is, he looks it,
too."

"Now, Torchy!" protests Vee. "I'm sure you'll find him real interesting
when you know him better."

As usual, she's right. Anyway, it turns out that Basil has his good
points. For one thing he's the most entertaining listener I ever talked
to. Maybe you know the kind. Never has anything to say about himself but
whatever you start, that's what he wants to know about. And from the
friendly look in the mild gray eyes behind the thick panes, and the
earnest way he has of stretchin' his ear you'd think that what you was
tellin' him was the very thing he'd been livin' all these years to hear.
Then he has that trick of throwin' in "My word!" and "Just fancy that!"
sort of admirin' and enthusiastic, until you almost believe that you're
a lot cleverer and smarter than you'd suspected.

So when I gets on the subject of how we ducked payin' war prices for
vegetables to the local profiteers by raisin' our own he wants to know
all about it. With the help of Vee's set of books and a little promptin'
from her I gives him an earful. I even tows him down cellar and points
out the various bins and barrels full of stuff we've got stowed away for
winter. And next I has to drag him out and exhibit the poultry side
line.

"Oh, I say!" exclaims Basil. "Isn't that perfectly rippin'! You have
fresh eggs right along?"

"All we can use," says I. "And we're eatin' the he--hens whenever we
want 'em. Ducks, too."

"How clever!" says Basil. "But you Americans are always so good at
whatever you take up. And you such a hard drivin' business man, too! I
don't see how you manage it."

"Oh, it comes easy enough once you get the hang of it," says I. "As a
matter of fact, I'm only just startin' in. Next thing I mean to have is
a lot of turkeys. Might as well live high."

"Turkeys!" says Basil. "And I've heard they were so difficult to raise.
But I've no doubt you will make a huge success with them."

"Guess I'll just have to show you," says I, waggin' my head.

I was for gettin' some turkey eggs right away and rushin' along a flock
so they'd be ready by Christmas, but both Vee and Leon insists that it
can't be done. Seems it's too late in the season or something. They want
to wait until next spring.

"Not me," says I. "I've promised your Auntie I'd raise turkeys and I
gotta deliver the goods. If we can't start 'em from the seed what's the
matter with gettin' some sprouts? Ain't anybody got any young turkeys
that need bringin' up scientific?"

Well, I set Joe Cirollo to scoutin' around and inside of a week he has
connected with half a dozen. They comes in a crate as big as a piano box
and we turns 'em loose in the chicken yard. When I paid the bill I was
sure Joe had been stuck about two prices, but after I've discovered what
they're askin' for turkeys in the city markets I has to take it back.

"Oh, well," says I, "if we can fatten 'em up maybe we'll come out
winners, after all."

"Sure!" says Joe. "We maka dem biga fat."

After I'd bought a few bags of feed though, I quit figurin'. I knew that
no matter how they was cooked they'd taste of money. All I was doubtful
of now was whether they was the right breed of turkeys.

"What's all that red flannel stuff on their necks?" I asks Joe. "Ain't
got sore throats, have they!"

"Heem?" says Joe. "No, no. Dey gooda turk. All time data way."

"All right," says I, "if it's the fashion. I don't eat the neck,
anyway."

I couldn't get Leon at all excited over my gobblers, though. All he'll
do is shake his head dubious. "They walk with such pride and still they
behave so foolish," says he.

"It ain't their manners I'm fond of," says I, "so much as it is their
white meat. Even at that, when it comes to foolish notions, they've got
nothing on your ducks."

"Mais non," says Leon, meaning nothing sensible, "you do not understand
the duck perhaps. Me, I raised them as a boy in Perronne. But the
turkey! Pouff! He is what you call silly in the head. One cannot say
what they will do next. Anything may happen to such birds."

He makes such a fuss over the way they hog the grain at feedin' time
that I have to have a separate run built for 'em. You'd almost think he
was jealous. But Joe, on the other hand, treats 'em like pets. I don't
know how many times a day he feeds 'em, and he's always luggin' one up
to me to show how heavy they're gettin'. I was waitin' until they got
into top notch condition before springin' 'em on Basil Pyne. I meant to
get a gasp out of him when I did.

Finally I set a day for the private view and asked the Pynes to come
over special. Basil, he's all prepared to be thrilled as I tows him out.
"But you don't mean to say this is your first venture at turkey
raising?" he demands.

"Ab-so-lutely," says I.

"Strordinary!" says Basil.

At the end of the turkey run though I finds Joe starin' through the wire
with a panicky look on his face. "Well, Joe," says I, "anything wrong
with the flock?"

"I dunno," says he. "Maybe da go bughouse, maybe da got jag on. See!"

Blamed if it don't look like he'd made two close guesses. Honest, every
one of them gobblers was staggerin' 'round, bumpin' against each other
and runnin' into the fence, with their tails spread and their long necks
wavin' absurd. A 3 a.m. bunch of New Year's Eve booze punishers
couldn't have given a more scandalous exhibition.

"My word!" says Basil.

Course, it's up to me to produce an explanation. Which I does prompt.
"Oh, that's nothing!" says I. "They're just tryin' the duck waddle,
imitatin' their neighbors in the next run. Turkeys always do that sooner
or later if you have ducks near 'em. They keep at it until they're
dizzy."

"Really, now?" says Basil. "I never heard that before."

"Not many people have," says I. "But they'll get over it in an hour or
so. Look in tomorrow and you'll see."

Basil says he will. And after he's gone I opens the court martial.

"Joe," I demands, "what you been feedin' them turks?"

It took five minutes of cross examination before I got him to remember
that just before breakfast he'd sneaked out and swiped a pail of stuff
that he thought Leon was savin' for his ducks. And what do you guess?
Well, him and Leon had gone into the home-made wine business last fall,
utilizin' all them grapes we grew out in the back lot, and only the day
before they'd gone through the process of rackin' it from one barrel
into another. It was the stuff that was left in the bottom that Joe had
swiped for his pets.

"Huh!" says I. "And now you've not only disgraced those turkeys for life
but you've made me hand Mr. Pyne some raw nature-fakin' stuff that
nobody but a fool author would swallow."

"I mucha sorry," says Joe, hangin' his head.

"All right," says I. "I expect you meant well. But it was a bum hunch.
Now see they have plenty of water to drink and by mornin' maybe they'll
sober up."

I meant to keep an eye on 'em myself for the rest of the day, but right
after luncheon Auntie blows in again, to pay a farewell visit before
startin' South, and the turkeys slipped my mind. Not until she asks how
I'm gettin' on with my flock of quail did I remember.

"Oh, quail!" says I. "No, I had to ditch that. Couldn't get the right
sort of eggs."

Auntie smiles sarcastic. "What a pity!" says she. "But the various kinds
of poultry you were going in for? Did you----"

"Did I?" says I. "Say, you just come out and---- Well, Leon, anything
you want special?"

"Pardon, m'sieu," says old Leon, scrapin' his foot, "but--but the
turkeys."

"Yes, I know," says I. "They're doing that new trot Joe's been teaching
'em."

"But no, m'sieu," says Leon. "They have become deceased--utterly."

"Wha-a-a-at?" says I. "Oh, oh, I guess it ain't as bad as that."

"Pardon," says Leon, "but I discover them steef, les pieds dans le ciel.
Thus!" And he illustrates by holdin' both hands above his head.

"Perhaps it would be best to investigate," suggests Auntie. "I have no
doubt Leon is right. Turkeys require expert care and handling, and when
you were so sure of raising them I quite expected something like this."

"Yes, I know you did," says I. "Anyway, let's take a look."

And there they were, all six of 'em, with their feet in the air, and as
stiff as if they'd just come from cold storage.

"Like somebody had thrown in a gas attack on 'em," says I. "Good night,
turks! You sure did make it unanimous, didn't you?"

I expect my smile was kind of a sickly performance, for the last person
I'd have wanted to be in on the obsequies was Auntie. I will say,
though, that she don't try to rub it in. No, she tells of similar cases
she's known of when she was a girl, about whole flocks bein' poisoned by
something they'd found to eat.

"The only thing to do now," says she, "is to save the feathers."

"Eh?" says I, gawpin'.

"The long tail and wing feathers can be used for making fans and
trimming hats," says Auntie, "while the smaller ones are excellent for
stuffing pillows. They must be picked at once."

"Oh, I'm satisfied to call 'em a total loss," says I.

Auntie wouldn't have it, though. She sends Leon for a big apron and a
couple of baskets and has me round up Joe to help. When I left they
were all three busy and the turkey feathers were coming off fast. All
there was left for me to do was to go in and break the sad news to Vee.

"As a turkey raiser, I'm a flivver," says I.

"But I can't see that it's your fault at all," says Vee.

"Can't you?" says I. "Ask Auntie."

If the next day hadn't been Sunday, I could have sneaked off to town and
dodged the little talk Auntie insists on givin' about the folly of
amateurs tacklin' jobs they know nothing about. As it is I has to stick
around and take the gaff. Then about ten o'clock Basil Pyne has to show
up and reopen the subject.

"Oh, by the way," says he, "how are the turkeys this morning? Are they
still practicing that wonderful duck walk you were telling me about?"

Auntie has just fixed an accusin' eye on me, and I was wonderin' if it
would be any sin to take Basil out back somewhere and choke him, when in
rushes old Leon with a wild look on his face. He's so excited that he's
almost speechless and all he can get out is a throaty gurgle.

"For the love of soup, let's have it," says I. "What's gone wrong now?"

"O-o-o la la!" says Leon. "O-o-o la la!"

"That's right, sing it if you can't say it," says I.

"Parbleu! Nom de Dieu! Les dindons!" he gasps.

"Ah, can the ding-dong stuff, Leon," says I, "and let's hear the English
of it."

"The--the turkeys!" he pants out.

And that did get a groan out of me. "Once more!" says I. "Say, have a
heart! Can't anybody think of a more cheerful line? Turkeys! Well, shoot
it. They're still dead, I suppose?"

"But no," says Leon. "They--they have return to life."

"Oh come, Leon!" says I. "You must have been sampling some of them wine
dregs yourself. Do you mean to say----"

"If M'sieu would but go and observe," puts in Leon. "Me, I have seen
them with my eye. Truly they are as in life."

"Why, after we picked them last night I saw you throw them over the
fence," says I.

"Even so," says Leon. "But come."

Well, this time we had a full committee--Vee, Auntie, Basil, Madame
Battou, old Leon and myself--and we all trails out to the back lot. And
say, once again Leon is right. There they are, all huddled together on
the lowest branch of a bent-over apple tree and every last one of 'em as
shy of feathers as the back of your hand. It's the most indecent poultry
exhibit I ever saw.

"My word!" says Basil, starin' through his thick glasses.

"That don't half express it, Basil," says I.

"But--but what happened to them?" he insists.

"I hate to admit it," says I, "but they had a party yesterday. Uh-huh.
Wine dregs. And they got soused to the limit--paralyzed. Then, on the
advice of a turkey expert"--here I glances at Auntie--"we decided that
they were dead, and we picked 'em to conserve their feathers. Swell
idea, eh? Just a little mistake about their being utterly deceased, as
Leon put it. They were down, but not out. Look at the poor things now,
though."

And then Vee has to snicker. "Aren't they just too absurd!" says she.
"See them shiver."

"I should think they'd be blushin'," says I. "What's the next move?" I
asks Auntie. "Do I put in steam heat for 'em?"

It takes Auntie a few minutes to recover, but when she does she's right
there with the bright little scheme. "We must make jackets for them,"
says she.

"Eh?" says I.

"Certainly," she goes on. "They'll freeze if we don't. And it's
perfectly practical. Of course, I've never seen it done, but I'm sure
they'll get along just as well if their feathers were replaced by
something that will keep them warm."

"Couldn't get the Red Cross ladies to knit sweaters for 'em, could we?"
I suggests.

Auntie pays no attention to this, but asks Vee if she hasn't some old
flannel shirts, or something of the kind.

Well, while they're plannin' out the new winter styles of turkey
costumes, Joe and Leon rigs up a wood stove in their coop, shoos the
flock in, and proceeds to warm 'em up. They took turns that night
keeping the fire going, I understand.

And when I comes home Monday afternoon from the office I ain't even
allowed to say howdy to the youngster until I've been dragged out and
introduced triumphant to the only flock of custom-tailored turkeys in
the country. Auntie and Vee and Madame Battou sure had done a neat job
of costumin', considerin' the fact that they'd had no paper patterns to
go by. But somehow they'd doped out a one-piece union suit cut high in
the neck with sort of a knickerbocker effect to the lower end. Mostly
they seemed to have used an old near-silk quilted bathrobe of mine, but
I also recognized a khaki army shirt that I had no notion of throwin' in
the discard yet awhile. And if you'll believe it them gobblers was
struttin' around as chesty as if they hadn't lost a feather.

"Aren't they just too cute for anything?" demands Vee.

"Worse than that," says I, "they look almost as human as so many
floor-walkers. I hope they ain't going to be hard on clothes, for my
wardrobe wouldn't stand many such raids."

"Oh, don't worry about that," says Vee. "We shall be eating one every
week or so."

"Then don't let me know when the executions take place," says I. "As for
me, I shouldn't feel like tellin' Joe to kill one without an order from
the High Sheriff of the county."

And say, if I'm ever buffaloed into buyin' any more live turkeys, I'm
going to demand a written guarantee that they're Prohibitionists.




CHAPTER VII

ERNIE AND HIS BIG NIGHT


I'm kind of glad I was with Ernie when he had his big night. If I hadn't
been I never would have believed it of him. Not if he'd produced
affidavits. No! It would have been too much of a strain on the
imagination.

For somehow it's hard to connect Ernie with anything like that, even
when I've seen what I have. You could almost tell that, just by his
name--Ernest Sudders. And when I add that he's assistant auditor in the
Corrugated offices you ought to have the picture complete. You know what
assistant auditors are like.

Ernie ran true to type. And then some. I expect there was one or two
other things he might have been; such as manager of a gift shop, or
window dresser for the misses' department, or music teacher in a girls'
boarding school. But I doubt if he'd ever been such a success as he was
at the high desk. Seemed like he was born to be an assistant auditor. He
was holding the job when I first came to the Corrugated as sub office
boy; he still has it, and I can think of only one party that could pry
him loose from it--the old boy with the long scythe.

For one thing, Ernie gives all his time to being assistant auditor. Not
just office hours. I'll bet he's one even in his sleep. He looks the
part, dresses the part, thinks the part. He don't work at it, he lives
it. Talk about this four dimension stuff. Ernie gets along with two--up
the column from the bottom, and both ways from the decimal point.

Not such a bad-lookin' chap, Ernie, only a bit stiff from the waist up.
You know, like he had his spine in a cast. Then there's the neck-apple.
Ernie fits his into a high white wing collar and sets it off with a
black ascot tie and a pearl stickpin. Also he sports the only black
cutaway that's worn reg'lar into the General Offices. Oh, yes, Ernie
could go on at a minute's notice as best man or pall-bearer. I don't
mean he's often called on to be either. He only wears that costume
because that's his idea of how an assistant auditor should be arrayed.

One of these super-system birds, Ernie is. He could turn out an annual
report every Saturday if the directors asked for it. Never has to hunt
for a bunch of stray figures. He has everything cross-indexed neat and
accurate. He's that way about everything, always a spare umbrella and an
extra pair of rubbers in his locker, and he carries a pearl-handle
penknife in a chamois case.

But in spite of all that I'm sorry to state that around the Corrugated
Ernie is rated as a walking joke. We all josh him, even up to Old
Hickory Ellins. The only ones he ever seems to mind much though are the
lady typists. The hardest thing he does during the day is when he has to
walk past that battery of near-vamps, for they never fail to lay down a
rolling eye barrage that gets him pink in the ears.

Course, having noticed that, I generally use it as my cue for passing
pleasant words to Ernie. "Honest now," I'll ask him, "which one of them
Lizzie Mauds are you playin' as favorite these days, Ernie?"

And Ernie, he'll color up like a fire hydrant and protest: "Now, say,
Torchy! You know very well I've never spoken to one of them."

"Yes, you tell it well," I'll say, "but I'm onto you, old sport."

I don't know how long I've been shooting stuff like that at Ernie, and
it always gets him going. I have a hunch, though, that he kind of likes
it. These skirt-shy boys usually do. And as a matter of fact I expect
the only female he ever looked square in the eye is that old maid sister
of his that he lives with somewhere over in Jersey.

So this night when we were doing overtime together at the office and it
was a case of going out for dinner I'd planned to slip a little
something on Ernie by towin' him to a joint where the lights were
bright and they were apt to have silver buckets on the floor. I was
hoping he might see some perfect lady light up a cigarette, or maybe
give him a cut-up glance over the top of her fizz goblet. It would be
cheerin' to watch Ernie tryin' to let on he didn't notice.

He'd already called Sister on the long distance telephone and told her
not to wait up for him, explainin' just what it was we was workin' on
and how we might not be through until quite late. And Sister had advised
him to be sure to wear his silk muffler and not to sleep past his
station if he had to take the 11:48 out.

"Gosh, Ernie!" says I. "If you 're that way now what'll you be when
you're married?"

"But I hadn't thought of getting married," says he. "Really!"

"Yes," says I, "and you silent, thoughtless boys are the very ones who
jump into matrimony unexpected. Some evenin' you'll meet just the right
babidoll and the next thing we know you'll be sendin' us at home cards.
You act innocent enough in public, but I'll bet you're a bear when it
comes to workin' up to a quick clinch behind the palms."

Ernie almost gasps with horror at the thought.

"Oh, I wouldn't put it past you," says I. "I expect, though, you'd like
to have me class you among the great unkissed?"

"As a matter of fact," says Ernie solemn, "I have never--Well, not
since I was a mere boy, at least. It--it's just happened so."

"And you past thirty!" says I. "What a long spell to be out of luck!"

So I suggests that we work through until about 7:45 and then hit the
Regal roof for a $2 feed and a view of some of this fancy skatin'
they're pullin' off there. But that ain't Ernie's plan at all. He has
his mouth all set for an oyster stew and a plate of crullers down in the
Arcade beanerie.

"Ah, forget your old automatic habits for once," says I. "This dinner is
on the house, you know, so why not make it a reg'lar one? Come along."

And for a wonder I persuades him to do it. I expect this idea of
chargin' it on the expense account hadn't occurred to him.

Anyway, that's how it come we were piking through West Forty-fifth
Street with the first of the theater crowds, Ernie still protestin' that
he really didn't care for this sort of thing--cabaret stunts and all
that--and me kiddin' him along as usual, sayin' I'll bet the head waiter
would call him by his first name, when the net is cast sudden over
Ernie's head.

I don't know which one of us saw her first. All I'm sure of is that we
both sort of slowed up and did the gawp act. You could hardly blame us,
for here in a taxi by the curb is--Well, it would take Robert Chambers a
page and a half at twenty cents a word to do her full justice, so I'll
just say she was a lovely lady.

No, I ain't gettin' her mixed with any of Mr. Ziegfeld's stars, nor she
ain't any broker's bride plucked from the switch-board. She's the real
thing in the lady line, though how I knew it's hard to tell. Also she's
a home-grown siren that works without the aid of a lip-stick, permanent
wave, or an eyebrow pencil. Anyway, here she is leaning through the taxi
door and shootin' over the alluring smile.

I couldn't quite believe it was meant for either of us until I'd scouted
around to see if there wasn't someone else in line. No, there wasn't.
And as Ernie is nearest, course I knows it's for him.

"Ah, ha!" says I. "Who's your friend with the golden tresses?"

That's what they were, all right. You don't see hair like that every
day, and it ain't the shade which can be produced at a beauty parlor.
It's the 18-karat kind, done up sort of loose and careless, but all the
more dangerous for that. And with that snowy white complexion, except
for the pink flush on the cheeks, and the big, starry blue eyes, she
sure is a stunner.

"Do--do you think she means me?" whispers Ernie husky, as we stop in our
tracks.

"Ah come!" says I. "This is no time to stall. If she hadn't spotted you
direct you might have let on you didn't see her, and strolled back
after you'd given me the slip. As it is, Ernie, I've got the goods on
you for once and you might as well----"

"But I--I don't know her at all," insists Ernie.

Just then, though, she reaches out a pair of bare arms and remarks real
folksy: "At last you've come, haven't you?"

"Seems to be fairly well acquainted with you, though, Ernie boy," says
I.

As for Ernie, he just stands there starin' bug-eyed and gaspy, as if he
didn't know what to do. Course, I couldn't tell why. I knew he always
had acted like a poor prune when he was kidded by the flossy key
pounders in the office, but almost any nut could see this was an
entirely different case. Here was a regular person, all dolled up in a
classy evening gown, with a fur-trimmed opera cape slippin' off her
shoulders. And she was givin' him the straight call.

"But--but there must be some mistake," protests Ernie.

"If there is," says I, "it's up to you to put the lady wise. You can't
walk off and leave her with her hands in the air, can you? Ah, don't be
a fish! Step up."

With that I gives him a push and Ernie staggers over to the curb.

"It's been so long," I hears the lady murmur, "but I knew you would
remember. Come."

What Ernie said then I didn't quite catch, but the next thing I knew
he'd been dragged in, the chauffeur had got the signal, and as the taxi
started off toward Fifth Avenue I had a glimpse of what looked very much
like a fond clinch, with Ernie as the clinchee.

And there I am left with my mouth open. I expect I hung up there fully
ten minutes, tryin' to dope out what had happened. Had Ernie just been
stallin' me off tryin' to establish an alibi? Or was it a case of poor
memory? No, that didn't seem likely. She wasn't the kind of a female
party a man could forget easy, if he'd ever really known her. Specially
a gink like Ernie who'd had such a limited experience. Nor she wasn't
the type that would go out cruisin' in a cab after perfect strangers.
Not her. Besides, hadn't she recognized Ernie on sight? Then there was
the quick clinch. No discountin' that. Whoever it was it's somebody who
don't hesitate to hug Ernie right in public. And yet he sticks to it,
right up to the last, that he don't know her. Well, I gave it up.

"Either he's a foxier sport than we've been givin' him credit for,"
thinks I, "or else the lady has made the mistake of her life. If she has
she'll soon find it out and Ernie will be trailing back on the hunt for
me."

But after walkin' up and down the block three times without seeing
anything that looked like Ernie I dodges into a chop-house and has a
bite all by my lonesome. Then I wanders back to the general offices and
tries to wind up what we'd been workin' on. But I couldn't help
wondering about Ernie. Had he just plain buffaloed me, or what? If he
had, who was his swell lady friend? And how did she come to be waitin'
there in the taxi? By the way she was costumed she might have been on
her way to some dinner dance on Fifth Avenue. That was a perfectly
spiffy evening dress she had on, what there was of it. And I could
remember jewels sparklin' here and there. Course, she was no chicken;
somewhere under thirty would have been my guess, but she sure was easy
to look at. Such eyes, too! Yes, a little starry maybe, but big and
sparkly. No wonder Ernie didn't care to look at any of our lady typists
if he had that in the background.

So I wasn't gettin' ahead very fast untanglin' them dockage contracts,
and before 11 o'clock I was yawning. I'd just decided to quit and loaf
around the station until the theater train was ready when I hears an
unsteady step in the outer office and the next minute in blows Ernie.

That is, it's somebody who looks a little as Ernie did three hours
before. But his derby is busted in on one side, one end of his wing
collar has been carried away and is ridin' up towards his left ear, his
coat is all dusty, and his face is flushed up like a new fire truck.

"For the love of soup!" says I, gaspy. "Must have been some party?"

Ernie, he braces himself by grippin' a chair-back and makes a stab at
recoverin' his usual stiff-neck pose. But it's a flat failure. So he
gives up, waves one hand around vague, and indulges in a foolish smile.

"Wha'--wha' makes you think sho--party?" he demands.

"I got second sight, Ernie," says I, "and it tells me you've been
spilled off the wagon."

"You--you think I--I've been drinkin'?" asks Ernie indignant.

"Oh, no," says I. "I should say you'd been using a funnel."

"Tha's--tha's because you have 'spischus nashur'," protests Ernie.
"Merely few glasshes. You know--bubblesh in stem."

"Champagne, eh?" says I. "Then it was a reg'lar party? Ernie, I am
surprised at you."

"You--you ain't half so shurprised as--as I am myshelf," says he,
chucklin'. "Tha's what I told Louishe."

"Oh, you mentioned it to Louise, did you?" says I. "I expect that was
the lovely lady who carted you off in the taxi?"

He nods and springs another one of them silly smiles. "Tha's ri'," says
he. "The lovely Louishe."

"Tell me, Ernie," says I, "how long has this been going on?"

And what do you suppose this fathead has the front to spring on me? That
this was the first time he'd ever seen her. Uh-huh! He sticks to that
tale. Even claims he don't know what the rest of her name is.

"Louishe, tha's all," says he. "Th' lovely Louishe."

"Oh, very well," says I. "We'll let it ride at that. And I expect she
picked you out all on account of your compelling beauty? Must have been
a sudden case, from the fond clinch I saw you gettin' as the cab
started."

Ernie closed his eyes slow, like he was goin' over the scene again, and
then remarks: "Thash when I begun to be surprished. Louishe has most
affec-shanate nashur."

"So it would seem," says I. "But where did the party take place?"

That little detail appears to have escaped Ernie. He remembered that
there were pink candles on the table, and music playing, and a lot of
nice people around. Also that the waiter's head was shiny, like an egg.
He thought it must have been at some hotel on Fifth Avenue. Yes, they
went in through a sidewalk canopy. It was a very nice dinner,
too--'specially the pheasant and the parfait in the silver cup. And it
was so funny to watch the bubbles keep coming up through the glass stem.

"Yes," says I, "that's one of New York's favorite winter sports. But
who was all this on--Louise?"

"She insists I'm her guesh," says Ernie.

"That made it very nice, then, didn't it?" says I. "But none of this
accounts for the dent in your hat and the other rough-house signs.
Somebody must have got real messy with you at some stage in the game.
Remember anything about that?"

"Oh!" says Ernie, stiffenin' up and tryin' to scowl. "Most--most
disagreeable persons. Actually rude."

"Who and where?" I insists.

"Louishe's family," says Ernie. "I--I don't care for her family. No.
Sorry, but----"

"Mean to say Louise took you home after dinner?" says I.

Ernie nods. "Wanted me to meet family," says he. "Dear old daddy,
darling mother, sho on. 'Charmed,' says I. I was willing to meet anyone
then. Right in the mood. 'Certainly,' says I. Feeling friendly. Patted
waiter on back, waved to orchestra leader, shook handsh with perfect
stranger going out. Went to lovely house, uptown somewhere. Fine ol'
butler, fine ol' rugsh in hall, tapeshtries on wall. And then--then----"

Ernie slumps into a chair, pushes the loose collar end away from his
chin fretful, and indulges in a deep sigh. I expect he thinks he's told
the whole story.

"I take it," says I, "that you did meet dear old daddy?"

"Washn't so very old, at thash," says Ernie. "No. Nor such a dear.
Looksh like--like Teddy Roosh'velt. Behavesh like Teddy, too.
Im--impeshuous. Very firsh thing he says is, 'And who the devil are
you?' 'Guesh?' I tells him. 'Give you three guesshes.' He--he's no good
as guessher, daddy. Grabsh me by the collar. 'You, you loafer!' says he.
Then the lovely Louishe comes to rescue. 'Can't you see, daddy?' she
tells him. 'It's Ernie. Found him at lash.' 'Ernie who?' demandsh daddy.
'I--I forget,' says Louishe. 'Bah!' saysh daddy. 'Lash time it was
Harold, wasn't it?' 'Naughty, naughty!' saysh I. 'Mustn't tell talesh.
Bad form, daddy. Lessh all be calm now and--and we'll tell you about
dinner--bubblesh in the glass, 'n'everything. Louishe and I. Lovely
girl, Louishe. Affecshonate nashur.' And thash as far as I got.
Different nashur, daddy."

"I gather that he didn't insist on your staying?" says I.

No, he hadn't. As near as I could make out dear old daddy took a firm
grip on Ernie in two places, and while the fine old butler held the
front door open he got more impetuous than ever. As Ernie tells me about
it he rubs himself reminiscent and gazes sorrowful at his dented derby.

"Mosh annoying," says he. "Couldn't even shay good night to lovely
Louishe."

"Oh, well," says I. "You can make up for that when you pay your dinner
call. By the way, where was this home of the lovely Louise?"

Ernie doesn't know. When he'd arrived he was too busy to notice the
street and number, and when he came out he was too much annoyed. Also he
didn't remember having heard Louise's last name.

"Huh!" says I. "Except for that everything is all clear, eh? It strikes
me, Ernie, as if you'd worked up a perfectly good mystery. You've been
kidnapped by a lovely lady, had a swell dinner, with plenty of fizz on
the side, been introduced to a strong-arm father, and finished on the
sidewalk with your lid caved in. And for an assistant auditor who
blushes as easy as you do that's what I call kind of a large evening."

Ernie nods. Then he chuckles to himself, sort of satisfied, and remarks
mushy: "Lovely girl, Louishe."

"Yes, we've admitted all that," says I. "But who the blazes is she?"

Ernie rumples his hair thoughtful and then shakes his head.

"But during all that time didn't she say anything about herself, or give
you any hint?" I goes on.

Ernie can't remember that she did.

"What was all the chat about?" I demands.

"Oh, everything," says Ernie. "She--she said she'd been looking for me
long timesh. Knew me by--by my eyesh."

"How touching!" says I. "That must have been during the clinch."

"Yes," says Ernie. "But nexsh time----"

"Say," I breaks in, "if you don't know what her name is, or where she
lives, how do you figure on a next time?"

"Thash so," says Ernie. "Too bad."

"Still," says I, "the kiss stringency in your young career has been
lifted, hasn't it? And now it's about time I fixed you up and towed you
out to a hotel where you can hit the feathers for about ten hours. My
hunch is that a pitcher of ice water is going to look mighty good to you
in the morning. And maybe by tomorrow noon you can remember more details
about Louise than you can seem to dig up now."

You can't always tell about these birds who surprise you that way. I was
only an hour late in getting to the office myself next day, but I finds
Ernie at his desk looking hardly any the worse for wear, and grinding
away as usual. He looks a little sheepish when I ask him if Louise has
'phoned him yet.

"S-s-sh!" says he, glancin' around cautious. "Please!"

"Oh, sure!" says I. "Trust me. I'm no sieve. But I'm wondering if
you'll ever run across her again."

"I--I don't know," says Ernie. "It all seems so vague and queer. I can't
recall much of anything except that Louise---- Well, she did show rather
a fondness for me, you know; and perhaps, some time or other----"

"Yes," says I, "lightnin' does occasionally strike twice in the same
place. But not often, Ernie."

He's a wonder, Ernie is. Seems satisfied to let it go as it stands,
without trying to dope anything out. But me, I can't let anybody bat a
mystery like that up to me without going through a few Sherlock Holmes
motions. So that evening finds me wandering through Forty-fifth Street
again at about the same hour. Not that I expected to find the same
lovely lady ambushed in a cab. I don't know just what I was looking for.

And then, all of a sudden, I gets my eye on this yellow taxi. It's an
odd shade of yellow, something like a pale squash pie; a big, lumbering
old bus that had been repainted by some amateur. And I was willing to
bet there wasn't another in town just like it. Also it's the one Ernie
had stepped into the night before, for there's the same driver wearing
the identical square-topped brown derby. Only there's no Louise waiting
inside.

They're a shifty bunch, these independents. Some you can hire for a
bank robbing job or a little act with gun play in it, and some you
can't. This mutt looked like he'd be up to anything. But when I asks him
if he remembers the lady in the evening dress he had aboard last night
he just looks stupid and shakes his head.

"Oh, it's all right," says I. "No come-back to it."

"Mebby so," says he, "but my big line, son, is forgettin' things."

"Would this help your memory any?" says I, slippin' him a couple of
dollars.

He grins and stows it away the kale. "Aw, you mean the party with the
wild eyes, eh?" he asks.

"Uh-huh!" says I. "I was just curious to know where you picked her up."

"That's easy," says he. "She came out of there, third door above. I get
most of my fares from there."

"Oh," says I, steppin' out for a squint. "Looks like a private house."

"It's private, all right," says he, "but it's a home for dippy ones. You
know," and he taps his head. "She's a sample. I've had her before. They
slip out now and then. Last night she made her getaway through the
basement door. I expect she's back by now."

"Yes," says I, "I expect she is."

And I don't need to ask any more. The mystery of the lovely Louise has
been cleared up complete.

First off I was going to tell Ernie all about it, but when I saw him
sitting there at his high desk, gazin' sort of blank at nothing at all
and kind of smilin' reminiscent, I didn't have the heart. Instead, I
asks confidential, as usual:

"Any word yet from Louise?"

"Not yet," says Ernie, "but then----"

"I get you," says I. "And I got to hand it to you, Ernie; you're a cagey
old sport, even if you don't look it."

He don't deny. Hadn't I seen him start on his big night? And say, he's
gettin' so he can walk past that line of lady typists and give 'em the
once over without changin' color in the ears. He's almost skirt broken,
Ernie is.




CHAPTER VIII

HOW BABE MISSED HIS STEP


What Babe Cutler was plannin' certainly listened like a swell party--the
kind you read about. He was going to round up three other sports like
himself, charter a nice comfortable yacht, and spend the winter knockin'
about in the West Indies, with a bunch of bananas always hangin' under
the deck awning aft and a cabin steward forward mixing planter's punch
every time the sun got over the yard arm.

"The lucky stiff!" thinks I, as I heard him runnin' over some of the
details to Mr. Robert, who he thinks can maybe be induced to join.

"Oh, come along, Bob!" says he. "We'll stop off for a look at Palm Beach
on the way down, hang up a few days at Knight's Key for shark fishing,
then run over to Havana for a week of golf, drop around to Santiago and
cheer up Billy Pickens out on his blooming sugar plantation, cross over
to Jamaica and have some polo with the military bunch up at
Newcastle--little things like that. Besides, we can always have a game
of deuces wild going evenings and----"

"No use, Babe," breaks in Mr. Robert. "It can't be done. That sort of
thing is all well enough for a foot-loose old bach such as you, but with
me it's quite different."

"The little lady at home, eh?" says Babe. "I'll bet she'd be glad to get
rid of you for a couple of months."

"Flatterer!" says Mr. Robert. "And I suppose you think I wouldn't be
missed from the Corrugated Trust, either?"

"I'll bet a hundred you could hand your job over to Torchy here and the
concern would never know the difference," says Babe, winkin' friendly at
me. "Anyway, don't turn me down flat. Take a day or so to think it
over."

And with that Mr. Cutler climbs into his mink-lined overcoat, slips me a
ten spot confidential as he passes my desk, and goes breezin' out
towards Broadway. The ten, I take it, is a retainer for me to boost the
yachtin' enterprise. I shows it to Mr. Robert and grins.

"There's only one Babe," says he. "He'd offer a tip to St. Peter, or
suggest matching quarters to see whether he was let in or barred out."

"He's what I'd call a perfect sample of the gay and careless sport,"
says I. "How does it happen that he's escaped the hymeneal noose so
long?"

"Because marriage has never been put up to him as a game, a sporting
proposition in which you can either win or lose out," says Mr. Robert.
"He thinks it's merely a life sentence that you get for not watching
your step. Just as well, perhaps, for Babe isn't what you would call
domestic in his tastes. Give him a 'Home, Sweet Home' motto and he'd
tack it inside his wardrobe trunk."

I expect that's a more or less accurate description, for Mr. Robert has
known him a long time. And yet, you can't help liking Babe. He ain't one
of these noisy tin-horns. He dresses as quiet as he talks, and among
strangers he'd almost pass for a shy bank clerk having a day off. He's
the real thing though when it comes to pleasant ways of spending time
and money; from sailing a 90-footer in a cup race, to qualifying in the
second flight at Pinehurst. No shark at anything particular, I
understand, but good enough to kick in at most any old game you can
propose.

Also he's an original I. W. W. Uh-huh. Income Without Work. That was
fixed almost before he was born, when his old man horned in on a big
mill combine and grabbed off enough preferred stock to fill a packing
case. Maybe you think you have no interest in financin' Babe Cutler's
career. But you have. Can't duck it. Every time you eat a piece of
bread, or a slice of toast or a bit of pie crust you're contributin' to
Babe's dividends. And he knows about as much how flour is made as he
does about gettin' up in the night to warm a bottle for little
Tootsums. Which isn't Babe's fault any more than it's yours. As he'd
tell you himself, if the case was put up to him, it's all in the
shuffle.

He must have had some difficulty organizin' his expedition, for that
same afternoon, when I eases myself off the 4:03 at Piping Rock--having
quit early, as a private sec-de-luxe should now and then--who should
show up at the station but Mr. Cutler in his robin's-egg blue sport
phaeton with the white wire wheels.

"I say," he says, "didn't Bob come out, too?"

"No," says I. "I think he and Mrs. Ellins have a dinner party on in
town."

"Bother!" says Babe. "I was counting on him for an hour or so of
billiards and another go at talking up the cruise. We'll land him yet,
eh, Torchy? Hop in and I'll run you out home."

So I climbs aboard, Babe opens the cut-out, and we make a skyrocket
start.

"How about swinging around the country club and back through the middle
road? No hurry, are you?" he asks.

"Not a bit," says I, glancin' at the speedometer, which was touchin'
fifty.

"Nor I," says Babe. "I'm spending my annual week-end with Sister Mabel,
you know. Good old scout, Mabel, but I can't say I enjoy visiting there.
Runs her house too much for the children. Only three of 'em, but
they're all over the place--climbing on you, mauling you, tripping you
up. Nurses around, too. Regular kindergarten effect. And the youngsters
are always being bathed, or fed, or put to sleep. So I try to keep out
of the way until dinner."

"I see," says I. "You ain't strong for kids?"

"Oh, I don't mind 'em when they're kept in their place," says Babe. "But
when they insist on giving you oatmealy kisses, or paw you with sticky
fingers--no, thanks. Can't tell Mabel that, though. She seems to think
they are all little wonders. And Dick is just as bad--rushes home early
every afternoon so he can have half an hour with 'em. Huh!"

"Maybe you'll feel different," says I, "if you ever collect a family of
your own."

"Me?" says Babe. "Fat chance!"

I couldn't help agreein' with him. I could see now why he'd shied
matrimony so consistent. With sentiments like that he'd looked on Sister
Mabel as a horrible example. Besides, followin' sports the way he did, a
wife and kids wouldn't fit in at all.

We'd made half the circle and was tearing along the middle road on the
back stretch at a Vanderbilt cup gait when all of a sudden Babe jams on
the emergency and we skids along until we brings up a few yards beyond
where this young lady is flaggin' us frantic with a pink-lined
throw-scarf.

"What the deuce!" asks Babe, starin' back.

"Looks like a help wanted hail," says I. "She's got a bunch of
youngsters with her and--yep, one of 'em is all gory. See!"

"O Lord!" groans Babe. "Well, I suppose I must."

As he backs up the machine I stretches my neck around and takes a look
at this wayside group. Three little girls are huddled panicky around
this young party who wears a brown velvet tam at such a rakish angle on
top of her wavy brown hair. And cuddled up in her left arm she's holdin'
a chubby youngster whose face is smeared with blood something startlin'.

"You don't happen to be a doctor, do you?" she demands of Babe.

"Heavens, no!" says he.

"But perhaps you know what to do to stop nose bleeding?" she goes on.

"Why, let's see," says Babe. "Oh, yes! Put a cold door key on the back
of his neck."

"Or a piece of brown paper on his tongue," I adds.

The young lady shrugs her shoulders disappointed. "I've tried all that,"
says she, "and an ice pack, too. But it's no use. I must get him to a
doctor right away. There's one about a mile down this road. Couldn't you
take us?"

"Sure thing!" says Babe. "Torchy, you can hang on the back, can't you?"

"Oh, I can walk home," says I.

"No, no," says Babe, hasty. "You--you'd best come along."

So I helps load in the young lady and the claret drippin' youngster,
drapes myself on the spare tires, and we're off.

"Is it little brother?" asks Babe, glancin' at the kid.

"Mine?" says the young lady. "Of course not. I'm Lucy Snell--one of the
teachers at the public school back there at the cross-roads. Some of the
children always insist on walking part way home with me, especially
little Billy here. Usually he behaves very nicely, but today he seems to
be out of luck. His nose started leaking fully half an hour ago. He must
have leaked quarts and quarts, all over himself and me. You wouldn't
think he could have a drop left in him. I was just about crazy when I
saw you coming. There's Dr. Baker's house on the right around that next
curve. And say, there's some speed to this bus of yours, Mr.--er----"

"Cutler," says Babe. "Here we are. Anything more I can do?"

"Why," says Miss Snell, as I'm unbuttonin' the door for her, "you might
stick around a few minutes to see if he wants little Billy taken to the
hospital or anything. I'll let you know." And with that she trips in.

"Lively young party, eh?" I remarks to Babe. "Don't mind askin' for what
she wants."

"Perfectly all right, too," says he, "in a case like this. She isn't one
of the helpless kind. Some pep to her, I'll bet. Lucy, eh? I always did
like that name."

I had to chuckle. "What about the Snell part?" says I. "That one of your
favorite names, too?"

"N--n--no," says Babe. "But she'll probably change that some of these
days. She's the sort that does, you know."

"I expect you are right, at that," I agrees.

Pretty soon out she comes again, calm and smilin'. It's some smile she
has, by the way. Wide and generous and real folksy. And now that the
scare has faded out of her eyes they have more or less snap to 'em.
They're the bright brown kind, that match her hair, and the freckles
across the bridge of her nose.

"It's all right," says she. "Dr. Baker says the ice pack did the trick.
And he'll take Billy home as soon as he's cleaned him up a bit. Thanks,
Mr. Cutler."

"Oh, I might as well drive you home, too, and finish the job," says
Babe.

"Well, I'm not missing anything like that, I can tell you," says Miss
Snell. "I'm simply soaked with that youngster's gore. But I live way
back on the other road. My! Billy dripped some on your seat cushions,
didn't he?"

"Oh, that will wash out," says Babe careless. "You're fond of
youngsters, I suppose?"

"Well, in a way I am," says she. "I'm used to 'em anyway, being one of
six myself. That's why I'm out teaching--makes one less for Dad to have
to rustle for. He keeps the little plumber's shop down opposite the
station. You've seen the sign--T. Snell."

"I've no doubt I have," says Babe. "And you--you like teaching, do you?"

"Why, I can't say I'm dead in love with it," says Miss Snell. "Not this
second grade stuff, anyway. It's all I could qualify for, though. This
is my second year at it. I don't suppose you ever taught second grade
yourself, did you?"

Babe almost gasps, but admits that he never has.

"Then take my advice and don't tackle it," says Miss Snell. "Not that
you would, of course, but that's what I tell all the girls who think I
have such a soft snap with my Saturdays off and a two months' summer
vacation. Believe me, you need it after you've drilled forty youngsters
all through a term. D-o-g, dog; c-a-t, cat. Why will the little imps
sing it through their noses? It's the same with the two-times table. And
they can be so stupid! I don't believe I was meant for a teacher,
anyway, for it all seems so useless to me, making them go through all
that, and keeping still for hours and hours, when they want so much to
be outdoors playing around. I'd like to be out myself."

"But after school hours," suggests Babe, "you surely have time to go in
for sports of some kind."

"What do you mean, sports?" asks Miss Snell.

"Oh, tennis, or horseback riding, or golf," says Babe.

She turns around quick and stares at him. "Are you kidding?" she
demands. "Or do you want to get me biting my upper lip? Say, on five
hundred a year, with board to pay and clothes to buy, you can't go in
very heavy for sports. I did blow myself to a tennis racquet and
rubber-soled shoes last summer and my financial standing has been below
par ever since. As for spare time, there's no such thing. When I've
finished helping Ma do the supper dishes there's always a pile of lesson
papers to go over, and reports to make out. And Saturdays I can do my
washing and mending, maybe shampoo my hair or make over a hat or
something. Can you figure in any chance for golf or horseback riding? I
can't, even if club dues were free to schoolma'ams and the board should
send around a lot of spotted ponies for our use. Not that I wouldn't
like to give those things a whirl once. I'm just foolish enough to
think I could do the sport stuff with the best of 'em."

"I'll bet you could, too," says Babe, enthusiastic. "You--you're just
the type."

"Yes," says Miss Snell, "and a fat lot of good that's going to do me. So
what's the use talking? In a year or so I suppose I'll be swinging a
broom around my own little flat, coaxing a kitchen range to hump itself
at 6:30 a.m., and hanging out a Monday wash for two."

"Oh!" says Babe. "Then you've picked out the lucky chap?"

"I don't know whether he's lucky or not," says she. "It isn't really
settled, anyway. Pete Snyder has been hanging around for some time, and
I expect I'll give in if he keeps it up. He's Dad's helper, you know,
and he isn't more'n half as dumb as he looks. Gosh! Here we are. I hope
none of the kids see you bringing me home and tell Pete about it. He'd
be green in the eye for a week. Good-by, Mr. Cutler, and much obliged."

As she skips out and up the path toward the little ramshackle cottage
she turns and flashes one of them wide smiles on Babe and gives him a
friendly wave.

"Well," says I. "Pete might do worse."

"I believe you," says Babe, kind of solemn.

Course, I didn't keep any close track of Mr. Cutler for the next few
days. There was no special reason why I should. I supposed he was busy
makin' up his quartette for that Southern cruise. So about a week later
I'm mildly surprised to hear that he's still stayin' on over at Sister
Mabel's. I didn't really suspicion anything until one afternoon, along
in the middle of January, when as I steps off the 5:10 I gets a glimpse
of Babe's blue racer waitin' at the crossing gates. And snuggled down
under the fur robe beside him, with her cheeks pinked up by the crisp
air and her brown eyes sparklin', is Miss Lucy Snell.

"Huh!" thinks I. "Still goin' on, eh? Or has Billy's little beak had
another leaky spell?"

Couldn't have been many days after that before I comes home to find Vee
all excited over some news she'd heard from Mrs. Robert Ellins.

"What do you think, Torchy!" says she. "That bachelor friend of Mr.
Robert, a Mr. Cutler, was married last night."

"Eh!" says I. "Babe?"

"Yes," says Vee. "And to a village girl, daughter of T. Snell, the
plumber. And his married sister is perfectly wild about it. Isn't it
dreadful?"

"Oh, I don't know," says I. "Might turn out all right."

"But--but she's a poor little school-teacher," protests Vee, "and Mr.
Cutler is--is----"

"A rich sport," I puts in, "who's always had what he wanted. And I
expect he thought he wanted Miss Snell. Looks so, don't it?"

I understand that Sister Mabel threw seven kinds of fits, and that the
country club set was all worked up over the affair, specially one of the
young ladies that had played in mixed foursomes with Babe and probably
had the net out for him. But he didn't come back to apologize or
anything like that. And the next we heard was that the happy pair had
started for Florida on their honeymoon.

Well, that seemed to finish the incident. Mr. Robert hunches his
shoulders and allows that Babe is old enough to manage his own affairs.
Sister Mabel calmed down, and the disappointed young ladies crossed Babe
off the last-hope list. Besides, a perfectly good scandal broke out in
the bridge playing and dancing set, and Babe Cutler's rapid little
romance was forgotten. Five or six Sundays came and went, with Mondays
following regular.

And then here the other afternoon, as I'm camped down next to the car
window on my way home, who should tap me on the shoulder but the same
old Babe. That is, unless you looked close. For there's a worried,
puzzled look in his wide set eyes and he don't spring the usual hail.

"Hello!" says I. "Ain't lost your baggage checks, have you?"

"It's worse than that," says he. "I--I've lost--Lucy."

"Wha-a-t!" says I, gaspy. "You don't mean she--she's----"

"No," says Babe. "She's just quit me and gone home."

"But--but why?" I blurted out.

"Lord knows," groans Babe. "That's what I want to find out."

Honest, it listens like a first-class mystery. According to him they'd
been staying at one of the swellest joints he could find in the whole
state of Florida. Also he'd bought Lucy all the kinds of clothes she
would let him buy, from sport suits to evening gowns. She'd taken up a
lot of different things, too--golf, riding, swimming, dancing. Seemed to
be having a bully time when--bang! She breaks out into a weepy spell and
announces that she is going home. Does it, too, all by her lonesome,
leaving Babe to trail along by the next train.

"And for the life of me, Torchy," he declares, "I can't imagine why."

"Well, let's try to piece it out," says I. "First off, how have you been
spending your honeymoon?"

"Oh, golf mostly," says he. "I was runner up in the big tournament."

"I see," says I. "Thirty-six holes a day, eh?"

He nods.

"And a jack-pot session with the old crowd every evening?" I asks.

"Oh, only now and then," says he.

"With a few late parties down in the grill?" I goes on.

"Not a party," says Babe. "State's dry, you know. No, generally we went
into the ballroom evenings and I helped Lucy try out the new steps she
was learning."

"You did!" says I. "Then I give it up."

"Me too," says Babe. "But I'm not going to give up Lucy. Say, she's a
regular person, she is. She was making good, too, and having a whale of
a time when all of a sudden--Say, Torchy, if it was some break I made I
want to know it, so I can square myself. She wouldn't tell me; wouldn't
have a word to say. But listen, perhaps if you asked her----"

"Hey, back up!" says I.

"You know, if it hadn't been for you I might never have seen her," he
goes on. "You were there when it began, and if there's to be a finish
you might as well be in on that, too. I've got to know what it was I
did, though. Honest, I can't remember anything particularly raw. Been
chewing over it for two nights. If you could just----"

Well, at the end of ten minutes I agrees to go up to the plumber's
house, and if the new Mrs. Cutler will see me I says I'll put it up to
her.

"But you got to come along and hang around outside while I'm doing it,"
I insists.

"I'll do anything that either you or Lucy asks," says he. "I'll go the
limit."

"That listens fair enough," says I.

So that's how it happens I'm waitin' in the plumber's parlor for Babe
Cutler's runaway bride. And say, when she shows up in that zippy sport
suit, just in from a long tramp across country, she looks some classy.
First off she's inclined to be nervous and jumpy and don't want to talk
about Babe at all.

"Oh, he's all right," says she. "I have nothing against him. He--he
meant well."

"As bad as that, was he?" says I. "I shall hate to tell him."

"But it wasn't Babe, at all," she insists. "Don't you dare say it was,
either. If you must know, it was that awful hotel life. I--I just
couldn't stand it."

"Eh?" says I, and I expect I must have been gawpin' some. "Why, I
understand you were at one of the swellest----"

"We were," says she. "That was the trouble. And I suppose if I'd known
how, I might have had a swell time. But I didn't. I'd had no practice.
And say, if you think you can learn to be a regular winter resort person
in a few weeks just try it once. I did. I went at it wholesale. All of
the things I'd wanted to do and thought I could do, I tackled. It looks
like a lot of fun to see those girls start off with their golf clubs.
Seems easy to swing a driver and crack out the little white ball. Take
it from me, though, it's nothing of the kind. Why, I spent hours and
hours out on the practice tee with a grouchy Scotch professional trying
my best to hit it right. And I couldn't. At the end of three weeks I was
still a duffer. All I'd accumulated were palm callouses and a backache.
Yet I knew just how it should be done. I can repeat it now. One--you
take your 'stance. Two--you start the head of the club back in a
straight line with the left wrist. Three--you come up on your left toe
and bend the right knee. And so on. Yet I'd dub the ball only a few
yards.

"Then, when that was over, I'd go in and change for my dancing lessons.
More one--two--three stuff. And say, some of these new jazz steps are
queer, aren't they? I'd about got three or four all mixed up in my head
when I'd have to run and jump into my riding habit and go through a
different lot of one--two--three motions. And just as I'd lamed myself
in a lot of new places there would come the swimming lesson. I thought I
could swim some, too. I learned one summer down at Far Rockaway. But it
seems that was old stuff. They aren't doing that now. No, it's the
double side stroke, the Australian crawl, and a lot more. One, two,
three, four, five, six. Legs straight, chin down, and roll on the
three. And if you dream it's a pleasure to have a big husk of an
instructor pump your arms back and forth for an hour, and say sarcastic
things to you when you get mixed, with a whole gallery of fat old women
and grinning old sports looking on--Well, I'm tellin' you it's fierce.
Ab-so-lutely. It was the swimming lesson that finished me. Especially
the counting. 'Why, Lucy Snell, you poor prune,' says I to myself,
'you're not having a good time. You're back in school, second grade, and
the dunce of the class.' That's what I was, too. A flat failure. And
when I got to thinking of how Babe would take it when he found
out--Well, it got on my nerves so that I simply made a run for home.
There! You can tell him all about it, and I suppose he'll never want to
see or hear of me again."

"Maybe," says I, "but I have my doubts. Anyway, it won't take long to
make a test."

And when I'd left her and strolled out to the gate where Babe is pacin'
up and down anxious, he demands at once: "Well, did you find out?"

"Uh-huh," says I.

"Was--was it something I did?" he asks trembly.

"Sure it was," says I. "You let her in for an intensive training act
that would make the Paris Island marine school grind look like a wand
drill. You should have had better sense, too. Why, what she was trying
to sop up in six weeks most young ladies give as many years to. Near as
I can judge she was making a game play of it, too. But of course she
couldn't last out. And it's a wonder she didn't wind up at a nerve
sanitarium."

"Honest!" says Babe, beamin' on me and grabbin' my hand. "Is--is that
all?"

"Ain't that enough?" says I.

"But that's so easy fixed," says he. "Why, I am bored stiff at these
resort places myself. I thought, though, that Lucy was having the time
of her young life. What a chump I was not to see! Say, we'll take a
fresh start. And next time, believe me, she's going to have just what
she wants. That is, if I can persuade her to give me another trial."

It seems he did, for later on he tells me he's bought that cute little
stucco cottage over near the country club and that him and Lucy are
going to settle down like regular people.

"With a nursery and all?" I asks.

"There's no telling," says Babe.

And with that we swaps grins.




CHAPTER IX

HARTLEY AND THE G. O. G.'S


"Oh, I say, Torchy," calls out Mr. Robert, as I'm reachin' for my hat
here the other noon, "you don't happen to be going up near the club on
your way to luncheon, do you?"

"Not today," says I. "I'm lunchin' with the general staff."

"Oh!" says he, grinnin'. "In that case never mind."

And for fear you shouldn't be wise to this little office joke of ours
maybe I'd better explain that who I meant was Hartley Grue, assistant
chief of our bond room force.

Just goes to show how hard up we are for comic stuff in the Corrugated
Trust these days when we can squeeze a laugh out of such a
serious-minded party as Hartley. But you know how it is. I expect some
of them green-eyed clerks on the tall stools started callin' him that
when the War Department first turned him loose and he reports back to
tackle the old job wearin' the custom tailored uniform with the gold bar
on his shoulders. And I admit the rest of us might have found something
better to do than listen to them Class B-4 patriots who would have
helped save the world for democracy if the war had lasted a couple years
more.

Still, that general staff tag for Mr. Grue tickled us a bit. As a matter
of fact he did come back--from the Hoboken piers--about as military as
they made 'em. And to hear him talk about the Aisne drive and the St.
Mihiel campaign and so on you'd think he must have been right at
Pershing's elbow durin' the whole muss, instead of at Camp Mills and
later on at the docks on a transport detail. But he gets away with it,
even among us who have watched all the details of his martial career.

For the big war gave Hartley his chance, and he grabbed it as eager as a
park squirrel nabbin' a peanut. He'd been hangin' on here in the bond
room for five or six years, edgin' up step by step until he got to be
assistant chief, but at that he wasn't much more'n an office drudge.
Everybody ordered him around, from Old Hickory down to Mr. Piddie. He
was one of the kind that you naturally would, being sort of meek and
spineless. He'd been brought up that way, I understand, for his old man
was a chronic grouch--thirty years at a railroad ticket office
window--and I expect he lugged his ticket sellin' disposition home with
him.

Anyway, Hartley had that cheap, hang-dog look, like he was always
listenin' for somebody to hand him something rough and would be
disappointed if they didn't. And yet he was quick enough to resent
anything if he thought it was safe. You'd see him scowlin' over his
books and he carried a constant flush under his eyes, as if he'd been
slapped recent across the face, or expected to be. Not what you'd call a
happy disposition, Hartley; nor was he just the type you'd pick out to
handle a bunch of men.

All he had to start with was a couple of years' trainin' as a private in
one of the National Guard regiments. I suppose he knew "guide right"
from "left oblique" and how to ground arms without mashin' somebody's
pet corn. But I don't think anybody suspected he had any wild military
ambitions concealed under that 2x4 dome of his. Yet while most of us was
still pattin' Wilson on the back for keepin' us out of war Hartley had
already severed diplomatic relations and was wearin' a flag in his
buttonhole.

When the first Plattsburg camp was organized Hartley was among the first
to get a month's leave of absence and report. He didn't make it, being a
little shy on the book stuff, besides lacking ten pounds or more for his
height. But that didn't discourage him. He begun taking correspondence
courses, eating corn meal mush twice a day, and cutting out the smokes.
And after a four weeks' whirl at the second officers' training camp he
squeezed through, coming out as a near lieutenant. Old Hickory Ellins
gasped some when Hartley showed up with the bar on his shoulders, but he
gave him the husky grip and notified him that his leave was extended for
the duration of the war with half pay.

And the next we heard from Hartley he was located at Camp Mills drillin'
recruit companies. Two or three times he dropped in to say he expected
to be sent over, but each time something or other happened to keep him
within a trolley ride of Broadway. Once he was caught in a mumps
quarantine just as his division got sailing orders, and again he
developed some trouble with one of his knees. Finally Hartley threw out
that someone at headquarters was blockin' him from gettin' to the front,
and at last he got stuck with this dock detail, which he never got loose
from until he was turned out for good. Way up to the end, though,
Hartley still talked about getting over to help smash the Huns. I guess
he was in earnest about it, too.

Maybe they thought when they had mustered Hartley out that they'd
returned another citizen to civilian life. But they hadn't more'n half
finished the job. Hartley wouldn't have it that way. He'd stored up a
lot of military enthusiasm that he hadn't been able to work off on
draftees and departin' heroes. In fact, he was just bustin' with it. You
could see that by the way he walked, even when he wasn't sportin' the
old O. D. once more on some excuse or other. He'd come swingin' into the
general offices snappy, like he had important messages for the colonel;
chin up, his narrow shoulders well back, and eyes front. He'd trained
Vincent, the office boy, to give him the zippy salute, and if any of the
rest of us had humored him he'd had us pullin' the same stuff. But those
of us that had been in the service was glad enough to give the right arm
motion a long vacation.

"Nothing doing, Hartley," I'd say to him. "We've canned the Kaiser,
ain't we? Let's forget that shut-eye business."

And how he did hate to part with that uniform. Simply couldn't seem to
do it all at once, but had to taper off gradual. First off he was only
going to sport it two days a week, but whenever he could invent a
special occasion, out it came. He even got him a Sam Browne belt, which
was contrary to orders, and once I caught him gazin' longin' in a show
window at some overseas service chevrons and wound stripes. Course, he
wore the allied colors ribbon, which passes with a lot of folks for
foreign decorations; but then, a whole heap of limited service guys have
put that over.

When it came to provin' that it was us Yanks who really cleaned up the
Huns and finished the war, Hartley was right there. That was his strong
suit. He carried maps around, all marked up with the positions of our
different divisions, and if he could get you to listen to him long
enough he'd make you believe that after we got on the job the French and
English merely hung around the back areas with their mouths open and
watched us wind things up.

"You see," he'd explain, "it was our superior discipline and our
wonderful morale that did it. Look at our marines. Just average material
to start with. But what training! Same way with a lot of our infantry
regiments. They'd been taught that orders were orders. It had been
hammered into 'em. They knew that when they were told to do a thing it
just had to be done, and that was all there was to it. We didn't wait
until we got over there to win the war. We won it here, on our
cantonment drill grounds. And I rather think, if you'll pardon my saying
so, that I did my share."

"I'm glad you admit it, Hartley," says I. "I was afraid you wouldn't."

His latest bug though was this Veteran Reserve Army scheme of his. His
idea was that instead of scrappin' this big army organization that it
had cost so much to build up we ought to save it so it would be ready in
case another country--Japan maybe--started anything. He thought every
man should keep his uniform and equipment and be put on call. They ought
to keep up their training, too. Might need some revisin' of regiments
and so on, but by having the privates report, say once a week, at the
nearest place where officers could meet them, it could be done. Course,
some of the officers might be too busy to bother with it. Well, they
could resign. That would give a chance for promotions. And the gaps in
the enlisted ranks could be kept filled from the new classes which
universal service would account for.

See Hartley's little plan? He could go on wearin' his shoulder straps
and shiny leggins and maybe in time he'd have a gold or silver poison
ivy leaf instead of the bar.

It was the details of this scheme that he'd been tryin' to work off on
me for weeks, but I'd kept duckin', until finally I'd agreed to let him
spill it across the luncheon table.

"It's got to be a swell feed, though, Hartley," I insists as I joins him
out at the express elevator.

"Will the Café l'Europe do?" he asks.

"Gee!" says I. "So that's why you 're dolled up in the Sunday uniform,
eh? Got the belt on too. All right. But I mean to wade right through
from hors-d'oeuvres to parfait. Hope you've cashed in your delayed pay
vouchers."

I notice, too, that Hartley don't hunt out any secluded nook down in the
grill, but leads the way to a table right in the middle of the big room
on the main floor, where most of the ladies are. And believe me,
paradin' through a mob like that is something he don't shrink from at
all. Did I mention that Hartley used to be kind of meek actin'? Well,
that was before I heard him talk severe to a Greek waiter.

Also I got a new line on the way Hartley looks at the enlisted man. I'd
suggested that a lot of these returned buddies might have had about all
the drill stuff they cared for and that this idea of reportin' once a
week at some armory possibly wouldn't appeal to 'em.

"They'll have to, that's all," says Hartley. "The new service act will
provide for that. Besides, it will do 'em good, keep 'em in line.
Anyway, that's what they're for."

"Oh," says I. "Are they? Say, with sentiments like that you must have
been about as popular with your company, Hartley, as an ex-grand duke at
a Bolshevik picnic."

"What I was after," says he, "was discipline, no popularity. It's what
the average young fellow needs most. As for me, I had it clubbed into me
from the start. If I didn't mind what I was told at home I got a bat on
the ear. Same way here in the Corrugated, you might say. I've always had
to take orders or get kicked. That's what I passed on to my men. At
least I tried to."

And as Hartley stiffens up and glares across the table at an imaginary
line of doughboys I could guess that he succeeded.

It was while I was followin' his gaze that I noticed this bunch of five
young heroes at a corner table. Their overseas caps was stacked on a hat
tree nearby and one of 'em was wearin' some sort of medal. And from the
reckless way they were tacklin' big platters of expensive food, such as
broiled live lobster and planked steaks, I judged they'd been mustered
out more or less recent.

Just now, though, they seemed a good deal interested in something over
our way. First off I didn't know but some of 'em might be old friends of
mine, but pretty soon I decides that it's Hartley they're lookin' at. I
saw 'em nudgin' each other and stretchin' their necks, and they seems to
indulge in a lively debate, which ends in a general haw-haw. I calls
Hartley's attention to the bunch.

"There's a squad of buddies that I'll bet ain't yearnin' to hear someone
yell 'Shun!' at 'em again," I suggests. "Know any of 'em?"

"It is quite possible," says Hartley, glancin' at 'em casual. "They all
look so much alike, you know."

With that he gets back to his Reserve Army scheme and he sure does give
me an earful. We'd got as far as the cheese and demi tasse when I
noticed one of the soldiers--a big, two-fisted husk--wander past us slow
and then drift out. A minute or two later Hartley is being paged and
the boy says there's a 'phone call for him.

"For me?" says Hartley, lookin' puzzled. "Oh, very well."

He hadn't more'n left when the other four strolls over, and one of the
lot remarks: "I beg your pardon, but does your friend happen to be
Second Lieutenant Grue?"

"That's his name," says I, "only it was no accident he got to be second
lieutenant. That just had to be."

They grins friendly at that. "You've described it," says one.

"He was some swell officer, too, I understand," says I.

"Oh, all of that," says another. "He--he's out of the service now, is
he?"

"Accordin' to the War Department he is," says I, "but if a little plan
of his goes through he'll be back in the game soon." And I sketches out
hasty Hartley's idea of keepin' the returned vets on tap.

"Wouldn't that be perfectly lovely now!" says the buddy with the medal,
diggin' his elbow enthusiastic into the ribs of the one nearest him.
"Wonder if we couldn't persuade him to make it two drill nights a week
instead of one. Eh, old Cootie Tamer?"

Course, it develops that these noble young gents, before being sent over
to buck the Hindenburg line, had all been in one of the companies
Hartley had trained so successful. I wouldn't care to state that they
was hep to the fact that if it hadn't been for him they wouldn't have
turned out to be such fine soldiers. But they sure did take a lot of
interest in discoverin' one of their old officers. That was natural and
did them credit.

Yes, they wanted to know all about Hartley; where he worked; what he
did, and what were his off hours. It was almost touchin' to see how
eager they was for all the details. Havin' been abroad so long, and
among foreigners, and in strange places, I expect Hartley looked like
home to 'em.

And then again, you know how they say all them boys who went over have
come back men, serious and full of solemn, lofty thoughts. You could see
it shinin' in their eyes, even if they did let on to be chucklin' at
times. So I gives 'em all the dope I could about their dear old second
lieutenant and asks 'em to stick around a few minutes so they could meet
him.

"We'd love to," says the one the others calls Beans. "Yes, indeed, it
would be a great pleasure, but I think we should defer it until the
lieutenant can be induced to leave off his uniform. You understand, I'm
sure. We--we should feel more at ease."

"Maybe that could be fixed up, too," says I.

"If it only could!" says Beans, rollin' his eyes at the bunch. "But
perhaps it would be better as sort of a surprise. Eh? So you needn't
mention us. We--we'll let him know in a day or so."

Well, they kept their word. Couldn't have been more 'n a couple of days
later when Hartley calls me one side confidential and shows me this note
askin' him if he wouldn't be kind enough to meet with a few of his old
comrades in arms and help form a permanent organization that would
perpetuate the fond ties formed at Camp Mills.

Hartley is beamin' all over his face. "There!" says he. "That's what I
call the true American spirit. And, speaking as a military man, I've
seen no better example of a morale that lasts through. It's the
discipline that does it, too. I suppose they want me to continue as
their commanding officer; to carry on, as it were."

"Listens that way, doesn't it?" says I. "But what do the initials at the
end stand for--the G. O. G.'s.?"

"Can't you guess?" says Hartley, almost blushin'. "Grue's Overseas
Graduates."

"Well, well!" says I. "Say, that's handin' you something, eh? Looked
like a fine bunch of young chaps. Some of 'em college hicks, I expect?"

"Oh, yes," says Hartley. "All kinds from plumbers to multi-millionaires.
Fact! I had young Ogden Twombley as company secretary at one time. Yes,
and I remember docking his leave twelve hours once for being late at
assembly. But see what it's done for those boys."

"And think what they did to the Huns," says I. "But where's this joint
they want to meet you at? What's the number again? Why, that's the
Plutoria."

"Is it?" says Hartley. "Oh, well, there were a lot of young swells among
'em. I must get them interested in my Veteran Reserve plan. I'll have to
make a little speech, I suppose, welcoming them back and all that sort
of thing. Perhaps you'd like to come along, Torchy?"

"Sure!" says I. "That is, so long as they don't call on me for any
remarks. How about this at the bottom, though? 'Civilian dress,
please'?"

"Oh, they'd feel a little easier, I suppose," says Hartley, "if I wasn't
in uniform. Maybe it would be best, the first time."

So that's how it happened that promptly at 4 p.m. next day we was shown
up to this private suite in the Plutoria. Must have been kind of hard
for Hartley to give up his nifty O. D.'s, for he ain't such an
impressive young gent in a sack coat. And the braid bound cutaway and
striped pants he's dug out for the occasion makes him look more like a
floor walker from the white goods department than ever. But he tries to
look the second lieutenant in spite of it, bracin' his shoulders well
back and swellin' his chest out important.

It seems the G. O. G.'s has been doin' some recruitin' meantime, for
there's a dozen or more grouped about the room, some in citizens'
clothes but more still in the soldier togs they wore when they came off
the transport. And to judge by the looks of a table I got a squint at
behind a screen, they'd been doin' a little preliminary celebratin'.
However, they all salutes respectful and Hartley had just started to
shoot off his speech, which begins, of course: "Speaking as a military
man----" when this Beans gent interrupts.

"Pardon me, lieutenant," says he, "but the members of our organization
are quite anxious to know, first of all, if you will accept the high
command of the Gogs, so called."

"With pleasure," says Hartley. "And as I was about to say----"

"Just a moment," breaks in Beans again. "Fellow Gogs, we have before us
a willing candidate for the High Command. What is your pleasure?"

"Initiation!" they whoops in chorus.

"Carried!" says Beans. "Let the right worthy Buddies proceed to
administer the Camp Mills degree."

"Signal!" calls out another cheerful. "Four--seven--eleven! Run the
guard!"

Say, I couldn't tell exactly what happened next, for I was hustled into
a corner and those noble young heroes of the Marne and elsewhere, full
of lofty aims and high ambitions and--and other things--Well, they
certainly didn't need any promptin' to carry out the order of
ceremonies. Without a word or a whisper they proceeds to grab Hartley
wherever the grabbin' was good and then pass him along. By climbin' on a
chair I could get a glimpse of him now and then as he is sent whirlin'
and bumpin' about, like a bottle bobbin' around in rough water. Back and
forth he goes, sometimes touchin' the floor and then again being tossed
toward the ceilin'. Two or three of 'em would get him and start rushin'
him across the room when another bunch would tear him loose and begin
some maneuvers of their own.

Anyway, runnin' the guard seems to be about as strenuous an act as
anybody could go through and come out whole. It lasts until all hands
seem to be pretty well out of breath and someone blows a whistle. Then a
couple of 'em drags Hartley up in front of Brother Beans and salutes.

"Well, right worthy Buddies," says he, "what have you to report
concerning the candidate?"

"Sorry, sir," says one, "but we caught him tryin' to run the guard."

"Ah!" says Beans. "Did he get away with it?"

"He did not," says the Buddie. "We suspect he's a dud, too."

"Very serious," says Beans, shakin' his head. "Candidate, what have you
to say for yourself?"

To judge by the hectic tint on Hartley's neck and ears he had a whole
heap he wanted to say, but for a minute or so all he can do is breathe
hard and glare. He's a good deal of a sight, too. The cutaway coat has
lost one of its tails; his hair is rumpled up like feathers, and his
collar has parted its front moorin's. As soon as he gets his wind
though, he tries to state what's on his mind.

"You--you young rough-necks!" says he. "I--I'll make you sweat for this.
You'll see!"

"Harken, fellow Gogs!" says Beans. "The candidate presumes to address
your Grand Worthy in terms unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. I
would suggest that we suspend the ritual until by some means he can be
brought to his better senses. Can anyone think of a way?"

"Sure!" someone sings out. "Let's give him Days Gone By."

The vote seems to be unanimous and the proceedin's open with Brother
Beans waggin' his finger under Hartley's nose. "Kindly recall November
22, 1917," says he. "It was Saturday, and my leave ticket read from 11
a. m. of that date until 11 p. m. of the 23rd. You knew who was waiting
for me at the Matron's House, too. And just because I'd changed to
leather leggins inside the gate you called me back and put me to
scrubbing the barracks floor, making me miss my last chance at a matinée
and otherwise queering a perfectly good day. Next!"

"My turn!" sings out half a dozen others, but out of the push that
surges toward Hartley steps a light-haired, neat dressed young gent, who
walks with a slight limp. "I trust you'll remember me, lieutenant," says
he. "I was Private Nelson, guilty of the awful crime of appearing at
inspection with two grease spots on my tunic because you'd kept me on
mess sergeant detail for two weeks and the issues of extra uniforms
hadn't been made. So you gave me double guard duty the day my folks came
all the way down from Buffalo to see me. Real clever of you, wasn't it?"

One by one they reminded Hartley of little things like that, without
givin' him a chance to peep, until each one had had his say. But finally
Hartley gets an openin'.

"You got just what you needed--discipline," says he. "That's what made
soldiers out of you."

"Oh, did it!" says Brother Beans. "Then perhaps a little of it would
qualify you for the High Command. Shall we try it, Most Worthy
Buddies?"

"Soak it on him, Beans!" is the verdict, shouted enthusiastic from all
sides.

"So let it be," says Beans solemn. "And now, candidate, you are about to
be escorted forth where the elusive cigar-butt lurks in the gutter and
scraps of paper litter the pavement. As an exponent of this particular
brand of discipline you will see that no small item escapes you. Should
you be so remiss, or should you falter in doing your full duty, you will
be returned at once to this room, where retribution waits with heavy
hands. Ho, Worthy Buddies! Invest the candidate with the sacred insignia
of the empty gunny sack."

And say, when them Gogs started out to put a thing through they did it
systematic and thorough. Inside of a minute Hartley is armed with an old
bag and is being hustled out to the elevator. As they didn't seem to be
taking much notice of me, I tags along, too. They leads Hartley right
out in front of the Plutoria and sets him to cleanin' up the block.

Course, it's a little odd to see a young gent in torn cutaway coat and
tousled hair scramblin' around under taxi-cabs and dodgin' c

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