Torchy. Ford Sewell

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      "Well?" says he, real solemn.

      I takes all that in and gives him the wink. "Say," says I, "didn't I have my nerve with me, though?"

      He kind of blinks at that; but it don't fetch him.

      "Who's Dicky, your whisperin' friend?" says I.

      "Nobody much," says he. "His father's a Senator."

      "Well, say, now," says I, "you didn't want me to chase a Senator's son and a real swell girl like Sis off into a place like the general office reception room, did you! And wouldn't it have been a nice break if I'd let out that we was smotherin' the Great Skid under a twelve-dollar job?"

      "Was that why you had the impudence to appropriate my office?" says he.

      "That was part of it," says I.

      And that gives me an openin' to tell him the whole tale about Mallory, from the hall bedroom act to the way he'd been postin' himself.

      "You think he's a valuable man, do you?" says Mr. Robert.

      "Valuable!" says I. "Why, he's all the goods. What if he did learn to talk Greek once? He's forgettin' it, ain't he? And look at the way he stands up to trouble! Don't that show there's good stuff in him?"

      "Well," says he, "what would you suggest?"

      "Ah, say!" says I. "Couldn't you give a guess? Why, if I was you I'd fix it so that when Sis comes back to town she wouldn't find him on no kid's job. I'd give him a show to get his name painted on a door somewhere."

      "Torchy," says he, punchin' the button for his secretary, "I shouldn't wonder if we did."

CHAPTER IV

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FROSTING THE PROFESS

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      Chee! but I'm gettin' to be useful! Course, I don't figure out no awful slump in Corrugated stocks if I should get pettish some day and tell 'em they'd got to find a new office boy. That ain't the kind of shredded thought I'm feedin' on. I fit into a lot of places besides the chair behind the brass gate. Why, I have to put on a sub. three or four times a week, while I'm spreadin' myself out all over the lot.

      It all come of their makin' me special messenger to the boss; for since old Mr. Ellins has been laid up with toothache in his knee joints they've been chasin' me up to the Fift'-ave. ranch, with mail, and blank bonds to be signed, and such truck. And that's how I came to get so thick with Marjorie.

      I was waitin' in the front hall, pipin' off the gorgerifousness, when some one pushes in through the draperies L. U. E. and I'm discovered. And, say, she was a magnum, all right! You know the sort of pippins they pick out to hang up by a string in the fruit store window? Well, that was her style. Big? She'd fit close in a Morris chair! And she didn't look more'n eighteen or nineteen, either. For all her width, she was built on good lines, and if she'd been divided up right there'd been enough for a pair of as good lookers as you'd want to see.

      "O-o-o-o!" says she as she comes in. "See who's here!"

      I never says a word, but just twists my toes around the chair legs and looks into my hat. Not that I'm any afraid of girls; but I wa'n't feelin' so much to home there as I do in some places, and I didn't want to make any break. But she wouldn't let it go at that.

      "O-o-o-o!" says she again, and as I squints up at her I sees the reg-lar cut-up looks just bubblin' out.

      "G'wan!" says I. "I ain't no curiosity."

      "Oh, it is Torchy then, isn't it?" says she.

      "You don't think this is a wig I'm wearin', do you?" says I. That's what I got to expect with hair like mine. The minute my description's given out everybody's on.

      She giggles and says that Brother Robert's been telling her about me. "I'm Marjorie, you know," says she.

      "Well," says I, lookin' her over careful, "you'll do."

      I meant it. Mr. Robert's only fair sized; but old man Ellins is a whale, and I was thinkin' of him when I said that Marjorie was up to specifications. She seems to think I've handed out a lump of butterscotch, though, and we gets real chatty.

      I don't know what kind of fairy yarns Mr. Robert's been tearin' off at home about me; but from the start she treats me like I was one of the fam'ly. And Marjorie was just as nice as she was heavy. She didn't try to carry any dog; but just blazes ahead and spiels out the talk. I get next to the fact that she's just home from one of them swell boardin' schools, where they pump French and music into young lady plutesses at a dollar a minute, and throw in lessons on how to say "Home, François!" to the chaffeur. This was some kind of a vacation Marjorie was havin', and she was doin' her best to make every hour count.

      Knowin' all that helped me to keep from bein' so much jarred by her next move. It was a couple of days after, on a Wednesday, and we'd got real well acquainted, when Marjorie spots me as I was headin' back for the office after leavin' some things for the boss.

      "Torchy," says she, "where's Robert? What was he doing when you left?"

      "Give it up," says I. "And, anyway, I ain't supposed to know."

      "I'll bet you do, though," says she. "Couldn't you guess?"

      "If I did," says I, "I'd guess that he'd just made a run of ten or twelve and was pushin' up the buttons on the string."

      "I don't know what that means," says she.

      "Well," says I, "it means that maybe he's playin' billiards at the club."

      "Oh, darn!" says she, real wicked.

      It turns out that Brother Robert has said he'd take sister to the matinée that afternoon, and the date has got clean by him. She wants to go the worst way, too. Mother wasn't handy, Aunty May had the icebag on her head, and there wasn't anyone else within reach. Accordin' to the rules, there'd got to be some one.

      "Torchy," says she, "I don't see why you couldn't take me, as well as anyone else."

      "Thanks," says I, "but I don't want to earn my release that way. I've got 'em trained down to the office so they'll stand for a lot; but me ringin' in a matinée durin' business hours would sure break the spell."

      "Oh, pshaw!" says she. "I can fix that part of it," and off she goes, up to see puppah.

      If she'd come back and said the old man was havin' a fit on the floor, I wouldn't have been any surprised. But, say, Marjorie must have a pull accordin' to her weight; for inside of four minutes she comes skippin' down the front stairs, makin' the gas globes rattle and jigglin' the pictures on the wall.

      "It's all right," says she. "Father says you're to telephone Mr. Piddie that you won't be back, and then you're to see that I get to the theater and home again without being kidnapped. I'll be ready in СКАЧАТЬ