Torchy. Ford Sewell
both of 'em at once, when she thinks of somethin' funny.
"Oh, Mr. Robert!" says she. "I want to know which of you is who here, don't you know. Is it you that works for Skid, or Skid that works for you?"
"Chee!" thinks I. "That upsets the soup kettle."
Mr. Robert looks at Mallory, and Mallory looks at him. There was no breakin' away; for she has hold of a hand apiece. Both of 'em makes a start; but Mr. Robert gets the floor. "Why," says he, "I guess we're both working for the Corrugated, only one of us works a little harder than the other."
"Ah!" says Sis, givin' Mallory a smile that was worth payin' money to see. "I thought so."
The next minute they makes a dash for an elevator goin' down, and that part of it was over. We'd worked the bluff all the way through, and Sis has lugged off the idea that Mallory was at the top of the bunch.
But there was Mr. Robert, waitin' to talk Dutch to us.
Mallory he starts in to say that he's sorry for seemin' so cheeky; but that's about all he can say.
"Ah, cheese it!" says I, buttin' in. "What do you know about it? It was me put up the game, and if Mr. Robert had loafed another half an hour at the club like he usually does, there wouldn't have been any mix up. Say, you leave this to me."
Mallory didn't want to leave it like that; but Mr. Robert was holdin' the door open for him, so he couldn't do anything else. When we had it all to ourselves, the boss ranges me up in front of him for the court of inquiry session.
"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
FROSTING THE PROFESS
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