Yes, I always did find Snick's comp'ny entertainin', and if it hadn't been more or less expensive,--a visit always meanin' a touch with him,--I expect I'd been better posted on what he was up to. As it is, I ain't enjoyed the luxury of seein' Snick for a good many months; when here the other afternoon, just as I was thinking of startin' for home, the studio door opens, and in blows a couple of gents, one being a stranger, and the other this Mr. Butters.

Now, usually Snick's a fancy dresser, no matter who he owes for it. He'll quit eatin' any time, or do the camel act, or even give up his cigarettes; but if the gents' furnishing shops are showin' something new in the line of violet socks or alligator skin vests, Snick's got to sport the first ones sprung on Broadway.

So, seein' him show up with fringes on his cuffs, a pair of runover tan shoes, and wearin' his uniform cap off duty, I can't help feelin' some shocked, or wonderin' how much more'n a five-spot I'll be out by the time he leaves. It was some relief, though, to see that the glass eye was still in place, and know I wouldn't be called on to redeem the ticket on that, anyway.

"Hello, Snick!" says I. "Glad you came in,--I was just going. Hope you don't mind my lockin' the safe? No offense, you know."

"Can it, Shorty," says he. "There's no brace coming this time."

"Eh?" says I. "Once more with that last, and say it slower, so I can let it sink in."

"Don't kid," says he. "This is straight business."

"Oh!" says I. "Well, that does sound serious. In that case, who's your--er----Did he come in with you?"

I thought he did at first; but he seems so little int'rested in either Snick or me that I wa'n't sure but he just wandered in because he saw the door open. He's a high, well built, fairly good lookin' chap, dressed neat and quiet in black; and if it wa'n't for the sort of aimless, wanderin' look in his eyes, you might have suspected he was somebody in partic'lar.

"Oh, him!" says Snick, shootin' a careless glance over his shoulder.

"Yes, of course he's with me. It's him I want to talk to you about."

"Well," says I, "don't he--er----Is it a dummy, or a live one? Got a name, ain't it?"

"Why, sure!" says Snick. "That's Hermy. Hey you, Hermy, shake hands with Professor McCabe!"

"Howdy," says I, makin' ready to pass the grip. But Hermy ain't in a sociable mood, it seems.

"Oh, bother!" says he, lookin' around kind of disgusted and not noticin'

the welcomin' hand at all. "I don't want to stay here. I ought to be home, dressing for dinner."

And say, that gives you about as much idea of the way he said it, as you'd get of an oil paintin' from seein' a blueprint. I can't put in the pettish shoulder wiggle that goes with it, or make my voice behave like his did. It was the most ladylike voice I ever heard come from a heavyweight; one of these reg'lar "Oh-fudge-Lizzie-I-dropped-my-gum"

voices. And him with a chest on him like a swell front mahog'ny bureau!

"Splash!" says I. "You mean, mean thing! So there!"

"Don't mind what he says at all, Shorty," says Snick. "You wait! I'll fix him!" and with that he walks up to Hermy, shakes his finger under his nose, and proceeds to lay him out. "Now what did I tell you; eh, Hermy?"

says Snick. "One lump of sugar in your tea--no pie--and locked in your room at eight-thirty. Oh, I mean it! You're here to behave yourself.

Understand? Take your fingers off that necktie! Don't slouch against the wall there, either! You might get your coat dusty. Dress for dinner!

Didn't I wait fifteen minutes while you fussed with your hair? And do you think you're going to go through all that again? You're dressed for dinner, I tell you! But you don't get a bit unless you do as you're told!

Hear?"

"Ye-e-es, sir," sniffles Hermy.

Honest, it was a little the oddest exhibition I ever saw. Why, he would make two of Snick, this Hermy would, and he has a pair of shoulders like a truck horse. Don't ever talk to me about chins again, either! Hermy has chin enough for a trust buster; but that's all the good it seems to do him.

"You ain't cast the hypnotic spell over him, have you, Snick?" says I.

"Hypnotic nothing!" says Snick. "That ain't a man; it's only a music box!"

"A which?" says I.

"Barytone," says Snick. "Say, did you ever hear Bonci or Caruso or any of that mob warble? No? Well, then I'll have to tell you. Look at Hermy there. Take a good long gaze at him. And--sh-h-h! After he's had one show at the Metropolitan he'll have that whole bunch carryin' spears."

"Is this something you dreamed, Snick," says I, "or is it a sample of your megaphone talk?"

"You don't believe it, of course," says he. "That's what I brought him up here for. Hermy, turn on the Toreador business!"

"Eh?" says I; then I sees Hermy gettin' into position to cut loose. "Back up there! Shut it off! What do I know about judgin' singers on the hoof?

Why, he might be all you say, or as bad as I'd be willin' to bet; but I wouldn't know it. And what odds does it make to me, one way or another?"

"I know, Shorty," says Snick, earnest and pleadin'; "but you're my last hope. I've simply got to convince you."

"Sorry, Snick," says I; "but this ain't my day for tryin' out barytones.

Besides, I got to catch a train."

"All right," says Snick. "Then we'll trot along with you while I tell you about Hermy. Honest, Shorty, you've got to hear it!"

"If it's as desperate as all that," says I, "spiel away."

And of all the plunges I ever knew Snick Butters to make,--and he sure is the dead gamest sport I ever ran across,--this one that he owns up to takin' on Hermy had all his past performances put in the piker class.

Accordin' to the way he deals it out, Snick had first discovered Hermy about a year ago, found him doin' the tray balancin' act in a porcelain lined three-off-and-draw-one parlor down on Seventh-ave. He was doin' it bad, too,--gettin' the orders mixed, and spillin' soup on the customers, and passin' out wrong checks, and havin' the boss worked up to the assassination point.

But Hermy didn't even know enough to be discouraged. He kept right on singsongin' out his orders down the shaft, as cheerful as you please: "Sausage and mashed, two on the wheats, one piece of punk, and two mince, and let 'em come in a hurry! Silver!" You know how they do it in them C.

B. & Q. places? Yes, corned beef and cabbage joints. With sixty or seventy people in a forty by twenty-five room, and the dish washers slammin' crockery regardless, you got to holler out if you want the chef to hear. Hermy wa'n't much on the shout, so he sang his orders. And it was this that gave Snick his pipedream.

"Now you know I've done more or less tra-la-la-work myself," says he, "and the season I spent on the road as one of the merry villagers with an Erminie outfit put me wise to a few things. Course, this open air lecturing has spoiled my pipes for fair; but I've got my ear left, haven't I? And say, Shorty, the minute I heard that voice of Hermy's I knew he was the goods."

So what does he do but go back later, after the noon rush was over, and get Hermy to tell him the story of his life. It wa'n't what you'd call thrillin'. All there was to it was that Hermy was a double orphan who'd been brought up in Bridgeport, Conn., by an uncle who was a dancin'

professor. The only thing that saved Hermy from a bench in the brass works was his knack for poundin' out twosteps and waltzes on the piano; but at that it seems he was such a soft head he couldn't keep from watchin' the girls on the floor and striking wrong notes. Then there was trouble with uncle. Snick didn't get the full details of the row, or what brought it to a head; but anyway Hermy was fired from the academy and fin'lly drifted to New York, where he'd been close up against the bread line ever since.

"And when I found how he just naturally ate up music," says Snick, "and how he'd had some training in a boy choir, and what a range he had, I says to him, 'Hermy,' says I, 'you come with me!' First I blows in ten good hard dollars getting a lawyer to draw up a contract. I thought it all out by myself; but I wanted the whereases put in right. And it's a peach. It bound me to find board and lodging and provide clothes and incidentals for Hermy for the period of one year; and in consideration of which, and all that, I am to be the manager and sole business representative of said Hermy for the term of fifteen years from date, entitled to a fair and equal division of whatsoever profits, salary, or emoluments which may be received by the party of the second part, payable to me, my heirs, or assigns forever. And there I am, Shorty. I've done it! And I'm going to stay with it!"

"What!" says I. "You don't mean to say you've invested a year's board and lodgin' and expenses in--in that?" and I gazes once more at this hundred and eighty-pound wrist slapper, who is standin' there in front of the mirror pattin' down a stray lock.

"That's what I've done," says Snick, shovin' his hands in his pockets and lookin' at the exhibit like he was proud of it.

"But how the--where in blazes did you get it?" says I.

"Squeezed it out," says Snick; "out of myself, too. And you know me. I always was as good to myself as other folks would let me. But all that had to be changed. It come hard, I admit, and it cost more'n I figured on. Why, some of his voice culture lessons set me back ten a throw. Think of that! He's had 'em, though. And me? Well, I've lived on one meal a day. I've done a double trick: on the wagon day times, night cashier in a drug store from nine till two a.m. I've cut out theaters, cigarettes, and drinks. I've made my old clothes last over, and I've pinched the dimes and nickels so hard my thumbprints would look like treasury dies. But we've got the goods, Shorty. Hermy may be the mushiest, sappiest, hen brained specimen of a man you ever saw; but when it comes to being a high class grand opera barytone, he's the kid! And little Percival here is his manager and has the power of attorney that will fix him for keeps if I know anything!"

"Ye-e-es?" says I. "Reminds me some of the time when you was backin'

Doughnut to win the Suburban. Recollect how hard you scraped to get the two-fifty you put down on Doughnut at thirty to one, and how hard you begged me to jump in and pull out a bale of easy money? Let's see; did the skate finish tenth, or did he fall through the hole in his name?"

"Ah, say!" says Snick. "Don't go digging that up now. That was sport.

This is straight business, on the level, and I ain't asking you to put up a cent."

"Well, what then?" says I.

Would you guess it? He wants me to book Hermy for a private exhibition before some of my swell friends! All I've got to do is to persuade some of 'em to give a little musicale, and then spring this nutmeg wonder on the box holdin' set without warnin'.