"Mr. Piddie's been talking to you, I suppose?" says he.

"He's done everything but say ma.s.s over me," says I.

"Piddie is a good deal of an----" then he pulls up. "Where the deuce did he find you?"

"It wasn't him found me," says I; "it was a case of me findin' him; but if it hadn't been for your old man's b.u.t.tin' in, that's all the good it would have done me."

"Ah!" says he. "That explains the mystery. By the way, son, what do they call you?"

"Guess," says I, and runs me fingers through it. "Just Torchy, and it suits me as well as Percival or Montgomery."

"Torchy is certainly descriptive," says he. "How long have you been doing office work?"

"Ever since I could lift a waste basket," says I.

"Are you ambitious?" says he.

"Sure!" says I. "I'm waitin' for some bank president to adopt me."

"You came in here expecting to be discharged, I presume?" says he.

"What, me?" says I. "Nah! I thought you was goin' to ask me over to the Caffy Martang for lunch."

For a minute or so after that he looks me straight in the eye, and I gives him the same. And say, for the kind, he ain't so worse. Course, I wouldn't swap him for Mr. Belmont Pepper, who's the only boss I ever had that I calls the real thing; but Mr. Robert would get a ratin'

anywhere.

"Torchy," says he after a bit, "I'm inclined to think that you'll do.

Have a chair."

"Don't I get the blue ticket, then?" says I.

"No," says he, "not until you do something worse than obey orders.

Besides you're the cheekiest youth that has ever graced the offices of the Corrugated Trust, and once in awhile we have use for just such a quality. For instance, I am tempted to send you on a very important errand of my own. Wait a moment while I think it over."

"Time out!" says I.

Well say, I didn't know what was comin', he took so long makin' up his mind. But Mr. Robert ain't one of the kind to go off half c.o.c.ked. He's got somethin' on his shoulders besides tailor's paddin', and when he sets the wheels to movin' you can gamble that he's gettin' somewhere.

After awhile he slaps his knee and says:

"No, there isn't another person around the place who would know how to go about it. Torchy, I'm going to try you out!"

It wasn't anything like I'd ever been up against before. He hands me an express receipt and says he wants me to go over to Jersey City and get what that calls for without landin' in jail.

"You'll see a bundle done up in burlap somewhere around the express office," says he, "a big bundle. It looks like a side of veal; but it isn't. It's a deer, one that I shot four days ago up north. Torchy, did you know that it was illegal to shoot deer during certain months of the year?"

"You can be pinched for shootin' c.r.a.ps any time," says I.

"Really?" says he.

Then he goes on with his tale, givin' me all the partic'lars, so I wouldn't make any batty moves. And say, they can think up some queer stunts, hangin' around the club of an afternoon and lookin' out at Fifth-ave. through the small end of a gla.s.s. This was one of them real clubby dreams. It started by Mr. Robert countin' himself in on a debate that he didn't know the beginning of.

"When they asked me if I could do it, I said, 'Of course I can,'" says he, "and then I asked what it was."

The bunch had been ga.s.sin' about an old gun hangin' over the fireplace.

It was one of these old-timers, like they tell about Daniel Boone's havin', in the Nickel Libr'ies, the kind you load with a stove poker.

Flintlocks--that's it! They was wonderin' if there was anyone left that could take a relic like that out in the woods and hit anything besides the atmosphere. And the first thing Mr. Robert knows he has been joshed into bettin' a hatful of yellowbacks that he can take old Injun killer out and bring back enough deer meat to feed the crowd--and him knowin'

no more about that sort of act than a one-legged man does about skatin'!

They gives him two weeks to do it in.

That wa'n't the worst of it, though, accordin' to him. They pa.s.ses the word around until everyone that knows him is on the broad grin. The joke is handed across billiard tables between shots, and is circulated around the boxes at the opera. It's the best ever; for Mr. Robert has never hunted anything livelier than a Welsh rabbit, after the show.

He's a boy that likes to make good, though. He never makes a brag; but he boxes up that old shootin' iron and drops out of sight. 'Way up in the woods somewhere he digs up an old b'gosh artist that was brought up with one of them guns in his hand, and he takes a private course. After he's used up a keg of powder shootin' at tin cans they start out to find where the deers roost. They find 'em, too. Mr. Robert is so rattled that he misses the one he aims at; but he bores a tunnel through another in the next lot.

Course, he thinks he's got a cinch then. He hustles to the nearest flag station and spends eight dollars sendin' telegrams to the bunch, invitin' 'em to a venison feed at the club. Then he has his game sewed up neat in meal bags and expressed to John Doe, Jersey City. See how cute he was? He'd heard about the game laws by that time; so he lays his plans to duck any trouble. But he hadn't counted on that gang tippin'

off the Jersey game wardens, nor on their trailin' the baggage and express bundles with huntin' dogs.

"The dogs had smelled it out just as I came in to claim it," says he; "so all I could do was to keep my mouth closed, standing around and looking foolish until I got tired and came away. And that, Torchy, is the situation up to the present moment. My venison is under guard over in Jersey City, and if it isn't delivered at the club by six o'clock to-night I shall not only lose my bet, but have my life made miserable from cheap jokes for months to come. It occurred to me that if your wits were as bright as the hair that covers them, you might be able to help me out. What do you think?"

"Chee!" says I, scratchin' me bonfire, "I guess I'm down the coal chute.

I've rescued locked-in typewriter girls from fire escapes, and lied the boss out of a family row; but I never tried my hand at kidnappin' enough meat for a dinner party. How about buyin' off the game sleuth?"

"He has been bought by the other side," says Mr. Robert. "He wouldn't dare to sell them out."

Well, I thunk some more thinks just as punky as that, and then we settles it that I'm to hike over and take a squint, anyway. I gets him to give me a line on what kind of a looker the warden was, and he throws me a couple of tens for campaign expenses. I was just stowin' away the green stuff as I goes through the outside office, and Piddie's eyebrows go up.

"They're goin' to let me finish out the week," says I. "Ain't they the gentle things?"

Then I skips out for the 23d-st. boat, leavin' Piddie with his mouth open, and Mr. Robert wrapped up with the idea that, some way or other, I'm goin' to talk that game cop into a dope dream and rescue the roast.

But, say, I didn't need to look twice at that snoozer to see that no line of hot air I had in stock would soften him up. He had an undershot jaw, a pair of eyes that saw both sides of the street at once, and a head like a choppin' block. He was sittin' right alongside of that burlap bundle, waitin' to spring his tin badge on some one.

"Do they send such things as that through without cratin'?" says I to a guy behind the chicken wire, jerkin' me thumb at Mr. Sleuth. "What's the label on him?"

"That's Mr. Hinkey Tolliver, special officer," says he. "Better look out or he'll break a hand grenade on that still alarm of yours."

"Ah, back to the blotter!" says I. "Who gave you any license to make funny cracks on my Mrs. Leslie Carter disguise?"

We swapped a few more like that, while I sizes up Hinkey, tryin' to map out a way to brace him. But it was a losin' proposition. He has one of them eyes nailed to what I wanted to take away and the other trained on the door, and you could tell by the way he held his jaw that nothin'

short of an earthquake would jar him loose.

It was too much for me. If it hadn't been that Mr. Robert had put it up to me so flat, I'd have quit then. But I couldn't lay down with just a look; so I takes a turn around into the pa.s.senger waitin' room, battin'

my head for a new line.

I guess it was kind of second sight that steers me over into the corner where there is an A. D. T. branch. I wa'n't lookin' for anyone I knew, seein' it's been so long since I wore the cap; but who should I pipe off, sittin' on the call bench, but Hunch Leary! And, say, between the time I'd give him the nod to come out, and his askin' how it was I'd shook the red stripe, I'd framed up the whole scheme. First I goes over to the girl under the blue bell and rings up Mr. Robert.

"h.e.l.lo," says I, "this is Torchy."

"Good!" says he. "Have you got it?"