[Ill.u.s.tration: WE MUST HAVE BEEN A GREAT PAIR.]

"Why, how is that?" says he.

"Did they tie anything to you?" says I. "You know--con you into takin'

the blame, or anything like that?"

"Blame for what?" says he. "I don't believe I understand. But nothing of the sort was mentioned. I was merely given some instructions about my work."

"Oh!" says I. "That's all, eh? And you've gone right at it, have you?"

"No," says he. "The fact is, Torchy, I am writing out my resignation."

"What! Quittin'?" says I. "Say, don't you see what a hole that puts you in? Why, it makes you the goat for fair! If you do that you'll need bail inside of forty-eight hours--and you won't get it. Look here, Dudley, take my advice and tear that up."

"But I can't, Torchy," says he, "really, I can't."

"Why not?" says I. "You've got a couple of hands, ain't you? And what'll you do for another job if you chuck this one? Say, why in blazes are you so anxious to take your chances between Sing Sing and the bread line?"

He's there with the explanation, all right, and here's the way it stands: Uncle Dudley has been called on because his partic'lar double-entry trick is to keep the run of the private accounts. All they want him to do is to take descriptions of a couple of checks, dig up the stubs, and juggle his books so the record will fit in with a nice new set of transactions that's just been invented for the purpose.

"But what checks?" says I. "The five thousand plunkers to Mutt & Mudd?"

"Why, yes," says he. "How did you know?"

"Ah, how did I----Say, Dudley, ain't you been readin' the papers lately?" says I.

Would you believe it? He don't know any more about what's in the air than a museum mummy knows of Lobster Square. This little private cyclone that's been turnin' the office upside down ain't so much as ruffled his whiskers. Checks are checks to him, and these special trouble makers don't give him any chills up the back at all. He's been told, though, to use the acid bottle on his books and write in a new version.

"Well, why not do it?" says I. "What's that to you?"

"Why, don't you see," says he, "it would be making a false entry, and--I--I----Well, I've never done such a thing in my life, Torchy, and I can't begin now."

And, say, what do you know about that, eh? Just a piece of phony bookkeepin' that he don't even have to put his name to, his job gone if he don't follow orders, and him almost to the age limit anyway, with Son in Law Bennett ready to shove him on the street the minute he gets the sack!

"Do you mean it?" says I.

He puts his signature to the resignation and hands it over for me to read.

"Say, Dudley," says I, lookin' him up and down, "this listens to me like a bughouse play of yours; but I got to admit that you do it sporty.

There's no ocher streak in you."

"I hoped you would understand," says he. "In the circ.u.mstances, it was all I could do, you see."

"What I see plainer'n anything else," says I, "is that if this goes through your career is bugged to the limit. When do you want this handed in?"

"As soon as possible," says he. "I suppose I ought to resign at once."

"Resign!" says I. "You'll be lucky if the old man don't have you chucked through the window. Better be waitin' down in the lower corridor when I spring this on Mr. Ellins."

Nothin' of that kind for Uncle Dudley, though. He starts straightenin'

up his desk as I goes out, as calm as though he was house cleanin' for a vacation.

And while I'm tryin' to make up my mind how to deliver this doc.u.ment to the main stem and duck an ambulance ride afterwards, the directors'

meetin' breaks up. So I finds Old Hickory alone in his private office and slips it casual on the pad in front of him.

"Here, what's this?" he snorts, callin' me back as he opens up the sheet. "Eh? Dudley! Resigns, does he! What, that dried up, goat faced, custard brained, old----Say, boy; ask him what the grizzly grindstones he means by----"

"I did," says I, "and, if you want to know, he's quittin' because he's too straight to cook up the books the way you told him."

"Cook up the books!" gasps Old Hickory, gettin' raspb'ry tinted in the face and displayin' neck veins like a truck horse. "He's been welshing, has he? Perhaps he'd like to turn State's witness? Well, by the great sizzling skyrockets, if that's his trick, I'll give him enough of----"

"Excuse me, Mr. Ellins," I breaks in, "but you're slippin' your clutch.

Tricks! Why, he ain't even wise to what you want him to do it for. All he knows is that it's crooked, and he renigs on a general proposition.

And, say, when a man's as straight as that, with the workhouse starin'

him in the face, he's too valuable to lose, ain't he?"

"Wha-a-at?" gurgles Old Hickory.

"Besides," says I, hurryin' the words to get 'em all out before any violent scene breaks loose, "knowin' all he does about them Mutt & Mudd checks, and with what he don't know about the case, it wouldn't be hardly safe to have him roamin' the streets, would it? Now I leave it to you."

Say, I was lookin' Old Hickory right in the eye, ready to dodge the inkstand or anything else, while I was puttin' that over, and for a minute I thought it was comin' sure. But while he can get as hot under the collar as anyone I ever saw, and twice as quick, he don't go clear off his nut any of the time.

"Young man," says he, calmin' down and motionin' me to a chair, "as usual, you seem to be more or less well informed on this matter yourself. Now let's have the rest of it."

And just like that, all of a sudden, it's batted up to me. So I lets it come, with all the details about Uncle Dudley's frosty home life, and the reformer son out West that still thinks father is makin' good. He sits there and listens to every word too. Not that he comes in with the sympathetic sigh, or shows signs of being troubled by mist in the eye corners. He just throws in an occasional grunt now and then and drums his fat finger-tips on the chair arm.

"Huh!" says he. "Babes and sucklings! But I've had worse advice that has cost me a lot more. Well, I suppose an old fool like that is dangerous to have drifting around. But I don't want him here just now, either.

Um-m-m! Where did you say this son of his lived?"

"Just out of Los Angeles," says I.

"All right," says Old Hickory. "Tell him he goes west Tuesday as traveling auditor to our second vice president. He'll bring up at Los Angeles about the middle of the month--and about that time it may happen that he'll be retired on full pay. But I'll keep this resignation, as a curiosity."

Now don't ask me to describe how old Dudley takes it; for when he gets the full partic'lars of the decision it near keels him over. And what part of it do you say tickles him most? That the books don't have to be juggled!

"It wasn't like Mr. Ellins to countenance an act of that sort, not in the least," says he, "and I am very glad that he has changed his mind."

"Say, Dudley," says I, "you're a wonder, you are."

And it was all I could do to keep from askin' him if he thought he owned the only bottle of ink eradicator there was in New York.

Do I know who did fix up them entries? Well, by the nervous motions of a certain party next mornin', I could give a guess.

"Piddie," says I, "if they ever get you on the stand, you want to wear interferin' pads between your knees, so they won't hear the bones rattle."

CHAPTER XVI