THROWING THE LINE TO SKID

Say, this is twice I've been let in wrong on Skid Mallory. Remember him, don't you? Well, he's our young college hick that I helped steer up against Baron Kazedky when he landed that big armor plate order. Did they make Skid a junior partner for that, or paint his name on a private office door? Not so you'd notice it. Maybe they was afraid a sudden boost like that would make him dizzy. But they promotes him to the sales department and adds ten to his pay envelope. I was most as tickled over it as Mallory was, too.

"Didn't I tell you?" says I. "You're a comer, you are! Why, I expect in ten or a dozen years more you'll be sharin' in the semi-annuals and ridin' down to the office in a taxi."

"Perhaps I may, Torchy--in ten or a dozen years," says he, kind of slow and sober.

I could guess what he was thinking of then. It was the girl, that sweet young thing that Brother d.i.c.k towed in here along last winter, some Senator's daughter that Skid had got chummy with when he was doin' his great quarterback act and havin' his picture printed in the sportin'

extras.

"How's that affair comin' on?" says I; for I ain't heard him mention her in quite some time.

"It's all off," says he, shruggin' them wide shoulders of his. "That is, there never was anything in it, you know, to begin with."

"Oh, there wa'n't, eh?" says I. "Forgot all about that picture you used to carry around in the little leather case, have you?"

Skid, he flushes up a bit at that, and one hand goes up to his left inside pocket. Then he laughs foolish. "It isn't I who have forgotten,"

says he.

"Oh-ho!" says I. "Well, I wouldn't have thought her the kind to shift sudden, when she seemed so----"

But Mallory gives me the choke off sign, and as we walks up Broadway he gradually opens up more and more on the subject until I've got a fair map of the situation. Seems that Sis ain't exactly set him adrift without warnin'. He'd sort of helped cut the cable himself. She'd begun by writin' to him every week, tellin' him all about the lively season she was havin' in Washington, and how much fun she was gettin' out of life. She even put in descriptions of her new dresses, and some of her dance orders, and now and then a bridge score, or a hand painted place card from some dinner she'd been to.

And Skid, thinkin' it all over in the luxury of his nine by ten boudoir, got to wonderin' what attractions along that line he could hold out to a young lady that was used to blowin' in more for one new spring lid than he could earn in a couple of weeks.

"And orchids are her favorite flowers!" says he. "Ever buy any orchids, Torchy?"

"Not guilty," says I; "but they ain't so high, are they, that you couldn't splurge on a bunch now and then? What's the tariff on 'em, anyway?"

"At times you can get real nice ones for a dollar apiece," says he.

"Phe-e-e-ew!" says I. "She has got swell tastes."

"It isn't her fault," says he. "She's never known anything different."

So what does Skid do but slow up on the correspondence, skippin' an answer here and there, and coverin' only two pages when he did write.

For one thing, he didn't have so much to tell as she did. I knew that; for I'd seen more or less of Mallory durin' the last few months, and I knew he was playin' his cards close to his vest.

Not that he was givin' any real lifelike miser imitation; but he didn't indulge in high priced cafe luncheons on Sat.u.r.days, like most of the bunch; he'd scratched his entry at the college club; and he was soakin'

away his little surplus as fast as he got his fingers on it.

Course, that programme meant sendin' regrets to most of the invites he got, and spendin' his evenin's where it didn't cost much to get in or out. One frivolous way he had of killin' time was by teachin' 'rithmetic to a cla.s.s of new landed Zinskis at a settlement house over on the East Side.

"Ah, what's the use?" I used to tell him. "They'd learn to do compound interest on their fingers in a month, anyway, and the first thing you know you'll be payin' rent to some of 'em."

But he was pretty level headed about most things, I will say that for Mallory, specially the way he sized up this girl business. Seems at last she got the idea he was grouchy at her about something; and when he didn't deny, or come to the front with any reason--why, she just quit sendin' the billy ducks.

"So you're never going to see her any more, eh?" says I.

"Well," says he, "I supposed until within an hour or so ago that I never should. And then----Well, she's here, Torchy; came yesterday, and I presume she expects to see me to-night."

"That's encouragin', anyway," says I.

But Mallory don't seem so much cheered up. It turns out that Sis is spendin' a few days with friends here, waitin' for the rest of the fam'ly to come on and sail for Europe. They're givin' a farewell dinner dance for her, and Skid is on the list.

The trouble is he can't make up his mind whether to go or stay away. One minute he's dead sure he won't, and the next minute he admits he don't see what harm there would be in takin' one last look.

"But, then," says Mallory, "what good would that do?"

"I know," says I. "There's a young lady friend of mine on the other side too. Say, Mallory, I guess we belong in the lobster cla.s.s."

And when we splits up on the corner Skid has decided against the party proposition, and goes off towards his boardin' house with his chin down on his collar and his heels draggin'.

So I wa'n't prepared for the joyous smile and the frock coat regalia that Mallory wears when he blows into the office about ten-forty-five next forenoon. He's sportin' a spray of lilies of the valley in his lapel, and swingin' his silver topped stick, and by the look on his face you'd think he was hearin' the birdies sing in the treetops.

"Tra-la-la, tra-la-lee!" says I, throwin' open the bra.s.s gate for him.

"Is it a special holiday, or what?"

"It's a very special one," says he, thumpin' me on the back and whisperin' husky in my ear. "Torchy, I'm married!"

"Wha-a-at!" I splutters. "Who to? When?"

"To Sis," says he, "half an hour ago."

"Eh?" says I. "Mean to say you've been and eloped with the Senator's daughter?"

"Eloped!" says he, as though he'd never heard the word before. "Why, no--er--that is, we just went out and--and----"

Oh, no, they hadn't eloped! They'd merely slid out of the ballroom about three A.M., after dancin' seventeen waltzes together, snuggled into a hansom cab, and rode around the park until daylight talkin' it over.

Then she'd slipped back into the house, got into her travelin' dress while he was off changin' his clothes, met again at eight o'clock, chased down to City Hall after a license, and then dragged a young rector away from his boiled eggs and toast to splice 'em.

But Skid didn't call that elopin'. Why, Sis had left word with the butler to tell her friends all about it, and the first thing they did after it was over was to send a forty-word collect telegram to papa.

And Mallory, he'd just dropped around to arrange with Old Hickory for a little vacation before they beat it for Atlantic City.

"So that ain't elopin', eh?" says I. "I expect you'd call that a sixty-yard run on a forward pa.s.s, or something like that? Well, the old man's inside. Luck to you."

Mallory wa'n't on the carpet long, and when he comes out I asks how he made back.

"Oh, bully!" says he. "I'm to have ten days."

"With or without?" says I.

"Oh, I forgot to ask," says he.

Little things like bein' on the payroll or not wa'n't botherin' him then. He gives me a bone crushin' grip and swings out to the elevator in a rush; for he's been away from Sis nearly half an hour now.

Exceptin' a picture postcard or two, showin' the iron pier and a bathin'