"Gee!" says I, "you're a reg'lar Mr. Zipp-Zipp when it comes to romantic notions, ain't you?" And I looks him over curious. As I've always held, though, that's what you can expect from these boys with chin dimples.

It's the Romeo trade-mark, all right, and Crosby had a deep one. "But see here," I goes on, "suppose it should turn out that you're wrong; that this shop window siren of yours was only one of the kind with a composition head, a figure that they blow up with a bicycle pump, and wooden feet? Where does that leave you?"

He shrugs his shoulders. "I wish you could have seen her," says he.

"What sort of a looker?" I asks. "Blonde or brunette?"

"I don't know," says he. "She has a wonderful complexion--like old ivory. Her hair is wonderful, too, sort of a pale gold. But her eyebrows are quite dark, and her eyes--Ah, they're the kind you couldn't forget--sort of a deep violet, I think; maybe you'd call 'em plum colored."

"Listens too fancy to be true," says I. "But they do get 'em up that way for the trade."

There's no jarrin' Crosby loose from his idea, though, and he's just proposin' that I meet him there at twelve-thirty next day when Vee drifts out and I has to break away. "I'll let you know if I can," says I as I walks off.

Course, Vee wants to know who my friend is and all about it, and when I've sketched out the plot of the piece she's quite thrilled. "How interesting!" says she. "I do hope he finds out it's a real girl Some of those models are simply stunning, you know. And there is such a thing as a face haunting you. Oh, by the way! Do you remember the Stribbles?"

"Should I?" I asks.

"The janitor's family in that apartment building where we used to live,"

explains Vee.

"Stribble?" says I. "Oh, yes, the poddy old party who did all the hard sitting around while his wife did the work. What reminded you of them?"

"I'm sure I don't know," says Vee. "But a month or so ago I saw the name printed in an army list of returned casualty cases--there was a boy, you know, and a girl--and I thought then that we ought to look them up and find out. Then I forgot all about it until just a few moments ago. Let's go there, Torchy, before we go out home tonight?"

I must say I couldn't get very much excited over the Stribbles, but on the chance that Vee would forget again I promised, and let her tow me into one of those cute little tea rooms where we had a perfectly punk lunch at a dollar ten per each. But even after a three hour session among the white goods sales Vee still remembered the Stribbles, so about five o'clock we finds ourselves divin' into a bas.e.m.e.nt that's none too clean and are being received by a tall, skinny female with a tously mop of sandy hair bobbed up on her head.

It seems Ma Stribble was still shovelin' most of the ashes and scrubbin' the halls as well; while Pa Stribble, fatter than ever and in the same greasy old togs, continues to camp in a rickety arm chair by the front window, with a pail of suds at his right elbow. Yes, the one mentioned in the casualty list was their Jimmy. Only he hadn't come back a trench hero, exactly. He'd collected his blighty ticket without being at the front at all--by gettin' mixed up with a steel girder in some construction work. A mashed foot was the total damage, and he was having a real good time at the base hospital; would be as good as new in a week or so.

"Isn't that fortunate?" says Vee. "And your daughter, where is she?"

"Mame?" says Ma Stribble, scowlin' up quick. "Gawd knows where she is. I don't."

"Why, what do you mean?" asks Vee. "She--she hasn't left home, has she?"

"Oh, she sleeps here," goes on Ma Stribble, "and comes home for some of her meals, but the rest of the time----" Here she hunches her shoulders.

"Huh!" grunts Pa Stribble. "If you could see the way she togs herself out--like some chorus girl. I don't know where she gets all them flossy things and she won't tell. Paint on her face, too. It's bringin' shame on us, I tell her."

Mrs. Stribble sighs heavy. "And we was tryin' to bring her up decent,"

says she. "I got her a job, waitin' in a lunch room up on' the Circle.

But she was too good for that. Oh, my, yes! Chucked it after the first week. And then she began bloomin' out in fine feathers. Won't say where she gets 'em, either. And her always throwin' up to her father about not workin', when he's got the rheumatism so bad he can hardly walk at times! Gettin' to be too much of a lady to live in a bas.e.m.e.nt, she is.

Humph!"

It looked like Vee had started something, for the Stribbles were knockin' Mame something fierce, when all of a sudden they quits and we hears the street door open. A minute later and in walks a tall, willowy young party wearin' a near-leopard throw-scarf, one of these snappy French tams, and a neat black suit that fits her like it had been run on hot.

If it hadn't been for the odd shade of hair and the eyes I wouldn't have remembered her at all for the stringy, sloppy dressed flapper I used to see going in and out with the growler or helping with the sweepin'. Mame Stribble had bloomed out, for a fact. Also she'd learned how to use a lip-stick and an eyebrow pencil. I couldn't say whether she'd touched up her complexion or not. If she had it was an artistic job--just a faint rose-leaf tint under the eyes. And I had to admit that the whole effect was some stunnin'. Course, she's more or less surprised to see all the comp'ny, but Vee soon explains how we've come to hear about Brother Jim and she shakes hands real friendly.

"I suppose you are working somewhere?" suggests Vee.

Mame nods.

"Where?" asks Vee, going to the point, as usual.

Miss Stribble glances accusin' at paw and maw. "Oh, they've been roastin' me, have they?" she demands. "Well, I can't help it. What they want to know is how much I'm gettin' so I'll have to give up more. But it don't work. See! I pay my board--good board, at that--and I'm not goin' to have paw snoopin' around my place tryin' to queer me. Let him get out and rustle for himself."

With that Mame sheds the throw-scarf and tosses her velvet tam on the table.

"I'm so sorry," says Vee. "I didn't mean to interfere at all. And I've no doubt you have a perfectly good situation."

"It's good enough," says Mame, "until I strike something better."

"What a cunning little hat!" says Vee, pickin' up the tam. "Such a lot of style to it, too."

"Think so?" says Mame. "Well, I built it myself."

"Really!" says Vee. "Why, you must be very clever. I wish I could do things like that."

Trust Vee for smoothin' down rumpled feathers when she wants to. Inside of two minutes she had Mame smilin' grateful and holdin' her hand as she says good-by.

"Poor girl!" says Vee, as we gets to the street. "I don't blame her for being dissatisfied with such a father as that. And it's just awful the way they talk about her. I'm going to see if I can't do something for her at the shop."

"Eh?" says I. "She didn't tell you where she was working."

"She didn't need to," says Vee. "The name was in the hat lining--the Maison Noir."

"Say, you're some grand little sleuth yourself, ain't you?" says I.

"And that explains," Vee goes on, "why I happened to remember the Stribbles today. I must have seen her there. Yes, I'm sure I did--that pale gold hair and the old ivory complexion are too rare to----"

"Why!" I breaks in, "that's the description Crosby Rhodes gave me of this show window charmer of his."

"Was it?" says Vee. "Then perhaps----"

"But what could she have been doing, posin' in the window?" I asks.

"That's what gets me."

It got Vee, too. "Anyway," says she, "you must meet that Mr. Rhodes tomorrow and tell him what you've discovered. He's rather a nice chap, isn't he?"

"Oh, he's all right, I guess," says I. "A bit soft above the ears, maybe, but out in the tall timber I expect he pa.s.ses for a solid citizen. I don't just see how I'm going to help him out much, though."

"I'll tell you," says Vee. "In the morning I will 'phone to Madame Maurice that I want you to see the frock I've picked out, and you can take Mr. Rhodes in with you."

So that's the way we worked it. I calls up Crosby, makes the date, and we meets on the corner at twelve-thirty. He's more or less excited.

"Then you think you know who she is?" he asks.

"If you're a good describer," says I, "there's a chance that I do. But listen: suppose she's kind of out of your cla.s.s--a girl who's been brought up in a bas.e.m.e.nt, say, with a janitor for a father?"

"What do I care who her father is?" says Crosby. "I was brought up in a lumber camp myself. All I ask is a chance to meet her."