"Perhaps you wouldn't mind, Torchy," she goes on, "telling me just what he said."

"Why, for one thing," says I, "he let out that you was the most fascinatin' woman in the world."

Another ripply laugh from Bonnie. "The old dear!" says she. "But then, he always was a little silly about me. Think of his never having gotten over it in all these years, though! But he didn't stay to meet me. How was that?"

I hope I made it convincin' about his being called before a Senate Committee and how he was hoping to get back before she showed up. I told it as well as I could with them wise friendly eyes watchin' me.

"Perhaps, after all," says she, "it's just as well. If I had known he had this photo I never would have risked coming. Now that I'm here, however, I wish there was someone who----"

"Oh, he fixed that up," says I. "I'm the subst.i.tute."

"You!" says she. Then she shakes her head. "You're a dear boy," she goes on, "but I couldn't ask it of you. Really!"

"Sure you can," says I. "You want to see what the old town looks like, have a little dinner in one of the old joints, and maybe make a little round of the bright spots afterwards. Well, I got it all planned out.

Course, I can't do it just the way Mr. Ellins would but----"

"Listen, Torchy," she breaks in. "I regret to admit the fact, but I am a fat, shapeless, freaky-looking old woman. Ordinarily that doesn't worry me in the least. After fifteen years in the tropics one doesn't worry about how one looks. It has been a long time since I've given it a thought. But now--Well, it's different. Seeing that picture. No, I can't ask it of you."

"Mr. Ellins will ask me, though, when he gets back," says I. "Besides, I don't mind. Maybe you are a little overweight, but I'm beginnin' to suspect you're a reg'lar person, after all; and if I can qualify as a guide----"

Say, don't let on to Vee, but that's where I got hugged. It seems Bonnie does want to have one glimpse of New York with the lights on; wants it the worst way. For when she'd come up from Rio her one idea was to get back to the old farm, fix it up regardless of expense, and camp down there quiet for the rest of her days. She'd had a bully time doin' it, too, for three or four months. She'd enjoyed havin' people around her who could talk English, and watchin' the white clouds sail over the green hills, and seein' her cattle and sheep browsin' about the fields.

It had rested her eyes and her soul.

And then, all of a sudden, she had this hunch that maybe she was missin'

something. Not that she thought she could come back reg'lar, or break into the old life where she left off. She says she wasn't so foolish in the head as all that. Her notion was that she might be happier and more contented if she just looked on from the side-lines.

"I wanted to hear music," says she, "and see the lights, and watch gay and beautiful young people doing the things I used to do. It might--Well, it might shake off some of my years. Who knows?"

"Sure! That's the dope," says I. "Course, a lot of their old-time joints ain't runnin' now--Koster & Bial's, Harrigan's, the Cafe Martin but maybe some you remember are still open."

"Silly!" says she, shakin' a pudgy forefinger at me. "That isn't what I want at all. Not the old, but the new; the very newest and most fashionable. I'm not trying to go back, but trying to keep up."

"Oh!" says I. "In that case it'll be easy. How about startin' in with the tea dance at the Admiral, just opened? Begins at 4:15."

"Tell me, Torchy," says she, "did you ever see anyone as--as huge as I am at a tea dance? No, I think we'll not start with that."

"Then suppose we hop off with dinner on the Plutoria roof?" I suggests.

"The Tortonis are doing a dancin' turn there and they have the swellest jazz band in town."

"It sounds exciting," says Bonnie. "I will try to be ready by 7:30. And you surely are a nice boy. Now if you will help me out to the elevator----"

And it's while I'm tryin' to steady her on one side as she goes rollin'

waddly through the main office that I gets a little hint of what's comin' to me. Maybe you've seen a tug-boat bobbin' alongside a big liner in a heavy sea. I expect we must have looked something like that. Even so, that flossy bunch of lady typists showed poor taste in cuttin' loose with the smothered snickers as we wobbles past.

And I could get a picture of myself towin' the Senora Concita Maria What's-Her-Name, alias Bonnie Sutton, through the Plutoria corridors.

What if her feet should skid and after ten or a dozen bell hops had boosted her up again they should find me underneath? Still I was in for it. No scoutin' around for back-number restaurants, as I'd planned at first. No, Bonnie had asked to be brought up-to-date. So she should, too. But I did wish she'd come to town in something besides that late Queen Victoria costume.

Yet I maps out the evenin' as if I had a date with Peggy Hopkins or Hazel Dawn. At 5:30 I'm slippin' a ten-spot into the unwillin' palm of a Plutoria head waiter to cinch a table for two next to the dancin'

surface, and from there I drops into a cigar store where I pays two prices for a couple of end seats at the Midnight Follies. Then I slicks up a bit at a Turkish bath and at 7:25 I'm waitin' with the biggest taxi I can find in front of Bonnie's hotel.

I expect I must have let out a sigh of relief when she shows up and I notice that she's shed the unsteady velvet lid. It's some creation she's swapped it for, a pink satin affair with a wing spread of about three feet, but I must admit it kind of sets off that big face of hers and the grayish hair.

That's nothing to the jolt I gets, though, after she's been loaded into the cab and the fur-trimmed opera cape slips back a bit. Say, take it from me, Bonnie has bloomed out. She must have speeded up some Fifth Avenue modiste's establishment to the limit, but she's turned the trick, I'll say. Uh-huh! Not only the latest model evening gown, but she's had her hair done up spiffy, and she's got on a set of jewels that would make a p.a.w.nbroker's bride turn green.

"Z-z-zing!" says I, catchin' my breath. "Excuse me, but I didn't know you were going to dress the part."

"You didn't think I could, did you, Torchy?" says she. "Well, I haven't quite forgotten, you see."

So all them gloomy thoughts I'd indulged in was so much useless worry, as is usually the case. I'll admit we was some conspicuous durin' the evenin', with folks stretchin' their necks our way, but I didn't hear any snickers. They gazed at Bonnie sort of awed and impressed, like tourists starin' at the Woolworth Buildin' when it's lighted up.

Some cla.s.sy dinner that was we had, even if I did order it myself, with only two waiters to coach me. I couldn't say exactly what it was we had for nourishment, only I know it was all tasty and expensive. You wouldn't expect me to pick out the cheap things for a lady plutess from Brazil, would you? So we dallies with Canaps Barbizon, Portage de la Reine, b.r.e.a.s.t.s of milk-fed pheasants, and such trifles as that. Bonnie says it's all good. But she can't seem to get used to the band brayin'

out impetuous just as she's about to take another bite of something.

"Tell me," says she, "is that supposed to be music?"

"Not at all," says I. "That's jazz. We've got so we can't eat without it, you know."

Also I suspect the Tortonis' dancin' act jarred her a bit. You've seen 'em do the shimmy-plus?

"Well!" says she, drawin' in a long breath and lookin' the other way.

"So that is an example of modern dancing, is it?"

"It's the kind of stunt the tired business man has to have before he gets bright in the eyes again," says I. "But wait until we get to the Follies if you want to see him really begin to live."

We had to kill a couple of hours between times so we took in the last half of the latest bedroom farce and I think that got a rise or two out of Bonnie. I gathered from her remarks that Lillian Russell or Edna Wallace Hopper never went quite that far in her day.

"It's pajamas or nothing now," says I.

"And occasionally," she adds, "I suppose it is--Well, I trust not, at least."

After the Follies she hadn't a word to say. Only, as I landed her back at her hotel, along about 2:30 a.m., she slumps into a big chair in the Egyptian room and lets her chin sag.

"It's no use, Torchy," says she. "I--I couldn't."

"Eh?" says I.

"End my days to jazz time," says she. "No. I shall go back to my quiet hills and my calm-eyed Holsteins. And I shall go entirely contented. I can't tell you either, how thankful I am that it was you who showed me my mistake instead of my dear old friend. You've been so good about it, too."

"Me?" says I. "Why, I've had a big night. Honest."

"Bless you!" says she, pattin' my hand. "And just one thing more, Torchy. When you tell Mr. Ellins that I've been here, and gone, couldn't you somehow forget to say just how I looked? You see, if he remembers me as I was when that photo was taken--Well, where's the harm?"

"Trust me," says I. "And I won't be strainin' my conscience any at that."

But I didn't need to juggle even a word. When Old Hickory hears how I've subbed in for him with Bonnie he just pulls out the picture, gazes at it fond for a minute or so, and then remarks:

"Ah, you lucky young rascal!" Then he picks up a note from his desk.

"Oh, by the way," he goes on, "here's a little remembrance she sent you in my care."