"The pole?" says he.

"Uh-huh!" says I. "It's hollow. There's a little trap door in one side."

"Hah!" says McCrea. "Bring it up."

And you'd think by the way him and his friends proceeded to hog the thing, that it was their find. After I'd shown 'em where to press the secret spring they crowded around and blocked off my view. All I got was a glimpse of some papers that they dug out of the inside somewhere. And some excited they are as they paws 'em over.

"In the same old code," says McCrea.

But finally he leads me to one side. "Myers is the man, all right," says he.

"Course he is," says I. "If he wasn't why would he be so wise as to whose pole it was, or about Otto's handwritin'?"

"Ah!" says McCrea, noddin' enthusiastic. "So that was your system in having your friend arrested? You tried out the officers. Very clever!

But how you came to suspect that the barber's pole was being used as a mail box I don't understand."

"No," says I, "you wouldn't. That's where the deep stuff comes in."

McCrea takes that with a smile. "Lieutenant," says he, "I shall be pleased to report to Major Wellby that his estimate of you was quite correct. And allow me to say that I believe you have done for the Government a great service tonight; though how you managed it so neatly I'll be hanged if I see. And--er--I think that will be all." With which he urges me polite towards the door.

But it wasn't all. Not quite. I hear there's something on the way to me from the chief himself, and Old Hickory has been chucklin' around for three days. Also I've had a hunch that one boss barber and one New York cop have done the vanishing act. Anyway, when I was down to the Northumberland yesterday for a shave there was no Otto in sight, and the barber pole was still missin'. That's about all the information that's come my way.

Barry Wales don't know even that much. But when he comes in to report for further orders, as he does frequent now, he has his chest out and his chin up.

"I say, lieutenant," he remarks confidential this last trip, "we put something over, didn't we?"

"I expect we did," says I.

"But what was it all about, eh?" he whispers.

"Why," says I, "you got pinched twice without losin' your amateur standin', and one of the stripes opened in the middle. When they tell me the rest I'll pa.s.s it on to you."

"By George! Will you, though?" says Barry, and after executin' another Boy Scout salute he goes off perfectly satisfied.

CHAPTER IV

A FRAME-UP FOR STUBBY

I expect I shouldn't have been so finicky. I ain't as a rule. My usual play is to press the b.u.t.ton and take whoever is sent in from the general office. But the last young lady typist they'd wished on me must have eased in on the job with a diploma from some hair-dressin'

establishment. She got real haughty when I pointed out that we was using only one "l" in Albany now, but nothing I could say would keep her from writing Bridgeport as two words.

And such a careless way she had of parking her gum on the corner of my desk and forgettin' to retrieve it. So with four or five more folios to do on a report I was makin' to the Ordnance Department, I puts it up to Mr. Piddie personally to pick the best he can spare.

"Course," says I, "I don't expect to get Old Hickory's star performer, but I thought you might have one of the old guard left; one that didn't learn her spellin' by the touch method, at least."

Piddie sighs. Since so many of his key-pounders has gone to polishin'

sh.e.l.l noses, or sailed to do canteen work, he's been having a poor time keeping up his office force. "Do you know, Torchy," says he, "I haven't one left that I can guarantee; but suppose you try Miss Casey, who has just joined."

She wouldn't have been my choice if I'd been doin' the pickin'. One of these tall, limber young females, Miss Casey is, about as thick as a drink of water, but strong on hair and eyes. She glides in willowy, drapes herself on a chair, pats her home-grown ear-m.u.f.fs into shape, and unfolds her note book business-like. And inside of two minutes she's doing the Pitman stuff in jazz time, with no call for repeats except when I'd shoot a string of figures at her. I was handin' myself the comfortin' thought, too, that I'd drawn a prize.

We breezes along on the report until near lunch time with never a hitch until I gets to this paragraph where I mentions Camp Mills, and the next thing I know she has stopped short and is snifflin' through her nose.

"Eh?" says I, gawpin' at her. "Have I been feedin' it at you too speedy?"

"N--no," says she, "bub--but that's where Stub is--Camp Mills--and it got to me sudden."

"Oh!" says I. "And Stub is a brother or something?"

"He--he--Well, there!" says she, holdin' out her left hand and displayin' a turquoise set with chip diamonds.

"Sorry," says I, "but I couldn't tell from the service pin, you understand, when some wears 'em for second cousins. And anyway, the name of the camp had to----"

"'Sall right," snuffles Miss Casey. "I had no call spillin' the weeps durin' business hours. I wouldn't of either, only I had another session with his old lady this mornin' and she sort of got me stirred up."

"Mother taking it hard, is she?" I asks.

"You've said sumpin," admits Miss Casey, unb.u.t.tonin' a locket vanity case and repairin' the damage done to her facial frescoin' with a few graceful jabs. "Not but what I ain't strong for Stub Mears myself. He's all right, Stub is, even if he never could qualify in a beauty compet.i.tion with Jack Pickford or Mr. Doug. Fairbanks. He's good comp'ny and all that, and now he's in the army I expect he'll ditch that ambition of his to be the champion heavy-weight pool player of the West Side.

"But to hear Mrs. Mears talk you'd think he was one of the props of the universe, and that when the new draft got Stub it was a case where Congress ought to stop and draw a long breath. Uh-huh! She's 100 per cent. mother, Mrs. Mears is, and it looks like some of it was catchin'

for me to get leaky-eyed just at mention of the camp he's in. Oh, lady, lady! Excuse it, please, sir."

Which I does cheerful enough. And just to prove I ain't any slave driver I sort of eggs Miss Casey on, from then until the noon hour, to chat away about this war romance of hers. Seems Mr. Mears could have been in Cla.s.s B, on account of his widowed mother and him being a plumber's helper when he had time to spare from his pool practicin'.

Livin' in the same block, they'd been acquainted for quite some time, too.

No, it hadn't been anything serious first off. She'd gone with him to the annual ball of Union 26 for two years in succession and to such like important social events. But there'd been other fellers. Two or three.

And one had a perfectly swell job as manager of a United Cigar branch.

Stub had been a great one for stickin' around, though, and when he showed up in his uniform--well, that clinched things.

"It wasn't so much the khaki stuff I fell for," confides Miss Casey, gazin' sentimental at a ham sandwich she's just unwrapped, "as it was the i-dear back of it. It's in the blood, you might say, for I had an uncle in the Spanish-American and a grandfather in the Civil War. So when Mr. Mears tells me how, when it comes time for him to go over the top, the one he'll be thinkin' most of will be me--Say, that got to me strong. 'You win, Stubby,' says I. 'Flash the ring.'

"That's how it was staged, all in one scene. And later when that Jake Horwitz from the United shop comes around sportin' his instalment Liberty bond b.u.t.ton, but backin' his fallen arches to keep him exempt, I gives him the cold eye. 'Nix on the coo business, Mister Horwitz,' says I, 'for when I hold out my ear for that it's got to come from a reg'lar man. Get me?' Which is a good deal the same I hands the others.

"But say, between you and I, it's mighty lonesome work. You see, I'd figured how Stub would be blowin' in from camp every now and then, and we'd be doin' the Sunday afternoon parade up and down the block, with all the girls stretchin' their necks after us. You know? Well, he's been at the blessed camp near three months now and not once since that first flyin' trip has he showed up here.

"Which is why I've been droppin' in on his old lady so often, tryin' to dope why he shouldn't be let off, same as the others. Mrs. Mears, she's all primed with the notion that her Edgar has been makin' himself so useful down there that the colonel would get all balled up in his work if he didn't keep Stub right on the job. 'See,' says she, wavin' a picture post card at me, 'he's been appointed on the K. P. squad again.'

Honest, she thinks he's something like a Knights of Pythias and goes marchin' around important with a plume in his hat and a gold sword.

Mothers are easy, ain't they? You can bet though, that Stub don't try to buffalo little old me with anything like that. What he writes me, which ain't much, is mostly that his top sergeant's a grouch or that they've been quarantined on account of influenza. So I sends him back the best advice I've got in stock, askin' him why he don't buck up on his drill, keep his equipment clean, and shift that potato peelin' work to some of the new squads.

"Course, I don't spill any of this to Mrs. Mears. Poor soul! She's got troubles enough, right in her joints. Rheumatism. Uh-huh. Most of the time she has to get around in a wheel chair. Ain't that fierce? And she was mighty nervy about sendin' Stubby off. Wouldn't let him say a word about exemption. No, sir! 'Never mind me, Edgar,' says she. 'You kill a lot of Huns. I'll get along somehow.' That's talkin', ain't it? And her livin' with a sister-in-law that has a disposition like a green parrot!

"So I can't find much fault with her when she sort of overdoes the fond mother act. Seems to me they might let him off now and then, even if he does miss a few bugle calls, or forgets some of the rules and regulations. And this bug of hers about wonderin' when and how what he's doin' for his country is goin' to be reco'nized proper--Well, I don't debate that with her at all. For one thing I don't get just exactly what she wants; whether it's for the President to write her a special letter of thanks, or for Mr. Baker to make Stubby a captain or something right off. Anyway, she don't feel that Edgar's bein' treated right. He ain't even had his name in the papers and only a few of the neighbors seem to know he's a hero. Yep, it's foolish of her, I expect, but I let her unload it all on me without dodgin'. I've even promised to see what can be done about it. I--I'd been thinkin', sir, about askin' you."

"Eh?" says I, "Me? Oh, I couldn't think of a thing."

"But if I could, sir," goes on Miss Casey, "would--would you help out a little? She's an old lady, you know, and all crippled up, and Stubby he's all she's got left and----"