"Why, they must be giving a party!" says she. "Listen! There's an orchestra playing."

"Uh-huh!" says I. "Sounds like a jazz band."

A minute later, though, when the butler opens the door, there's no sound of music, and as we goes in we catches Garvey just strugglin' into his dinner coat. He seems glad to see us, mighty glad. Says so. Tows us right into the big drawin' room. But Mrs. Garvey ain't so enthusiastic.

She warms up about as much as a cold storage turkey.

You can't feaze Vee, though, when she starts in to be folksy. "I'm just so sorry we've been so long getting over," says she. "And we came near not coming in this time. Didn't we hear music a moment ago. You're not having a dance or--or anything, are you?"

The Garveys look at each other sort of foolish for a second.

"Oh, no," says Mrs. Garvey. "Nothing of the sort. Perhaps some of the servants----"

"Now, Ducky," breaks in Garvey, "let's not lay it on the servants."

And Mrs. Garvey turns the color of a fire hydrant clear up into her permanent wave. "Very well, Tim," says she. "If you _will_ let everybody know. I suppose it's bound to get out sooner or later, anyhow." And with that she turns to me. "Anyway, you're the young man who put him up to this nonsense. I hope you're satisfied."

"Me?" says I, doin' the gawp act.

"How delightfully mysterious!" says Vee. "What's it all about?"

"Yes, Garvey," says I. "What you been up to?"

"I'm being natural, that's all," says he.

"Natural!" snorts Mrs. Garvey. "Is that what you call it?"

"How does it break out?" says I.

"If you must know," says Mrs. Garvey, "he's making a fool of himself by playing a snare drum."

"Honest?" says I, grinnin' at Garvey.

"Here it is," says he, draggin' out from under a davenport a perfectly good drum.

"And you might as well exhibit the rest of the ridiculous things," says Mrs. Garvey.

"Sure!" says Garvey, swingin' back a j.a.panese screen and disclosin' a full trap outfit--base drum with cymbals, worked by a foot pedal, xylophone blocks, triangle, and sand boards--all rigged up next to a cabinet music machine.

"Well, well!" says I. "All you lack is a leader and Sophie Tucker to screech and you could go on at Reisenwebers."

"Isn't it all perfectly fascinating?" says Vee, testin' the drum pedal.

"But it's such a common, ordinary thing to do," protests Mrs. Garvey.

"Drumming! Why, out in Kansas City I remember that the man who played the traps in our Country Club orchestra worked daytimes as a plumber. He was a poor plumber, at that."

"But he was a swell drummer," says Garvey. "I took lessons of him, on the sly. You see, as a boy, the one big ambition in my life was to play the snare drum. But I never had money enough to buy one. I couldn't have found time to play it anyway. And in Kansas City I was too busy trying to be a good sport. Here I've got more time than I know what to do with.

More money, too. So I've got the drum, and the rest. I'm here to say, too, that knocking out an accompaniment to some of these new jazz records is more fun than I've ever had all the rest of my life."

"I'm sure it must be," says Vee. "Do play once for us, Mr. Garvey.

Couldn't I come in on the piano? Let's try that 'Dardanella' thing?"

And say, inside of ten minutes they were at it so hard that you'd most thought Arthur Pryor and his whole aggregation had cut loose. Then they did some one-step pieces with lots of pep in 'em, and the way Garvey could roll the sticks, and tinkle the triangle, and keep the cymbals and base drum goin' with his foot was as good to watch as a jugglin' act, even if he does leak a lot on the face when he gets through.

"You're some jazz artist, I'll say," says I.

"So will the neighbors, I'm afraid," says Mrs. Garvey. "That will sound nice, won't it?"

"Oh, blow the neighbors!" says Garvey. "I'm going to do as I please from now on; and it pleases me to do this."

"Then we might as well nail up the front door and eat in the kitchen, like we used to," says she, sighin'.

But it don't work out that way for them. It was like this: Austin Gordon was pullin' off one of his puppet shows and comes around to ask Vee wouldn't she do some piano playin' for him between the acts and durin'

parts of the performance. He'd hoped to have a violinist, too, but the party had backed out. So Vee tells him about Garvey's trap outfit, and how clever he is at it, and suggests askin' him in.

"Why, certainly!" says Gordon.

So Garvey pulls his act before the flower and chivalry of Harbor Hills.

They went wild over it, too. And at the reception afterwards he was introduced all round, patted on the back by the men, and taffied up by the ladies. Even Mrs. Timothy Garvey, who'd been sittin' stiff and purple-faced all the evenin' in a back seat was rung in for a little of the glory.

"Say, Garvey," says Major Brooks Keating, "we must have you and Mrs.

Ballard play for us at our next Country Club dinner dance after the fool musicians quit. Will you, eh? Not a member? Well, you ought to be. I'll see that you're made one, right away."

I don't know of anyone who was more pleased at the way things had turned out than Vee. "There, Torchy!" says she. "I've always said you were a wonder at managing things."

"Why shouldn't I be?" says I, givin' her the side clinch. "Look at the swell a.s.sistant I've got."

CHAPTER VIII

NICKY AND THE SETTING HEN

Honest, the first line I got on this party with the steady gray eyes and the poker face was that he must be dead from the neck up. Or else he'd gone into a trance and couldn't get out.

Nice lookin' young chap, too. Oh, say thirty or better. I don't know as he'd qualify as a perfect male, but he has good lines and the kind of profile that had most of the lady typists stretchin' their necks. But there's no more expression on that map of his than there would be to a bar of soap. Just a blank. And yet after a second glance you wondered.

You see, I'd happened to drift out into the general offices in time to hear him ask Vincent, the fair-haired guardian of the bra.s.s gate, if Mr.

Robert is in. And when Vincent tells him he ain't he makes no move to go, but stands there starin' straight through the wall out into Broadway. Looks like he might be one of Mr. Robert's club friends, so I steps up and asks if there's anything a perfectly good private sec. can do for him. He wakes up enough to shake his head.

"Any message?" says I.

Another shake. "Then maybe you'll leave your card?" says I.

Yes, he's willin' to do that, and hands it over.

"Oh!" says I. "Why didn't you say so? Mr. Nickerson Wells, eh? Why, you're the one who's going to handle that ore transportation deal for the Corrugated, ain't you?"