Torchy. Ford Sewell

yes," says he, "I remember now. You're the—the——"

      "Go on, say it," says I. "I don't mind if it is red, and I lets anybody call me Torchy that wants to, even Willies."

      "Well, now, that's nice of you," says he, sidetrackin' a bite to look me over. Then he grins.

      Say, it was that open face movement that made me suspicious maybe he wa'n't one of the Algernon kind, after all. But he had most of the points, from the puff tie to the way he spoke. It wa'n't the hot potato dialect Piddie uses; but it leaned that way. If he'd been a real Willie boy, though, he'd gone up in the air, and maybe I'd got slapped on the wrist. His springin' that grin was a hunch for me to hold the decision.

      "How long you been keepin' Corrugated stocks from goin' below par?" says I.

      That stuns him for a minute, and then a light breaks. He throws another grin. "Oh, about a year," he says.

      "Chee!" says I. "And they ain't put you on the board of directors yet?"

      "I've managed to keep off so far," says he.

      "Get a lift every quarter, though, I suppose?" says I.

      "I'm getting the same salary I began with, if that's what you mean," says he, tacklin' another sandwich that had got past the meat inspectors.

      "Yours must be fatter'n most of the Saturday prize packages they hand out in the general office, or you wouldn't have kept satisfied so long," says I.

      He thinks that over for awhile, like it was a new proposition, and then he says, quiet and easy, "I'm not at all sure, you see, that I am satisfied."

      "Why not chuck it then and make another grab?" says I. "It's good luck sometimes to shake the bag."

      He swings his shoulders up at that—and say, he's got a good pair, all right!—but he don't say a word.

      "Ain't married the job, have you?" says I. "Or have you lost your nerve?"

      "Perhaps it's a lack of nerve, as you suggest," says he, more as if he was talkin' to himself than anything else.

      "Don't think you could connect with another, eh?" says I.

      He shakes his head. "I'm not exactly proud of the fact," says he; "but I don't mind telling you in confidence that it required the combined efforts of my entire family and all my friends to get me into this job."

      "Honest?" says I. "Chee! They picked a pippin for you, didn't they?"

      "It's a star," says he.

      "So's a swift kick from the bottom of a well," says I.

      With that I shakes off the pie crumbs and takes a chase up around the Flatiron, to watch the kids collectin' cigar coupons and take a look at the folks from the goshfry-mighty belt shiverin' in the rubberneck buggies. Say, I never feel quite so much to home in this burg as when I watch them jays from the one-night stands payin' their coin to see things that I shut my eyes on every day.

      When I gets back on the gate I tries to figure out this Mallory gent; but I can't place him. He's no Willie, and he's no dope, I can see that. With his age and general get-up, though, he ought to be pullin' out fifty or so a week. What's he been at all this time?

      I was just curious enough to stroll over and take a look at him. He has his coat off, pluggin' away on the job and doin' the kind of work that I could learn to play with any time I had a day off. Not that I'm lookin' for it. Bein' head office boy suits me down to the ground. That's bein' somethin', even if they do pay you off with a five and a one. But if you're a live one you'll get tipped as much more. And you don't have cold chills up the spine every time the boss lugs down an after breakfast grouch.

      Course, a duck like Mallory can't get in any such game; so he's got to dig away at the filin' case and wear his last summer's suit until Christmas. Diggin' and keepin' quiet seemed to be his only play. Just as though he'd ever win any medals by the way he stacked papers away in little pasteboard boxes!

      He wins somethin' else, though. One day the general manager rushes into Mallory's corner after somethin' he wanted in a hurry, and by the time he'd found it he'd pied things from one end of the coop to the other. Mallory was just tryin' to straighten out the mess, when along comes Piddie, with that pointed nose of his in front. Piddie don't ask any questions; he throws a fit. Why, he had Mallory on the carpet for forty minutes by the clock, givin' him the grand roast, and the only time Mallory opens up to tell him how it was he shuts him off with a, "That is sufficient, Mr. Mallory! I am here to get results, not excuses. Is that quite clear?"

      "Yes, sir," says Mallory.

      Say, but he did it well! He looks that peanut headed snipe straight in the eye all the time after that and takes what's comin' to him without turnin' a hair. It was "Yes, Mr. Piddie," and "No, Mr. Piddie"; but nothin' else. And the cooler and politer he was, the wilder Piddie got. When I hears him tell Mallory that another such break will cost him his job, I was achin' to throw the letterpress at him and break him in two. I couldn't hardly wait for Mallory to shut the door before I let loose.

      "Say, Piddie," says I, "if you don't think you'll sleep easy to-night unless you give some one the bounce, why not fire me? Go on, now; I'll make out a case for you. Tell 'em I said you howled around like a pup with a sore ear."

      Piddie turns white and gives me the glassy eye—that's all. I couldn't tease a fire out of him with a box of matches.

      But that didn't make up for the way he'd roughed Mallory. I was still sore over it at closin' time; so I lays for Mallory and asks him why he didn't risk the job and take a crack at Piddie's jaw.

      He just laughs. "Oh," says he, "I couldn't pay him that compliment."

      Was that a joke, yes? Blamed if I could tell. Anyway, it wa'n't sense. And there's where I had the front to put it straight up to Mallory about his bein' stranded in a place where he had to take such pin jabbin' as that.

      "Say," says I, "is it hard luck, or a late start, or what?"

      "I fancy a late start would cover it," says he.

      "Not college?" says I.

      "That's it," says he.

      "Aw, fudge!" says I. "Honest, I didn't take you for one of them rah-rah boys. Well, if it's that ails you, you're up against it. I don't wonder you had to be jammed into a job with a flyin' wedge. Chee!"

      I was sorry for him, though. Maybe it was somethin' he couldn't duck. Some of 'em I've known of couldn't. Oh, I've seen bunches of 'em, just turned out. Didn't we have more'n a dozen unloaded on us when me and Mr. Marshall was gettin' out the Sunday edition? And we didn't do a thing to 'em, either!

      But it's a tough deal, after puttin' in all that time dodgin' the fool killer at some one else's expense, to be chucked into the grub game with nothin' but a lot of siss-boom yells for experience. I wouldn't have believed Mallory was that sort. Nice young feller, too. Never slung any of his Greek at me, nor flashed his college pins. Seemed to kind of like chinnin' to me at lunch; so I let him. You know how you'll get to gassin' and tellin' each other the story of your life. I lets out about Belmont Pepper and the minin' stocks he gave me, and Mallory drops hints about mother and sister, that was livin' off in Washington or somewhere with a brother that was in better luck. Mallory, he was doin' the hall bedroom act, livin' on that twelve per and keepin' out of sight of everyone he'd ever known until he'd made good. Guess he found it kind of a lonesome deal.

      Once when I was extra flush I offers to blow him to a fam'ly circle seat at "The Bandit Queen"; but he says he thinks he'd better not go.

      "Plannin' to have a spin in your new car?" says I.

      "Hardly," says he.

      "Well, how do you put in your off time, anyway?" says I.

      And say, whatcher think? His programme is to light up the gas stove reg'lar after dinner and fill his head full of truck out of the trade monthlies and Wall Street columns, postin' himself on Corrugated business.

      "Gettin'