On With Torchy. Ford Sewell

ground floor from the start. Even at that, how he managed to keep the rail with so much competition is more'n I can say; but there's something sort of clean and wholesome lookin' about him, and I expect them calm, sea-blue eyes helped along. Anyway, him and Nellie kept comp'ny there, I take it, for three or four months quite steady, and Ira admits that he was plumb gone on her.

      "Well, what was the hitch?" says I. "Wouldn't she be Mrs. Higgins?"

      "Guess she would if I had asked her," says he; "but I didn't get around to it quick enough. Fact is, I'd just bought out the boat shop, and I had fifteen or twenty men to work for me, with four new keels laid down at once, and—well, I was mighty rushed with work just then and——"

      "I get you," says I. "While you was makin' up your mind what to say, some wholesale drug drummer with a black mustache won her away."

      It's more complicated than that, though. One of the chambermaids had a cousin who was assistant property man with a Klaw & Erlanger comp'ny, and he'd sent on the tip how some enterprisin' manager was lookin' for fifty new faces for a Broadway production; and so, if Cousin Maggie wanted to shake the hotel business, here was her chance. Maggie wanted to, all right; but she lacked the nerve to try it alone. Now, if Nellie would only go along too—why——

      And it happens this was one night when Ira had overlooked a date he had with Nellie, and that while he was doin' overtime at the boatworks Nellie was waitin' lonesome on the corner all dressed to go over to South Bristol to a dance. So this bulletin from the great city finds her in a state of mind.

      "Course," says Maggie, "you got a feller, and all that."

      "Humph!" says Nellie.

      "And there's no tellin'," Maggie goes on, glancin' at her critical, "if your figure would suit."

      "If they can stand for yours," says Nellie, "I guess I'll take a chance too. Come on. We'll take the early morning boat."