"Ah, thanks," says he, "North exit, did you say? Let's see, that is--er----"

"'Bout face!" says I, takin' him in tow. "Now guide right! Hep, hep, hep--parade rest--here you are! And here's the blank you write it on.

Now go to it!"

"I--er--but I'm not quite sure," protests Ferdie, peelin' off one of his chamois gloves, "I'm not quite sure of just what I ought to say."

"That bein' the case," says I, "it's lucky you ran into me, ain't it?

Now what's the argument?"

Course it was a harrowin' crisis. Him and Marjorie had got an invite some ten days ago to spend the week-end at a swell country house over on Long Island. They'd hemmed and hawed, and fin'lly ducked by sendin' word they was so sorry, but they was expectin' a young gent as guest about then. The answer they got back was, "Bring him along, for the love of Mike!" or words to that effect. Then they'd debated the question some more. Meanwhile the young gent had canceled his date, and the time has slipped by, and here it was almost Sat.u.r.day, and nothin' doing in the reply line from them. Marjorie had thought of it while they was havin'

lunch in town, and she'd chased Ferdie out to send a wire, without tellin' him what to say.

"And you want someone to make up your mind for you, eh?" says I. "All right. That's my long suit. Take this: 'Regret very much unable to accept your kind invitation'--which might mean anything, from a previous engagement to total paralysis."

"Ye-e-es," says Ferdie, hangin' his bamboo stick over his left arm and chewin' the penholder thoughtful, "but Marjorie'll be awfully disappointed. I think she really does want to go."

"Ah, squiffle!" says I. "She'll get over it. Whose joint is it, anyway?"

"Why," says he, "the Pulsifers', you know."

"Eh?" says I. "Not the Adam K.'s place, Cedarholm?"

Ferdie nods. And, say, it was like catchin' a chicken sandwich dropped out of a clear sky. The Pulsifers! Didn't I know who was there? I did!

I'd had a bulletin from a very special and particular party, sayin' how she'd be there for a week, while Aunty was in the Berkshires. And up to this minute my chances of gettin' inside Cedarholm gates had been null and void, or even worse. But now--say, I wanted to be real kind to Ferdie!

"One or two old friends of Marjorie's are to be there," he goes on dreamy.

"They are?" says I. "Then that's diff'rent. You got to go, of course."

"But--but," says he, "only a moment ago you----"

"Ah, mooshwaw!" says I. "You don't want Marjorie grumpin' around for the next week, do you, wishin' she'd gone, and layin' it all to you?"

Ferdie blinks a couple of times as the picture forms on the screen.

"That's so," says he. "She would."

"Then gimme that blank," says I. "Now here, how's this, 'Have at last arranged things so we can come. Charmed to accept'? Eh?"

"But--but there's Baby's milk," objects Ferdie. "Marjorie always watches the nurse sterilize it, you know."

"Do up a gallon before you leave," says I.

"It's such a puzzling place to get to, though," says Ferdie. "I'm sure we'd never get on the right train."

"Whadye mean, train," says I. "Ah, show some cla.s.s! Go in your limousine."

"So we could," says Ferdie. "But then, you know, they'll be expectin' us to bring an extra young man."

"They needn't be heartbroken over that," says I. "You didn't say who he was, did you?"

"Why, no," says Ferdie; "but----"

"Since you press me so hard," says I, "I'll sub for him. Guess you need me to get you there, anyway."

"By Jove!" says Ferdie, as the proposition percolates through the hominy. "I wonder if----"

"Never waste time wonderin'," says I. "Take a chance. Here, sign your name to that; then we'll go hunt up Marjorie and tell her the glad news."

Ferdie was still in a daze when we found the other three-quarters of the sketch, and Marjorie was some set back herself when I springs the scheme. But she's a good sport, Marjorie is, and if she was hooked up to a live one she'd travel just as lively as the next heavyweight.

"Oh, let's!" says she, clappin' her hands. "You know we haven't been away from home overnight for an age. And Edna Pulsifer's such a dear, even if her father is a grouchy old thing. We'll take Torchy along too.

What do you say, Ferdie?"

Foolish question! Ferdie was still dazed. And anyhow she had said it herself.

So that's how it happens I'm one of the chosen few to be landed under the Cedarholm porte-cochere that Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Course the Pulsifers ain't reg'lar old fam'ly people, like Ferdie's folks. They date back to about the last Broadway horse-car period, I understand, when old Adam K. begun to ship his Cherryola dope in thousand-case lots.

Now, you know, it's all handled for him by the drug trust, and he only sits by the safety-vault door watchin' the profits roll in. But with his name still on every label you could hardly expect the Pulsifers to qualify for Mrs. Astor's list.

Seems Edna went to the same boardin' school as Marjorie and Vee, though, and neither of 'em ever thinks of throwin' Cherryola at her. And as far as an establishment goes, Cedarholm is the real thing. Gave me quite some thrill to watch two footmen in silver and baby blue pryin' Marjorie out of the limousine.

"Gee!" thinks I, glancin' around at the deep verandas, the swing seats, and the cozy corner nooks. "If Vee and I can't get together for a few chatty words among all this, then I'm a punk plottist!"

These country house joints are so calm and peaceful too! It's a wonder anybody could work up a case of nerves, havin' this for a steady thing.

But Edna and Mrs. Pulsifer acted sort of restless and jumpy. She's a tall, thin, hollow-eyed dame, Mrs. Pulsifer is, with gray hair and a smooth, easy voice. Miss Edna must take more after her Pa; for she's filled out better, and while she ain't what you'd call mug-mapped, she has one of these low-bridge noses and a lot of oily, dark red hair that she does in a weird fashion of her own with a side part. Seems shy and bashful too, except when she snuggles up on the lee side of Marjorie and trails off with her.

The particular party I was strainin' my eyesight for ain't in evidence, though, and all the hint I gets of her bein' there was hearin' a ripply laugh at the far end of the hallway when she and Marjorie go to a fond clinch. That was some comfort, though,--she was in the house!

As I couldn't very well go scoutin' around whistlin' for her to come out, I does the next best thing. After bein' shown my room I drifts downstairs and out on the lawn where I'd be some conspicuous. Course I wa'n't suggestin' anything, but if somebody should happen to see me and judge that I was lonesome, they might wander out that way too. Sure enough somebody did,--Ferdie.

"I thought you had to take a nap before dinner," says I, maybe not so cordial.

"Bother!" says he. "There's no such thing as that possible with those three girls chattering away in the next room."

"Well, they ain't been together for some time, I expect," says I.

"It's worse than usual," says Ferdie. "A man in the case, you might know."

"Eh?" says I, p.r.i.c.kin' up my ears. "Whose man?"

"Oh, Edna Pulsifer's absurd ditch digger," says Ferdie. "He's a young engineer, you know, that she's been interested in for a couple of years.

Her father put a stop to it once; kept her in Munich for ten months--and that's a perfectly deadly place out of season, you know. But it doesn't seem to have done much good."

I grins. Surprisin' how cheerful I could be so long as it was a case of Miss Pulsifer's young man. I pumps the whole tale out of Ferdie,--how this Mr. Bert Gilkey--cute name too--had been writin' her letters all the time from out West, how he'd been seized with a sudden fit, wired on that he must see her once more, and had rushed East. Then how Pa Pulsifer had caught 'em lalligaggin' out by the hedge, had talked real rough to Gilkey, and ordered him never to muddy his front doormat again.

"And now," goes on Ferdie, "he sends word to Edna that he means to try it once more, no matter what happens, and everyone is all stirred up."

"So that accounts for the nervous motions, eh?" says I. "What does Pa Pulsifer have to say to this defi?"

"Goodness!" says Ferdie, shudderin'. "He doesn't know. No one dares tell him a word. If he found out--well, it would be awful!"