"Why, Mr. Ballard!" says he, extendin' the cordial palm. "I had no idea you were on this side. Really! I understood, you know, that you were settled over there for good, and that----"

"So you take advantage of the fact, do you, to make me president of one of your fool companies?" says Ballard. "My imbecile attorney just let it leak out. What do you mean, eh?"

Mr. Robert pushes him into a chair and shrugs his shoulders. "It was rather a liberty, I admit," says he; "one of the exigencies of business, however. When a meddlesome administration insists on dissolving into its component parts such an extensive organization as ours--well, we had to have a lot of presidents in a hurry. Really, we didn't think you'd mind, Mr. Ballard, and we had no intention of bothering you with the details."

"Huh!" snorts Mr. Ballard. "And what is this precious corporation of which I'm supposed to be the head?"

"Why, Mutual Funding," says Mr. Robert.

"Funding, eh?" comes back Ballard snappy. "What tommyrot! Bob Ellins, you ought to know that I haven't the vaguest notion as to what funding is,--never did,--and at my time of life, Sir, I don't propose to learn!"

"Of course, of course," says Mr. Robert, soothin'. "Quite unnecessary too. You are adequately and efficiently represented, Mr. Ballard, by a private secretary who has mastered the art of funding, mutual and otherwise, until he can do it backward with one hand tied behind him.

Torchy, will you step here a moment?"

I was comin' too; but Mr. Ballard waves me off.

"Stop!" says he. "I'll not listen to a word of it. I'd have you know, Bob Ellins, that I have worried along for sixty-two years without having been criminally implicated in business affairs. The worst I've done has been to pose as a dummy director on your rascally board and to see that my letter of credit was renewed every three months. Use my name if you must; but allow me to keep a clear conscience. I'm going in now for a chat with your father, Bob, and if he mentions funding I shall stuff my fingers in my ears and run. He won't, though. Old Hickory knows me better. This his door? All right. Thanks. Hah, you old freebooter! In your den, are you? Well, well!"

At which he stalks into the other office and leaves Mr. Robert and me grinnin' at each other.

"Listened like you was in Dutch for a minute or so there," says I. "Case of the cat comin' back, eh?"

"From Kyrle Ballard," says he, "one expects the unexpected. Only we need not worry about his wanting to become the acting head of your department. To-morrow or next week he is quite likely to be off again, bound for some remote corner of the earth, to hobn.o.b with the native rulers thereof, partic.i.p.ate in their games of chance, and invent a new punch especially suitable for that particular climate."

"Gee!" says I. "That's my idea of a perfectly good boss,--one that gives his job absent treatment."

I thought too that Mr. Robert had doped out his motions correct; for a week goes by and no Mr. Ballard shows up to take the rubber stamp away from me, or even ask fool questions. I was hopin' too that Ballard had gone a long ways from here, accordin' to custom. Then one night--well, it was at the theater, one of them highbrow Shaw plays that I was chucklin' through with Aunt Zen.o.bia.

Eh? Remember her, don't you? Why, she's one of the pair of aunts that I got half adopted by, 'way back when I first started in with the Corrugated. Yep, I've been stayin' on with 'em. Why not? Course our little side street is 'way down in an old-fashioned part of the town; the upper edge of old Greenwich village, in fact, if you know where that is.

The house is one of a row that sports about the only survivin' specimens of the cast-iron grapevine school of architecture. Honest, we got a double-decked veranda built of foundry work that was meant to look like leaves and vines, I expect. Cute idea, eh? Bein' all painted brick red, though, it ain't so convincing but stragglin' over ours is a wistaria that has a few sickly-lookin' blossoms on it every spring and manages to carry a sprinklin' of dusty leaves through the summer. Also there's a nine-by-twelve lawn, that costs a dollar a square foot to keep in shape, I'll bet.

From that description maybe you'd judge that the place where I hang out is a little antique. It is. But inside it's mighty comf'table, and it's the best imitation of a home I've ever carried a latch-key to. As for the near-aunts, Zen.o.bia and Martha, take it from me they're the real things in that line, even if they did let me in off the street without askin' who or what! The best of it is they never have asked, which makes it convenient. I couldn't tell 'em much, if they did.

There's Martha--well, she's the pious one. It ain't any case of sudden spasms with her. It's a settled habit. She's just as pious Monday mornin' as she is Sunday afternoon, and it lasts her all through the week. You know how she started in by readin' them Delilah and Jona yarns to me. She's kept it up. About twice a week she corners me and pumps in a slice of Scripture readin', until I guess we must be more 'n half through the Book. Course there's a lot of it I don't see any percentage in at all; but I've got so I don't mind it, and it seems to give Aunt Martha a lot of satisfaction. She's a lumpy, heavy-set old girl, Martha, and a little slow; but the only thing that ain't genuine about her is the yellowish white frontispiece she pins on over her own hair when she dolls up for dinner.

But Zen.o.bia--say, she's a diff'rent party! A few years younger than Martha, Zen.o.bia is,--in the early sixties, I should say,--and she's just as active and up to date and foxy as Martha is logy and antique and dull. While Martha is sayin' grace Zen.o.bia is gen'rally pourin' herself out a gla.s.s of port.

About once a week Martha loads herself into an old horse cab and goes off to a meetin' of the foreign mission society, or something like that; but almost every afternoon Zen.o.bia goes whizzin' off in a taxi, maybe to hear some long-haired violinist, maybe to sit on the platform with Emma Goldman and Bouck White and applaud enthusiastic when the established order gets another jolt. Just as likely as not too, she'll bring some of 'em home to dinner with her.

Zen.o.bia never shoves any advice on me, good or otherwise, and never asks nosey questions; but she's the one who sees that my socks are kept mended and has my suits sent to the presser. She don't read things to me, or expound any of her fads. She just talks to me like she does to anyone else--minor poets or social reformers--about anything she happens to be int'rested in at the time,--music, plays, Mother Jones, the war, or how suffrage is comin' on,--and never seems to notice when I make breaks or get over my head.

A good sport Zen.o.bia is, and so busy sizin' up to-day that she ain't got time for reminiscin' about the days before Brooklyn Bridge was built.

And the most chronic kidder you ever saw. Say, what we don't do to Aunt Martha when both of us gets her on a string is a caution! That's what makes so many of our meals such cheerful events.

You might think, from a casual glance at Zen.o.bia, with her gray hair and the lines around her eyes, that she'd be kind of slow comp'ny for me, especially to chase around to plays with and so on. But, believe me, there's nothin' dull about her, and when she suggests that she's got an extra ticket to anything I don't stop to ask what it is, but just gets into the proper evenin' uniform and trots along willin'!

So that's how I happens to be with her at this Shaw play, and discussin'

between the acts what Barney was really tryin' to put over on us. The first intermission was most over too before I discovers this ruddy-faced old party in the back of Box A with his opera gla.s.ses trained steady in our direction. I glances along the row to see if anyone's gazin' back; but I can't spot a soul lookin' his way. After he's kept it up a minute or two I nudges Aunt Zen.o.bia.

"Looks like we was bein' inspected from the box seats," says I.

"How flatterin'!" says she. "Where?"

I points him out. "Must be you," says I, grinnin'.

"I hope so," says Zen.o.bia. "If I'm really being flirted with, I shall boast of it to Sister Martha."

But just then the lights go out and the second act begins. We got so busy followin' the nutty scheme of this conversation expert who plots to pa.s.s off a flower-girl for a d.u.c.h.ess that the next wait is well under way before I remembers the gent in the box.

"Say, he's at it again," says I. "You must be makin' a hit for fair."

"Precisely what I've always hoped might happen,--to be stared at in public," says Zen.o.bia. "I'm greatly obliged to him, I'm sure. You are quite certain, though, that it isn't someone just behind me?"

I whispers that there's no one behind her but a fat woman munchin'

chocolates and rubberin' back to see if Hubby ain't through gettin' his drink.

"There! He's takin' his gla.s.ses down," says I. "Know the party, do you?"

"Not at this distance," says Zen.o.bia. "No, I shall insist that he is an unknown admirer."

By that time, though, I'd got a better view myself. And--say, hadn't I seen them ruddy cheeks and that gray hair and them droopy eyes before?

Why, sure! It's what's-his-name, the old guy who blew into the Corrugated awhile ago, my absentee boss--Ballard!

Maybe I'd have told Zen.o.bia all about him if there'd been time; but there wa'n't. Another flash of the lights, and we was watchin' the last act, where this gutter-bred Pygmalion sprouts a soul. And when it's all over of course we're swept out with the ebb tide, make a scramble for our taxi, and are off for home. Then as we gets to the door I has the sudden hunch about eats.

"There's a joint around on Sixth-ave.," says I, lettin' Aunt Zen.o.bia in, "where they sell hot dog sandwiches with sauerkraut trimmin's. I believe I could just do with one about now."

"What an atrocious suggestion at this hour of the night!" says she.

"Torchy, don't you dare bring one of those abominations into the house--unless you have enough to divide with me. About four, I should say."

"With mustard?" says I.

"Heaps!" says she.

Three minutes later I'm hurryin' back with both hands full, when I notices another taxi standin' out front. Then who should step out but this Ballard party, in a silk hat and a swell fur-lined overcoat.

"Young man," says he, "haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

"Uh-huh," says I. "I'm your private sec."

"Wha-a-at?" says he. "My--oh, yes! I remember. I saw you at the Corrugated."

"And then again at the show to-night," says I.

"To be sure," says he. "With a lady, eh?"

I nods.