A good breakfast pepped me up a lot, though, and by noon I had them few remarks of mine so I could say 'em backwards or forwards. How they was goin' to sound outside of my room was another matter. I had my doubts along that line; but I was goin' to give 'em the best I had in stock.

It was most time for the session to begin when Vincent boy trots in with a card announcin' Mr. Henry Clay Rowley. And, say, when this smooth-faced party in the sporty Scotch tweed suit and the new model pearl gray lid shows up, I has to gasp! He's had himself tailored and barbered until he looks like an English investor come over huntin' six per cent. dividends for a Bank of England surplus.

"Zowie!" says I. "Some speed to you, Mr. Rowley. And cla.s.s? Say, you look like you was about to dump a trunkful of Steel preferred on the market, instead of a few patents."

"I'm giving your advice a thorough trial, you see," says he.

"That's the stuff!" says I. "It's the dolled up gets the dollars these days. Be sure and sit where they'll get a good view."

Then we went into the directors' room and heard Willis G. Briscoe deliver his knock. He does it snappy and vigorous, and when he's through it didn't listen like anything more could be said. He humps his eyebrows humorous when Mr. Robert announces that perhaps the board might like to hear another view of the subject.

"Torchy," goes on Mr. Robert, "you have the floor."

For a second or so, though, I felt like spreadin' out so I wouldn't slip through a crack. All of a sudden too, my mouth had gone dry and I had a panicky notion that my brain had ossified. Then I got a glimpse of them shrewd blue eyes of Rowley's smilin' encouragin' at me, the first few sentences of my speech filtered back through the bone, I got my tongue movin', and I was off.

Funny how you can work out of a scare that way, ain't it? Why, say, the first thing I knew I'd picked out old D. K. Rutgers, the worst fish-face in the bunch, and was throwin' the facts into him like I was shovelin'

coal into a cellar chute. Beginnin' with Rowley's plan for condensin'

commercial acids from the blast fumes, explainin' the chemical process that produced 'em, and how they could be caught on the fly and canned in carboys for the trade, I galloped through the whole proposition, backin'

up every item with figures and formulas; until I showed 'em how the slag that now cost 'em so much to get rid of could be sold for road ballastin' and pressed into buildin' blocks at a profit of twenty dollars a ton. I didn't let anything go just by statin' it bald. I took Briscoe's objections one by one, shot 'em full of holes with the come-backs Rowley had coached me on, and then proceeded to clinch the argument until I had old Rutgers noddin' his head.

"And these, Gentlemen," I winds up with, "are what Mr. Briscoe calls the vague, half-baked ideas of an unpractical inventor. He's an expert, Mr.

Briscoe is! I'm not. I wouldn't know a supersaturated solution of methylcalcites from a stein of Hoboken beer; but I'm willin' to believe there's big money in handling either, providing you don't spill too much on the inside. Mr. Rowley claims you're throwing away millions a year.

He says he can save it for you. He wants to show you how you can juggle ore so you can save everything but the smell. He's here on the spot, and if you want to quiz him about details, go as deep as you like."

Did they? Say, that seance didn't break up until six-fifteen, and before the board adjourns Rowley had a whackin' big option check in his fist, and a resolution had gone through to install an experiment plan as soon as it could be put up. An hour before that Willis G. Briscoe had done the silent sneak, wearin' his mouth droopy.

Mr. Robert meets me outside with the fraternal grip and says he's proud of me.

"Thanks, Mr. Robert," says I. "It was a case of framin' up a job for myself, or else four-flushin' along until you tied the can to me. And I need the Corrugated just now."

"No more, I'm beginning to suspect," says he, "than the Corrugated needs you."

Which was some happy josh for an amateur private sec to get from the boss! Eh?

CHAPTER III

TORCHY TAKES A CHANCE

Say, I expected that after I got to be a salaried man, with a swing-chair in Mr. Robert's private office, I'd be called on only to pull the brainy stuff, calm and dignified, without any outside chasin'

around. I had a soothin' idea it would be a case of puttin' in my mornin's dictatin' letters to gen'ral managers, and my afternoons to holdin' interviews with the Secretary of the Treasury, and so on. I was lookin' for plenty of high-speed domework, but nothin' more wearin' on the arms than pushin' a call b.u.t.ton or usin' a rubber stamp.

But somehow I can't seem to do finance, or anything else, without throwin' in a lot of extra pep. No matter how I start, first thing I know I'm mixed up with quick action, and as likely as not gettin' my clothes mussed. This last stunt, though--believe me I couldn't have got more thrills if I'd joined a circus!

It opens innocent enough too. I was moochin' around the bondroom when I happens to glance over the transfer book and notices that a big block of our debenture 6's are listed as goin' to the Federated Tractions. And the name of the party who's about to swap the 6's for Tractions preferred is a familiar one. It's Aunty's. Uh-huh--Vee's!

Maybe you remember how Aunty played up her skittish symptoms about them same bonds a few weeks back, the time she planned to exhibit me to Vee in my office boy job and got so badly jolted when she finds me posin' as a private sec instead? Went away real peeved, Aunty did that time. And now it looks like she was takin' it out by unloadin' her bond holdin's.

It's to be some swap too, runnin' up into six figures.

"Chee!" thinks I. "That's an income, all right, with Tractions payin'

between 7 and 9, besides cuttin' a melon now and then."

They have their gen'ral offices three floors below us, you know. Not that I wouldn't have had a line on 'em anyway; for whatever that bunch of Philadelphia live wires gets hold of is worth watchin'. Say, they'd consolidate city breathin' air if they could, and make it pay dividends.

It's important to note too, that they're buyin' into Corrugated so deep.

I mentions the fact casual to Mr. Robert.

"Really," says he, liftin' his eyebrows surprised. "Federated Tractions!

Are you certain?"

"Unless our registry clerk has had a funny dream," says I. "The notice was listed yesterday. And you know how grouchy the old girl was on us."

"H-m-m-m!" says he, drummin' his fingers nervous. "Thanks, Torchy. I must look into this."

Seemed to worry Mr. Robert a bit; so maybe that's why I had my ears stretched wider'n usual. It wa'n't an hour later that I runs across Izzy Budheimer down in the Arcade. He's on the Curb now, Izzy is, and by the size of the diamond horseshoe decoratin' the front of his silk shirt he must be tradin' some in wildcats. Hails me like a friend and brother, Izzy does, tries to wish a tinfoil Fumadora on me, and gives me the happy josh about bein' boosted off the gate.

"You'll be gettin' wise to all the inside deals now, eh?" says he, winkin' foxy. "And maybe we might work off something together. Yes?"

"Sure!" says I. "I'll come down every noon with the office secrets and let you peddle 'em around Broad street from a pushcart. Gwan, you parrot-beaked near-broker! Why, I wouldn't trust tellin' you the time of day!"

Izzy grins like I'd paid him a compliment. "Such a joker!" says he. "But listen! Which side do the Tractions people come down on?"

"Federated?" says I. "North corridor, just around the corner. Sleuthin'

around that bunch, are you? What's doing in Tractions?"

"How should I know?" protests Izzy, openin' his eyes innocent. "Maybe I got a customer on the general staff, ain't it?"

"You'd be scoutin' up here at this time of day after a ten-dollar commission, wouldn't you?" says I. "And with that slump in Connecticut Gas in full blast! Can it, Izzy! I know a thing or two about Tractions myself."

"Yes?" he whispers persuasive, almost holdin' his breath. "What do you hear, now?"

"Don't say I told you," says I, "but they're thinkin' of puttin' in left-handed straps for south-paw pa.s.sengers."

Izzy looks pained and disgusted. He's got a serious mind, Izzy has, and if you could take a thumbprint of his brain, it would be all fractions and dollar signs.

"I have to meet my cousin Abie Moss," says he, edgin' away. "He has a bookkeeper's job with Tractions for a month now, and I promised his aunt I would ask how he's comin'."

"How touchin'!" says I as he moves off.

I gazes after him curious a minute, and then follows a sudden hunch. Why not see just how much of a bluff this was about Cousin Abie? So I slips around by the cigar stand, steps behind a pillar, and keeps him in range. Three or four minutes I watched Izzy waitin' at the elevator exit, without seein' him give anyone the fraternal grip. Then he seems to quit. He drifts back towards the Arcade with the lunch crowd, and I was about to turn away when I lamps him bein' slipped a piece of paper by a short, squatty-built guy who brushes by him casual. Izzy gathers it in with never a word and strolls over to the 'phone booths, where he lets on to be huntin' a number in the directory. All he does there, though, is spread out that paper, read it through hasty, and then tear it up and chuck it in the waste basket.

"Huh!" says I, seein' Izzy scuttle off towards Broadway. "Looks like there was a plot to the piece. I wonder?"

And just for the fun of the thing I collected them twenty-eight pieces of yellow paper, carried 'em over to my lunch place, and spent the best part of my noon-hour piecin' 'em together. What I got was this, scribbled in lead pencil:

Grebel out. Larkin melding. Teg morf rednu.