before I
gets through, and inside of an hour I'm a taxpayer. I've made big lumps
of money quicker'n that, but I never spent such a chunk of it so swift
before. But Jarvis went off with his mind easy, and I was satisfied. In
the evenin' I dropped around to see the Whaleys.

"Dennis, you low-county bog-trotter," says I, "about all I've heard out
of you since I was knee high was how you was achin' to quit the elevator
and get back to diggin' and cuttin' grass, same's you used to do on the
old sod. Now here's a chance to make good."

Well, say, that was the only time I ever talked ten minutes with Dennis
Whaley without bein' blackguarded. He'd been fired off the elevator the
week before and had been job-huntin' ever since. As for Mother Whaley,
when she saw a chance to shake three rooms back and a fire-escape for a
place where the trees has leaves on 'em, she up and cried into the
corned beef and cabbage, just for joy.

"I'll send the keys in the mornin'," says I. "Then you two pack up and
go out there to Nightingale Cottage and open her up. If it's fit to live
in, and you don't die of lonesomeness, maybe I'll run up once in a while
of a Sunday to look you over."

You see, I thought it would be a bright scheme to hang onto the place
for a year or so, before I tries to unload. That gives the Whaleys what
they've been wishin' for, and me a chance to do the weekend act now and
then. Course, I wa'n't lookin' for no complications. But they come
along, all right.

It was on a Saturday afternoon that I took the plunge. You know how
quick this little old town can warm up when she starts. We'd had the
Studio fans goin' all the mornin', and the first shirtwaist lads was
paradin' across Forty-second street with their coats off, and Swifty'd
made tracks for Coney Island, when I remembers Primrose Park.

I'd passed through in expresses often enough, so I didn't have to look
it up on the map; but that was about all. When I'd spoiled the best part
of an hour on a local full of commuters and low-cut high-brows, who
killed time playin' whist and cussin' the road, I was dumped down at a
cute little station about big enough for a lemonade stand. As the cars
went off I drew in a long breath. Say, I'd got off just in time to
escape bein' carried into Connecticut.

I jumps into a canopy-top surrey that looks like it had been stored in
an open lot all winter, and asks the driver if he knows where
Nightingale Cottage is.

"Sure thing!"