like a couple of spoons in the park.
Maybe we was; I wouldn't swear different.

All I know is that after a while I looks up and sees Sadie standin'
there pipin' us off, with her nose in the air and the heat lightnin'
kind of glimmerin' in them blue eyes of hers. The spell was broke
quicker'n when the curtain goes down and the ushers open the lobby
doors. 'Course, Sadie's nothin' more'n an old friend of mine, and I'm no
more to her, but you see it hadn't been so long ago that I'd been
tellin' her what a sweat I was in to get away. She never said a word,
only just sticks her chin up and laughs, and then goes on.

Next minute there shows up in front of us a fat old lady, with three
chins and a waist like a clothes hamper.

"Miriam!" says she, and there was wire nails and broken glass in the way
she said it, "Miriam, I think it was high time you retired."

"Bully for you, old girl!" I sings out. "And say, I'll give you a dollar
if you'll lock her in until I can get away."

Perhaps that was a low-down thing to say, but I couldn't help lettin' it
come. I didn't wait for any more remarks from either of 'em, but I grabs
my hat and makes a dash across lots. I never stopped runnin' until I
fetched the station, and it wasn't until after the train pulled out that
I breathed real easy.

Bein' safe here in the Studio, with Swifty on guard, I might grin at the
whole thing, if it wasn't for that laugh of Sadie's. That cut in deep.
Two or three days later I hears from Pinckney.

"Shorty," says he, "you're a wonder. I fancy you don't know what you
did in getting so chummy with Miriam under the very nose of that old
watch-dog aunt of hers. Why, I know of fellows who've waited years for
that chance."

"Back up!" says I. "She's a freak."

"But Miriam's worth three or four millions," says he.

"I don't care if she owns a bond factory," says I. "I'm no bone
connoisseur, nor I don't make a specialty of collectin' autumn leaves.
Do you know what I'd do if I was her aunt?"

"What?" says he.

"Well," says I, "I'd hang a red lantern on her."

CHAPTER XIV

You never can tell, though. The next thing I hears from Sadie is that
she's so tickled over that Miriam mix-up that she wakes up in the night
to snicker at it.

That makes me feel a lot easier in my mind, and just by way of bein'
reckless, I starts out to buy a bull pup. I'd have got him, too, if it
hadn't been for Doc Pinphoodle. Seein' the way things turned out,
tho