t lately, and
dippin' into outside things; and it was them I needed to keep closer
track of. You know I've got a couple of flat houses up on the West side,
and if you let them agents run things their own way you'll be makin'
almost enough to buy new hall carpets once a year.

Then there was ripe chances I was afraid of missin'. You see, knockin'
around so much with the fat wads, I often sees spots where a few dollars
could be planted right. Sometimes it's a hunch on the market, and then
again it's a straight steer on a slice of foot front that's goin' cheap.
I do a lot of dickerin' that way.

Well, I'd just pushed through a deal that leaves me considerable on
velvet, and I was feelin' kind of flush and sassy, when Mr. Ogden calls
me up, and wants to know if I can make use of a gilt edged bargain.

"Oh, I don't know," says I. "What's it look like?"

"It's The Toreador," says he.

"Sounds good," says I. "How much?"

"Cost me forty thousand two years ago," says he, "but I'm turning it
over for twenty-five to the first bidder."

Well, say, when old man Ogden slings cold figures at you like that, you
can gamble that he's talkin' straight.

"I'm it, then," says I. "Fifteen down, ten on mortgage."

"That suits me," says he. "I'll have the papers made out to-day."

"And say," says I, "what is this Toreador, anyway; a race horse, or an
elevator apartment?"

Would you guess it? He'd hung up the receiver. That's what I got for
bein' sporty. But I wa'n't goin' to renig at that stage. I fills out me
little blue check and sends her in, and that night I goes to bed without
knowin' what it is that I've passed up my coin for.

It must have been near noon the next day, for I'd written a letter and
got my check book stubs added up so they come within two or three
hundred of what the bank folks made it, when a footman in white panties
and a plum colored coat drifts through the Studio door.

"Is this Professor McCabe, sir?" says he.

"Yep," says I.

"There's a lady below, sir," says he. "Can she come up?"

"It ain't reg'lar," says I, "but I s'pose there's no dodgin' her. Tell
her to come ahead."

Say, I wa'n't just fixed up for receivin' carriage comp'ny. When I
writes and figures I gets more mussed up than as if I'd been in a
free-for-all. I'd shed my coat on one chair, my vest on another, slipped
off my suspenders, rumpled my hair, and got ink on me in seventeen
places. But I didn't have sense enough to say I was out.