to lend out coin," thinks I; "but what's the diff? That
kid's got his hopes set on bein' shod to-day, and Piddie's bound to make
good sometime."

Piddie didn't look it, though, when he drifts in about one-thirty. If
he'd had a load on his mind earlier in the day, he'd got somethin' more
now. Just sittin' at the desk doin' nothin made the dew come out on his
noble brow like it was the middle of August. He was too much of a wreck
to stand any joshin'; so I let him alone, not even tellin' him about the
fam'ly visit.

The first thing I knows he comes over to me, his jaw set firmer'n I
ever see it shut before, and a kind of shifty look in his eyes. He hands
me a letter and a package.

"Torchy," says he, "take these down to that address just as soon as you
can. You've got to go quick. Understand?"

"Fourth speed, advanced spark, that's me!" says I, grabbin' my hat and
coat. "Free track for the Piddie special! Honk, honk!" and I jams him up
against the letterpress as I makes a rush for the door.

When I gets into the subway I sizes up the stuff I'm carryin'. Well say,
it ain't often I gets real curious; but this was one of them times. I
started in by rollin' a pencil under the envelope flap while the gum was
moist. Not that I'd made up my mind to rubber; but just so's I could if
I took the notion. And, sure enough, I got the notion, or it got me.

Chee! I near slid off the rattan seat when I reads that note. Guess I
must have sat there, starin' bug-eyed and lookin' batty, from 14th to
Wall. Do you know what that mush-head of a Piddie was at? He was givin'
an order to bolster up Blitzen by buyin' up to a hundred thousand
shares, and in the package was a bunch of gilt-edged securities to cover
the margins.

Now wouldn't that jiggle the grapes on sister's new lid? Piddie, a
narrow-gauge, dime-pinchin' ink-slinger, doin' the bull act like he was
a sooty plute from Pittsburg! That's what comes of swallowin' the
get-rich-fast bug.

Well, when I gets out at the Street I didn't have any programme planned.
First I strolls down to the number on the letter and takes a look at the
buildin'. That was enough. There was some good names on the hall
directory; but most of 'em was little, two-room, fly-by-night firms,
with a party 'phone for a private wire and a mail-order list bought
off'm patent medicine concerns. The people Piddie was doin' business
with was that kind.

Next I takes a walk around into Broad-st., where the mounted