erin' fool questions
over the 'phone, or chasin' out on errands for Piddie, I'm swallowin'
chunks of information about the times when G. Wash. was buildin' forts
in Harlem and makin' good for a continuous in front of the Subtreasury.

Course, it's a clean waste of time. Suppose I gets the run next week,
could I win another head office boy job by spielin' off a mess of guff
about a lot of dead ones? Nit, never! But Mallory's got the bug that
it'll all come in handy to me sometime, and I'm doin' it just to keep
him satisfied. We get together most every night in his room, and I has
to cough up what I've got next to durin' the day. And say, when I've
been soldierin', and try to run in a stiff bluff instead of the real
goods, he looks as disappointed as if I'd done something real low down.
So gen'rally I hits up the books when there's nothin' else doin'.

Mr. Robert's on. He comes in one mornin' and pipes off the 'rithmetic.
"What's this, Torchy?" says he. "Studying?"

"Yep," says I. "When I went through Columbia College there wa'n't
anybody there but the janitor; so I'm takin' a postprandial whirl at
this number dope, and it's fierce."

"Whose idea?" says he.

"Mr. Mallory's," says I. "But I've laid it out flat to him that I draws
the line at Greek. I'd never want to talk like them 23d-st. flower
peddlers, not in a thousand years!"

Didn't tell you, did I, about Mallory's doin' the skyrocket act? After
Mr. Robert gets next to the fact that Mallory's a two seasons' old
football hero from his old college he yanks him out of that
twelve-dollar-a-week filin' job and makes him a salaried gent, inside of
two days.

"Which is something I owe chiefly to you, Torchy," says Mallory.

"Honk, honk!" says I. "Them's the kind of ideas that will get you run in
for reckless thinkin'. You was winnin' all that when you did that sprint
for goal your friend Dicky was tellin' about the other day. Now all you
got to do is get up on your toes and make one or two touchdowns for old
Corrugated."

"I know," says he; "but I'm afraid that in this game I'm outclassed."

Honest, he was scared stiff; but he didn't let anyone but me see it.
Even a little thing like goin' down to Wall Street and lookin' up some
securities gets him rattled. He hadn't been gone more'n an' hour 'fore
he calls me up on the 'phone and says some broker's clerk has asked him
if our concern don't want to bid on P. O. privileges at seven-eighths.
"What are P. O. privile