tin' over there, and deliver
some papers that he's forgot to have his private secretary lug along.

"And kindly refrain," he tacks on at the last, "from stopping to talk
with any suspicious characters on the way."

"Say, Piddie," says I, "if I was you I'd have that printed on a card.
Some day you're going to forget to rub that in."

Well, I hustles across the square, locates Old Hickory, and delivers the
goods without droppin' 'em down a manhole or doin' any of the other
awful things that Piddie would have warned me against if he'd had more
time. I tucks the empty case under my arm and was for makin' a record
trip back, just to surprise Piddie; but while I'm waitin' for that
flossy lever juggler on the express elevator to answer my red-light
signal I hears this riot break loose on the floor below.

And say, I wa'n't missin' any lively disturbance like that; for it
listens like a mob scene from one of them French guillotine plays.
Mostly it's female voices that floats up, and they was all tuned to the
saw-filin' pitch. A pasty-faced young gent wearin' a green eye-shade and
an office coat comes beatin' it up the marble steps, and I fires a
question at him on the fly.

"Is it a gen'ral rough-house number," says I, "or have the suffragettes
broke loose again?"

"You're welcome to find out for yourself," he pants, dashin' up another
flight.

"Thanks for the invite," says I. "Guess I will."

And, say, talk about your mass plays around a shirtwaist bargain
counter! Why, the corridor was full of 'em, all tryin' to rush the door
of 1,323 at once. For a guess I should say that half the manicure
artists, lady demonstrators, and cloak models between 14th and 34th was
on the spot. Oh, they was a swell bunch, with more fur turbans and Marie
Antoinette ringlets on view than you could see collected anywhere
outside of Murray's!

They was sayin' things, too! I couldn't catch anything but odd words
here and there; but the gen'ral drift of their remarks seems to be that
someone has welshed on 'em. First off I thought it must be one of these
skirt bucket-shops that has been closed out by the renting agent; but
then I gets a look at the sign on the door and sees that it's the
Peruvian Investment Company, which sounds like one of them common twenty
per cent. a month games.

And it's a case of lockout, with the lady customers ragin' on the
outside, and nobody knows what's takin' place behind the ground glass.
That wa'n't excitin'