r you. Tell 'em I said you howled around like a pup
with a sore ear."

Piddie turns white and gives me the glassy eye--that's all. I couldn't
tease a fire out of him with a box of matches.

But that didn't make up for the way he'd roughed Mallory. I was still
sore over it at closin' time; so I lays for Mallory and asks him why he
didn't risk the job and take a crack at Piddie's jaw.

He just laughs. "Oh," says he, "I couldn't pay him that compliment."

Was that a joke, yes? Blamed if I could tell. Anyway, it wa'n't sense.
And there's where I had the front to put it straight up to Mallory about
his bein' stranded in a place where he had to take such pin jabbin' as
that.

"Say," says I, "is it hard luck, or a late start, or what?"

"I fancy a late start would cover it," says he.

"Not college?" says I.

"That's it," says he.

"Aw, fudge!" says I. "Honest, I didn't take you for one of them rah-rah
boys. Well, if it's that ails you, you're up against it. I don't wonder
you had to be jammed into a job with a flyin' wedge. Chee!"

I was sorry for him, though. Maybe it was somethin' he couldn't duck.
Some of 'em I've known of couldn't. Oh, I've seen bunches of 'em, just
turned out. Didn't we have more'n a dozen unloaded on us when me and Mr.
Marshall was gettin' out the Sunday edition? And we didn't do a thing to
'em, either!

But it's a tough deal, after puttin' in all that time dodgin' the fool
killer at some one else's expense, to be chucked into the grub game with
nothin' but a lot of siss-boom yells for experience. I wouldn't have
believed Mallory was that sort. Nice young feller, too. Never slung any
of his Greek at me, nor flashed his college pins. Seemed to kind of like
chinnin' to me at lunch; so I let him. You know how you'll get to
gassin' and tellin' each other the story of your life. I lets out about
Belmont Pepper and the minin' stocks he gave me, and Mallory drops hints
about mother and sister, that was livin' off in Washington or somewhere
with a brother that was in better luck. Mallory, he was doin' the hall
bedroom act, livin' on that twelve per and keepin' out of sight of
everyone he'd ever known until he'd made good. Guess he found it kind of
a lonesome deal.

Once when I was extra flush I offers to blow him to a fam'ly circle seat
at "The Bandit Queen"; but he says he thinks he'd better not go.

"Plannin' to have a spin in your new car?" says I.

"Hardly," says he.

"Well, how do you put