he?"

"Busy," says I. "Say, you don't think he has all of us around here to
play marbles, do you, miss?"

Sis, she gets mighty int'rested at that. "He's a very important man now,
isn't he?" says she.

"Chee, yes!" says I. "He's I-double-it around here."

"Isn't that fine?" says Sis. "But I hope he can see us."

"Oh, I'll fix that all right," says I.

With that I slides through two doors and into Mr. Robert's room. He's
still out to lunch, of course, it bein' only about two o'clock; so I
unlocks the corridor door that he don't use and skips across into the
general offices.

"Say," says I to Mallory, "you're wanted in the boss's office. No, not
the old man's; Mr. Robert's. Skin into your coat and come along."

Never fazes him a bit. He just hunches his shoulders, knocks the dust
off his hands, and trots after. When I gets him in there I tells him to
wait a minute, and then I goes out through the right way and lugs in
Dicky and sister.

Was it a surprise party? Well, say! Dicky lets out a roar, makes a
plunge for him, hammers him on the back, works the pump handle, and
talks a blue streak.

"Well, Skiddy, old man, here we are!" says he. "Thought you'd given us
the shake for good, eh? But we heard you'd gone in with the
Corrugated,--saw Blicky in Venice and he told us,--so when we came
ashore we wired father to hold the car over one train for us while we
hunted you up. Sis wouldn't let me come unless she could too. Here, Sis,
it's your turn. Blaze ahead now and give the boy what you said you
would. I'll turn my back."

I didn't, though. Was there any hangin' off about Sis? Not so you'd
notice it. She just steps up and makes a grab for Mallory and----Aw,
say! One like that must be good for chapped lips. If I'm ever handed one
of them kind I won't wash it off for a month. It tickles Dicky most to
death.

"He-haw!" says he, so's the window panes rattle. "She said she'd do it.
And she did, didn't she, eh, Skid?"

Mallory couldn't prove an alibi. He was the worst rattled man I ever
see, and as for blushin'--he got up a color like the lady heroine in a
biff-bang drama. He acted as though he didn't know whether he was
loopin' the loops or having a dream that was too good to be true. Once
or twice he tried to unloosen some remarks; but Sis and Dicky was both
talkin' to once and he never got a show. They was tellin' him how glad
they was to see him again, and what a great man he was, and how Sis was
comin' back to