town next month for the rest of the season, and all
that--when right in the middle of it the door opens and in comes Mr.
Robert.

Say, I felt like a noon extra in a bunch of six o'clock editions. I'd
balled things up lovely, I had! Why, the only times a general office
hand ever gets a chance to stand on the Persian rug in the boss's office
is just before he gets the run or is boosted into a five-figure salary.
And here I has a twelve-dollar man usin' it like a public reception
hall! It was what was goin' to happen to Mallory that gave me the
shivers.

"Torchy," says Mr. Robert, "what's all this?"

"S-s-sh!" says I. "It's Old Home Day, and the lady is handin' out
choc'late creams. Wait up; maybe it'll be your turn next."

"But, see here, I don't understand," says he. "Who are these persons,
and why----"

"Ah, say!" says I. "Ain't you got any sportin' blood? Besides, I don't
know the answer myself."

I could of kept that up just about one more round before I'd fell
through a crack; but just as Mr. Robert was framin' up another conundrum
Dicky turns around and spots him.

"Why, hello, Bob!" yells Dicky, as gentle as if he was hailin' someone
across Broadway. "By Jove, though, I forgot all about you being in the
Corrugated too! But of course you are. Sis and I just ran in a minute to
look up Skid. Good old Skid! Great boy, eh, Bob?"

Mr. Robert takes a look over by the window at Mallory, who wasn't seein'
a thing but Sis and wasn't hearin' anything but what she was sayin'--and
she was sayin' a lot.

"Is--is that Skid?" says Mr. Robert.

"Oh, come along now, Bob," says Dicky, pokin' him in the vest playful.
"You don't mean to say you don't know Skid Mallory, the Great Skid, best
quarterback we ever turned out, the one that went through Harvard for
forty-five yards, and that with a broken ankle? Don't know Skid? Why,
say!"

"I take it all back," says Mr. Robert. "Of course I know him; but not so
well as you do, Dicky. I wasn't one of the coaches, you know, and I
haven't kept the run of the team for the last year or two. But I'm glad
to see the Great Skid. How the deuce does he happen to be up here,
though?"

"He-haw!" says Dicky. "That's rich, that is? Shows how much you know of
Corrugated affairs, Bob. Why, man alive, Skid's one of the chaps that's
runnin' your old gent's trust. This is his office you're in now."

"Really!" says Mr. Robert. He takes another look at Mallory, who's deaf
and dumb and blind to