e "Don'tcher know's,"
until you'd think he was talkin' through a mouthful of hot breakfast
food.

"Chee!" says I to him. "You act like you thought this was a five o'clock
tea."

"I trust," says he, "I know a lady when I see one, and that I know how
to treat her too."

"That's so," says I. "Too bad you wa'n't on the stage, Piddie, in one of
them 'Me lu'd, the carriage waits' parts."

That gives me a cue, and the next time she sends me for supplies I says
to him, "Mr. Piddie," says I, "the Lady Mildred presents her compliments
and says she wants a new paste brush."

Gets him wild, that does; so I sticks to it. The others hears it and
picks it up too, and she wa'n't called anything but Lady Mildred from
that on. First thing I knew I'd said it to her face; but she never so
much as looks surprised. You'd thought she'd been called Lady Mildred
all her life.

"Who knows?" says Piddie. "Perhaps she has."

Honest, we was makin' up all kinds of pipe dreams about her, and
believin' 'em as we went along. There was no findin' out from her what
was so and what she wa'n't. She never gets real chummy with anyone; but
keeps us jollied along about so much. It was dead easy. All she had to
do was to throw a smile our way, and we was tickled for a week. Wasn't
anyone around the place needed so much waitin' on as her; but no one
ever minds. Gen'rally there was two or three on the jump for her, and
others willin' to be.

Course, that don't include Mr. Robert. He seems to think Lady Mildred
was some kind of a joke; but, then, I expect he sees so many stunners
like her every night, knockin' around at dinner parties and such, that
he gets tired lookin' at 'em. I'd been carryin' it against him, though,
and maybe that's what put it into my nut to get so gay with Louie.

Louie's the gent in the leather leggin's and north-pole outfit that
comes around after Mr. Robert every night with the machine. Say, it's a
reg'lar rollin' bay window, that car of Mr. Robert's! I wouldn't mind
havin' one of that kind taggin' around after me. But if I was pickin' a
shover I'd pass Louie by. He wears his nose too high in the air and is
too friendly with himself to suit me. There's a lot of them honk-honk
boys just like him; but he's the only one I ever has a chance to get
real confidential with. It's like this:

Mr. Robert says to me, "Torchy, if I'm not back by five o'clock, you may
tell Louie when he comes that he needn't wait."

"Sure thing," says