adly in love with her I
am."

"I'm glad I can't," says I.

And, say, he sticks to it. No, Sir, I can't push him in there with
Veronica again. I had him out on the front steps for fifteen minutes,
tryin' to argue some sense into him; but all he wants to do is go jump
off the rocks into the Sound and have me tell Aunty he died disgraced
but happy. Fin'ly, though, he agrees to wait while I go sleuthin' in and
find whether Veronica has rushed in tears to Daddy, or is still curled
up on the davenport bitin' the cushions in rage.

I slips into the livin' room, where I find 'em addin' up the scores and
talkin' over the last hand, but otherwise calm and peaceful. Then I
opens the door soft into the next room, steps in, and shuts the door
behind me. No wild sobs. No broken furniture. There's Veronica, rockin'
back and forth under the readin' light, with a book in her lap.

"Well?" says I, waitin' breathless for the storm to break.

She gives a little jump, glances up quick, and pinks up like a poppy.
"Oh!" says she, "It's you?"

"Uh-huh," says I. "I--er--I've just been talkin' with Dudley."

"Ye-e-es?" says she, rollin' a leaf of the book over her finger nervous
and droopin' her long lashes.

"You see," says I, fidgetin' some on my own account, "he--he's goin'
home in a minute or two."

"Oh, is he?" says she. "There! And I meant to ask him if he wouldn't
call to-morrow. Won't you do it for me, Mr. McCabe?"

How about that for a reverse jolt, eh? I backs out of the room lookin'
foolish. And Dudley he near collapses when I brings him the glad news.

As for Sadie, she couldn't believe me at all when I tells her Dudley
looks like a sure winner. She had to wait until a few days later when
she catches 'em just breakin' a clinch, before she'll admit I ain't
stringin' her.

"But a shy, diffident fellow like Dudley!" says she. "I don't see how he
did it."

"Neither does Dudley," says I. "Guess it must have been a case of a guy
with the goods comin' across with the swift tackle. Maybe that's what
she'd been waitin' for all along."

CHAPTER XIX

A LITTLE WHILE WITH ALVIN

I can't say just how I got roped in; whether it was me that discovered
Alvin, or him who took to me. Must have been some my fault; for here was
a whole subway car full of people, and I'm the one he seems to pick. I
might lay it to an odd break, only things of that kind has happened to
me so often.

Anyway, here I am, doin' the strap-swingin'