ouse since. Besides, Purdy-Pell could do nothing
with him when he was here before, you remember."

"Awful state of things, ain't it?" says I. "The youngster's all of
nineteen, ain't he?"

"He's nearly twenty-one," says Sadie. "And Mrs. Hollister's such a
dear!"

"All of which leads up to what?" says I, tearin' my eyes from the
sportin' page reluctant.

"Why," says Sadie, cuddlin' up on the chair arm, "Purdy-Pell suggests
that, as Robin appeared to take such a fancy to you, perhaps you
wouldn't mind----"

"Say," I breaks in, "he's a perfectly punk suggester! I'd mind a lot!"

Course that opened the debate, and while I begins by statin' flat-footed
that Robin could come or go for all I cared, it ends in the usual
compromise. I agrees to take the eight-forty-five into town and skirmish
for Sonny. He'd be almost sure to show up at Purdy-Pell's to-night, Sadie
says, and if I was on hand I might induce him to quit wreckin' the city
and be good.

"Shouldn't I wear a nurse's cap and apron?" I remarks as I grabs my hat.

For, honest, so far as I've ever seen, this young Hollister was a nice,
quiet, peaceable chap, with all the earmarks of a perfect gent. He'd
been brought up from the South and put into Purdy-Pell's offices, and
he'd made a fair stab at holdin' down his job. But of course, bein'
turned loose in New York for the first time, I expect he went out now
and then to see what was goin' on under the white lights.

From some youngsters that might have called for such panicky protests as
Mother and Mrs. Purdy-Pell put up; but young Robin had a good head on
him, and didn't act like he meant to develop into a rounder. Course I
didn't hear the details; but all of a sudden something happened that
caused a grand howl. I know Sadie was consulted, then Mrs. Hollister was
sent for, and it ended by Robin marchin' into the studio one mornin' to
say good-by. He explains that he's bein' shipped home. They'd got a job
for him with an uncle out in the country somewhere. That must have been
a year or so ago, and now it looked like he'd slipped his halter and had
headed back for Broadway.

I finds Purdy-Pell peeved and sarcastic. "To be sure," he says, "I feel
honored that the young man should make my house his headquarters
whenever his fancy leads him to indulge his sportive instincts. Youth
must be served, you know. But Mrs. Hollister has such a charmingly
unreasonable way of holding me responsible for her son's conduct! And