e
wasn't investin' very heavy, it didn't matter.

And then, here last night, after she'd been workin' over her
account-books for an hour or so, she comes at me with a whoop, and waves
a sheet of paper under my nose excited.

"Now, Mister Business Man," says she, "what do you think of that?"

"Eh?" says I, starin' at the figures.

"One hundred and seventeen regular customers the first week," says she,
"and a net profit of $23.45. Now how about underwriting that stock
issue?"

Well, it was a case of backin' up. She had it all figured out plain.
She'd made good from the start. And, just to prove that it's real money
that she's made all by herself, she insists on invitin' me out to a
celebration dinner. It's a swell one, too, take it from me.

And afterwards we sits up until long past midnight while Vee plans a
chain of "boots" all over the city.

"Gee!" says I. "Maybe you'll be gettin' yourself written up as 'The
Shine Queen of New York' or something like that. Lucky Auntie's in
Jamaica. Think what a jolt it would give her."

"I don't care," says Vee. "I've found a job."

"Guess you have," says I. "And, as I've remarked once or twice before,
you're some girl."

CHAPTER III

A QUALIFYING TURN FOR TORCHY

And here all along I'd been kiddin' myself that I was a perfectly good
private sec. Also I had an idea the Corrugated Trust was one of the main
piers that kept New York from slumpin' into the North River, and that
the boss, Old Hickory Ellins, was sort of a human skyscraper who loomed
up as imposin' in the financial foreground as the Metropolitan Tower
does on the picture post-cards that ten-day trippers mail to the folks
back home.

Not that I'd been workin' up any extra chest measure since I've had an
inside desk and had connected with a few shares of our preferred stock;
I always did feel more or less that way about our concern. And the
closer I got to things, seein' how wide our investments was scattered
and how many big deals we stood behind, the surer I was that we was
important people.

And then, in trickles this smooth-haired young gent with the broad _a_'s
and the full set of _the dansant_ manners, to show me where I'm wrong
on all counts. He'd succeeded in convincin' Vincent-on-the-gate that
nobody around the shop would do but Mr. Ellins himself, so here was Old
Hickory standin' in the door of his private office with the card in his
hand and starin' puzzled at this immaculate symphony in