r a big
contract. But, you see, the fellows are counting on me for this match,
and if I should---- Oh, but I say, Torchy," he breaks off sudden,
"perhaps you have no very important engagement for the early evening?"

"Me?" says I. "Nothing I couldn't scratch. I can shoot a little pool
too; but when it comes to balk line billiards I expect I'd be a dub
among your crowd."

"Refreshing modesty!" says Mr. Robert. "What I had in mind, however,
was that you might wait here for the message from Nixon, while I attend
to the match."

"Oh, any way you choose," says I. "Sure I'll stay."

"Thanks," says he. "You needn't wait longer than seven, and if it
comes in you can get me on the 'phone and---- No, it will be in code;
so you'd best bring it over."

And it wa'n't so much of a wait, after all, not more'n an hour; for at
six-fifteen I've been over to the club, had Mr. Robert called from the
billiard room, got him to fix up his answer, and am pikin' out the
front door with it when he holds me up to add just one more word.
Maybe we was some conspicuous from Fifth-ave., him bein' still in his
shirt sleeves and the steps bein' more or less brilliant.

Anyway, I'd made another start and was just gettin' well under way,
when alongside scuffs this hollow-eyed object with the mangy whiskers
and the mixed-ale breath.

"Excuse me, young feller," says he, "but----"

"Ah, flutter by, idle one!" says I. "I'm no soup ticket."

[Illustration: "Ah, flutter by, idle one!" says I.]

"But just a word, my friend," he insists.

"Save your breath," says I, "and have it redistilled. It's worth it."

"Thanks," he puffs out as he shuffles along at my elbow; "but--but
wasn't that Bob Ellins you were just talking to?"

"Eh?" says I, glancin' at him some astonished; for a seedier specimen
you couldn't find up and down the avenue. "What do you know about him,
if it was?"

"More than his name," says the wreck. "He--he's an old friend of mine."

"Oh, of course," says I. "Anyone could tell that at a glimpse. I
expect you used to belong to the same club too?"

"Is old Barney still on the door?" says he.

And, say, he had the right dope on that. Not three minutes before I'd
heard Mr. Robert call the old gink by name. But that hardly proved the
case.

"Clever work," says I. "What was it you used to do there, take out the
ashes."

"I don't wonder you think so," says he; "but it's a fact that Bob and I
are old friends."

"W