tack up against,
driftin' gloomy through the lower lobby, but Whity Meeks, that used to
be the star man on the Sunday sheet. Course, it wa'n't any miracle;
for Whity's almost as much of a fixture there as Old Gluefoot, the
librarian, or the finger marks on the iron pillars in the press-room.

A sad example of blighted ambitions, Whity is. When I first knew him
he had a fresh one every Monday mornin', and they ranged all the way
from him plannin' to be a second Dicky Davis to a scheme he had for
hookin' up with Tammany and bein' sent to Congress. Clever boy too.
He could dash off ponies that was almost good enough to print, dope out
the first two acts of a play that was bound to make his fortune if he
could ever finish it, and fake speeches that he'd never heard a word of.

When he got to doin' Wall Street news, though, and absorbed the idea
that he could stack his little thirty per against the system and break
the bucketshops--well, that was his finish. Two killings that he made
by chance, and he was as good as chained to the ticker for life. No
more new rosy dreams for him: always the same one,--of the day when he
was goin' to show Sully how a cotton corner really ought to be pulled
off, a day when the closin' gong would find him with the City Bank in
one fist and the Subtreasury in the other. You've met that kind,
maybe. Only Whity always tried to dress the part, in a sporty shepherd
plaid, with a checked hat and checked silk socks to match. He has the
same regalia on now, with a carnation in his buttonhole.

"Well, mounting margins!" says he, as I swings him round by the arm.
"Torchy! Whither away? Come down to buy publicity space for the
Corrugated, have you?"

"Not in a rag like yours, Whity," says I, "when we own stock in two
real papers. I'm out on a little private gumshoe work for the boss."

"Sounds thrilling," says he. "Any copy in it?"

"I'd be chatterin' it to you, wouldn't I?" says I. "Nix! Just plain
fam'ly scrap over whether Cousin Inez shall marry again or not. My job
is to get something on the guy. Don't happen to have any special dope
on T. Virgil Bunn, the sculptor poet, do you?"

Whity stares at me. "Do I?" says he.

"Say!" Then he leads me over between the 'phone booth and the cigar
stand, flashes an assignment pad, and remarks, "Gaze on that second
item, my boy."

"Woof! That's him, all right," says I. "But what's a bouillabaisse
tea?"

"Heaven and Virgil Bunn only k