now," says Whity. "But that doesn't
matter. Think of the subtle irony of Fate that sends me up to make a
column story out of Virgie Bunn! Me, of all persons!"

"Well, why not you?" says I.

"Why?" says Whity. "Because I made the fellow. He--why, he is my
joke, the biggest scream I ever put over--my joke, understand? And now
this adumbrated ass of a Quigley, who's been sent on here from St.
Louis to take the city desk, he falls for Virgie as a genuine
personage. Not only that, but picks me out to cover this phony tea of
his. And the stinging part is, if I don't I get canned, that's all."

"Ain't he the goods, then?" says I. "What about this sculptor poet
business?"

"Bunk," says Whity, "nothing but bunk. Of course, he does putter
around with modeling clay a bit, and writes the sort of club-footed
verse they put in high school monthlies."

"Gets it printed in a book, though," says I. "I've seen one."

"Why not?" says Whity. "Anyone can who has the three hundred to pay
for plates and binding. 'Sonnets of the City,' wasn't it? Didn't I
get my commission from the Easy Mark Press for steering him in? Why, I
even scratched off some of those things to help him pad out the book
with. But, say, Torchy, you ought to remember him. You were on the
door then,--tall, wide-shouldered freak, with aureole hair, and a close
cropped Vandyke?"

"Not the one who wore the Wild West lid and talked like he had a
mouthful of hot oatmeal?" says I.

"Your description of Virgie's English accent is perfect," says Whity.

"Well, well!" says I. "The mushbag, we used to call him."

"Charmingly accurate again!" says Whity. "Verily beside him the
quivering jellyfish of the salt sea was as the armored armadillo of the
desert. Soft? You could poke a finger through him anywhere."

"But what was his game?" says I.

"It wasn't a game, my son," says Whity. "It was a mission in life,--to
get things printed about himself. Had no more modesty about it, you
know, than a circus press agent. Perfectly frank and ingenuous, Virgie
was. He'd just come and ask you to put it in that he was a great
man--just like that! The chief used to froth at the mouth on sight of
him. But Virgie looked funny to me in those days. I used to jolly him
along, smoke his Coronas, let him take me out to swell feeds. Then
when they gave Merrow charge of the Sunday side, just for a josh I did
a half-page special about Virgie, called him the sculptor p