and enthusiastic, just the way he
does everything he tackles, from yacht racin' to puttin' a crimp in an
independent. In fact, he wa'n't doin' much else.

"Where's Robert?" demands Old Hickory, marchin' out of his private
office and glarin' at the closed roll-top.

"I expect he's takin' the afternoon off," says I, maybe grinnin' a bit.

"Huh!" says the boss. "The second this week! I thought that fool regatta
was over."

"Yes, sir, it is," says I. "Besides, he didn't enter."

"Oh!" says Mr. Ellins. "Then it isn't a case of a sixty-footer!"

"The one he's tryin' to manage now is about five-foot six," says I.

"Eh?" says Old Hickory, workin' his eyebrows. "That Miss Hampton again?"

I nods.

"Torchy," he goes on, "of course I've no particular right to be
informed, being only his father, but--er--about how much longer should
you say that affair would run before it comes to some sort of climax? In
other words, how is he getting on?"

"The last I knew," says I, "he was comin' strong. Course, he made a
couple of false starts there at the send-off, but now he seems to have
struck his gait."

"Really!" says Old Hickory. "And now, solely in the interest of the
Corrugated Trust, could you go so far as to predict a date when he might
reasonably be expected to resume business activities?"

I chews that over a minute, and runs my fingers thoughtful through my
red thatch.

"Nope," says I. "If I was any such prize guesser as that, I'd be down in
Wall Street buckin' the market. Maybe after Sunday, though, I might make
a report one way or the other."

"Ah! You scent a crisis, do you?" says he.

"It's this way," says I. "Marjorie's givin' a little week-end house
party for 'em out at her place, and--well, you know how that's apt to
work out at this stage of the game."

"You think it may end the agony?" says he.

"There'll be a swell chance for twosin'," says I. "Marjorie's plannin'
for that."

"I see," says Mr. Ellins. "Undisturbed propinquity--a love charm that
was old when the world was young. And if Marjorie is managing the
campaign, it's all over with Robert."

That was my dope on the subject too, after I'd seen the layout of her
first skirmish. There was just half a dozen of us mobilized at this
flossy suburban joint Saturday afternoon, but from the start it was
plain that four of us was on hand only to keep each other out of the way
of this pair. Course, Vee and I hardly needs to have the cue passed. We
were