grabbed that, unfurled it, and is sittin'
there damp and wailin' in a nice little pool of water that's risin'
every minute. She's just as cosy as a settin' hen caught in a flood and
is wearin' about the same contented expression, I judge.

"Why, Auntie, how absurd!" says Vee.

It wasn't just the right thing to say. Natural enough, I'll admit, but
hardly the remark to spill at that precise moment. I could see the
explosion coming, so after one more look I smothers a chuckle on my own
account and beats it towards the cellar where that blamed pump is still
chuggin' away merry and industrious. By turnin' off all the switches and
handles in sight I manages to induce the fool thing to quit. Then I
sneaks back upstairs, puts on a bathrobe and knocks timid on the door of
the reg'lar guest room from which I hears sounds of earnest voices.

"Can I help any?" says I.

"No, no!" calls out Vee. "You--you'd best go away, Torchy."

She's generally right, Vee is. I went. I took a casual look at the
flooded kitchen with an inch or more of water on the linoleum, and
concluded to leave that problem to the help when they showed up in the
mornin'. And I don't know how long Vee spent in tryin' to convince
Auntie that I hadn't personally climbed into the attic, bugged the pump,
and bored holes through the ceilin'. As I couldn't go on the stand in my
own defense I did the next best thing. I finished out my sleep.

In the mornin' I got the verdict. "Auntie's going back to town," says
Vee. "She thinks, after all, that it will be more restful there."

"It will be for me, anyway," says I.

I don't know how Vee and Master Richard still stand with Auntie. They
may be in the will yet, or they may not. As for Buddy and me, I'll bet
we're out. Absolutely. But we can grin, even at that.

CHAPTER XVIII

HARTLEY PULLS A NEW ONE

Looked like kind of a simple guy, this Hartley Tyler. I expect it was
the wide-set, sort of starey eyes, or maybe the stiff way he had of
holdin' his neck. If you'd asked me I'd said he might have qualified as
a rubber-stamp secretary in some insurance office, or as a tea-taster,
or as a subway ticket-chopper.

Anyway, he wasn't one you'd look for any direct action from. Too mild
spoken and slow moving. And yet when he did cut loose with an original
motion he shoots the whole works on one roll of the bones. He'd come out
of the bond room one Saturday about closin' time and tip-toed hesitatin'
up to where Pidd