rect from New York?"

"Why," says I, "my guess would be Buenos Ayres."

"Very well," says he, "engage a one way passage on the next boat and see
that Mr. Ambrose Wood stays aboard until the steamer sails."

Which I did. Ambrose didn't show any hard feelin's over it. In fact, as
I remember, he was quite cheerful. "Tell the old hard boiled egg not to
worry about me," says he. "He may be able to lose me this way for a
while, but I'm not clear off the map yet. I'll be back some day."

Must have been more 'n three years ago, and as I hadn't heard Amby's
name mentioned in all that time I joined in the general surprise when I
saw him trailin' in dressed so neat and lookin' so fit.

"On his way to hand Ferdy the glad jolt, eh?" I asks.

"No," says Mr. Robert. "Ambrose seems quite willing to postpone meeting
his brother for a day or so. He has just landed, you see, and doesn't
care to dash madly out into the suburbs. What he wishes most, as I
understand, is to take a long, long look at New York."

"Well, after three years' exile," says I, "you can hardly blame him for
that."

Mr. Robert hunches his shoulders. "I suppose one can't," says he. "Only
it leaves him on my hands, as it were. Someone must do the family
honors--dinner, theatre, all that sort of thing. And if I were not tied
up by an important committee meeting out at the country club I should be
very glad to--er--"

"Ye-e-es?" says I, glancin' at him suspicious.

"You've guessed it, Torchy," says he. "I must leave them to you."

"Whaddye mean, them?" says I. "I thought we was talking about Ambrose."

"Oh, certainly," says Mr. Robert. "But Mrs. Wood is with him, he says.
In fact they came up together. Same boat. They would, you know. Charming
young woman. At least, so I inferred from what Ambrose said. One of
those dark Spanish beauties such as--"

"Check!" says I. "That lets me out. All the Spanish I know is 'Multum in
parvo' and I forget just what that means now. I couldn't talk to the
lady a-tall."

But Mr. Robert insists I don't have to be conversational with her, or
with Ambrose, either. All he wants me to do is steer 'em to some nice,
refined place regardless of expense, give 'em a welcome-home feed that
will make 'em forget that the Ellins family is only represented by
proxy, tow 'em to some high-class entertainment, like "The Boudoir
Girls," and sort of see that Ambrose lands back at his hotel without
having got mixed up with any of his old set.