"Oh!" says I. "Kind of a he-chaperone act, eh?"

That seems to be the general idea, and as he promises to stop in at the
house and fix things up for me at home, and pushes a roll of twenties at
me to spray around with as I see fit, of course, I has to take the job.
I trails in with Mr. Robert while he apologizes elaborate to Ambrose and
explains how he's had to ask me to fill in.

"Perfectly all right, old man," says Ambrose. "In fact--well, you get
the idea, eh? The little wife hasn't quite got her bearings yet. Might
feel better about meeting her new relatives after she's been around a
bit. And Torchy will do fine."

He tips me the wink as Mr. Robert hurries off.

"Same old cut-up, eh, Amby?" says I.

"Who me?" says he. "No, no! Nothing like that. Old married man, steady
as a church. Uh-huh! Two years and a half in the harness. You ought to
see the happy hacienda we call home down there. Say, it's forty-eight
long miles out of Buenos Ayres. Can you picture that! El Placida's the
name of the cute little burg. It looks it. They don't make 'em any more
placid anywhere."

"I wonder you picked it then," says I.

"I didn't exactly," says Ambrose. "El Placida rather picked me. Funny
how things work out sometimes. Got chummy with an old boy going down on
the boat, Senor Alvarado. Showed him how to play Canfield and Russian
bank and gave him the prescription for mixing a Hartford stinger. Before
we crossed the line he thought I was an ace. Wanted to know what I was
going to do down in his great country. 'Oh, anything that will keep me
in cigarettes,' says I. 'You come with me and learn the wool business,'
says he. 'It's a bet,' says I. So instead of being stranded in a strange
land and nibbling the shrubbery for lunch, as my dear brother and the
Ellinses had doped out, I lands easy on my feet with a salary that
starts when I walks down the gank plank. Only I have to be in El Placida
to draw my pay."

"But you made good, did you?" I asks.

"I did as long as Senor Alvarado was around to back me up," says Amby,
"but when he slides down to the city for a week's business trip and
turns me over to that Scotch superintendent of his the going got kind of
rough. Mr. McNutt sends me out with a flivver to buy wool around the
country. Looked easy. Buying things used to be my long suit. I bought a
lot of wool. But I expect some of them low-browed rancheros must have
gypped me good and plenty. Anyway, McNutt threw a fit when he l