"I was, but I"m not," says the chatterbox.
"Eh?" says I, gawpin".
"Can"t take it on," says he. "Tell Ellins, will you?"
"Not much!" says I. "Guess you"ll have to hand that to him yourself, Mr.
Wells. He"ll be here any minute. Right this way."
And a swell time I had keepin" him entertained in the private office for half an hour. Not that he"s restless or fidgety, but when you get a party who only stares bored at a spot about ten feet behind the back of your head and answers most of your questions by blinkin" his eyes, it kind of gets on your nerves. Still, I couldn"t let him get away. Why, Mr. Robert had been prospectin" for months to find the right man for that transportation muddle and when he finally got hold of this Nicky Wells he goes around grinnin" for three days.
Seems Nicky had built up quite a rep. by some work he did over in France on an engineerin" job. Ran some supply tracks where n.o.body thought they could be laid, bridged a river in a night under fire, and pulled a lot of stuff like that. I don"t know just what. Anyway, they pinned all sorts of medals on him for it, made him a colonel, and when it was all over turned him loose as casual as any buck private. That"s the army for you. And the railroad people he"d been with before had been shifted around so much that they"d forgotten all about him. He wasn"t the kind to tell "em what a whale of a guy he was, and n.o.body else did it for him. So there he was, floatin" around, when Mr. Robert happened to hear of him.
"Must have got you in some lively spots, runnin" a right of way smack up to the German lines?" I suggests.
"M-m-m-m!" says he, through his teeth.
"Wasn"t it you laid the tracks that got up them big naval guns?" I asks.
"I may have helped," says he.
So I knew all about it, you see. Quite thrillin" if you had a high speed imagination. And you can bet I was some relieved when Mr. Robert blew in and took him off my hands. Must have been an hour later before he comes out and I goes into the private office to find Mr. Robert with his chin on his wishbone and his brow furrowed up.
"Well, I take it the one-syllable champion broke the sad news to you!"
says I.
"Yes, he wants to quit," says Mr. Robert.
"Means to devote all his time to breakin" the long distance no-speech record, does he?" I asks.
"I"m sure I don"t know what he means to do," says Mr. Robert, sighin".
"Anyway, he seems determined not to go to work for the Corrugated. I did discover one thing, though, Torchy; there"s a girl mixed up in the affair. She"s thrown him over."
"I don"t wonder," says I. "Probably he tried to get through a whole evenin" with her on that yes-and-no stuff."
No, Mr. Robert says, it wasn"t that. Not altogether. Nicky has done something that he"s ashamed of, something she"d heard about. He"d renigged on takin" her to a dinner dance up in Boston a month or so back. He"d been on hand all right, was right on the spot while she was waitin" for him; but instead of callin" around with the taxi and the orchids he"d slipped off to another town without sayin" a word. The worst of it was that in this other place was the other woman, someone he"d had an affair with before. A Reno widow, too.
"Think of that!" says I, "Nicky the Silent! Say, you can"t always tell, can you? What"s his alibi?"
"That"s the puzzling part of it," says Mr. Robert. "He hasn"t the ghost of an excuse, although he claims he didn"t see the other woman, had almost forgotten she lived there. But why he deserted his dinner partner and went to this place he doesn"t explain, except to say that he doesn"t know why he did it."
"Too fishy," says I. "Unless he can prove he was walkin" in his sleep."
"Just what I tell him," says Mr. Robert. "Anyway, he"s taking it hard.
Says if he"s no more responsible than that he couldn"t undertake an important piece of work. Besides, I believe he is very fond of the girl.
She"s Betty Burke, by the way."
"Z-z-zing!" says I. "Some combination, Miss Betty Burke and Nickerson Wells."
I"d seen her a few times at the Ellinses, and take it from me she"s some wild gazelle; you know, lots of curves and speed, but no control. No matter where you put her she"s the life of the party, Betty is. Chatter!
Say, she could make an afternoon tea at the Old Ladies" Home sound like a Rotary Club luncheon, all by herself. Shoots over the clever stuff, too. Oh, a reg"lar girl. About as much on Nicky Wells" type as a hummin"
bird is like a pelican.
"Only another instance," says Mr. Robert, "to show that the law of opposites is still in good working condition. I"ve never known Betty to be as much cut up over anything as she"s been since she found out about Nicky. Only we couldn"t imagine what was the matter. She"s not used to being forgotten and I suppose she lost no time in telling Nicky where he got off. She must have cared a lot for him. Perhaps she still does. The silly things! If they could only make it up perhaps Nicky would sign that contract and go to work."
"Looks like a case of Cupid throwin" a monkey wrench into the gears of commerce, eh?" says I. "How do you size up Nicky"s plea of not guilty?"
"Oh, if he says he didn"t see the other woman, he didn"t, that"s all,"
says Mr. Robert. "But until he explains why he went where she was when----"
"Maybe he would if he had a show," says I. "If you could plot out a get-together session for "em somehow----"
"Exactly!" says Mr. Robert, slappin" his knee. "Thank you, Torchy. It shall be done. Get Mrs. Ellins on the long distance, will you?"
He"s a quick performer, Mr. Robert, when he"s got his program mapped out. He don"t hesitate to step on the pedal. Before quittin" time that afternoon he"s got it all fixed up.
"Tomorrow night," says he, "Nicky understands that we"re having a dinner party out at the house. Betty"ll be there. You and Vee are to be the party."
"A lot of help I"ll be," says I. "But I expect I can fill a chair."
When you get a private sec. that can double in open face clothes, though, you"ve picked a winner. That"s why I figure so heavy on the Corrugated pay roll. But say, when I finds myself planted next to Bubbling Betty at the table I begins to suspect that I"ve been miscast for the part.
She"s some smart dresser, on and off, Betty is. Her idea of a perfectly good dinner gown is to make it as simple as possible. All she needs is a quart or so of gla.s.s beads and a little pink tulle and there she is.
There"s more or less of her, too. And me thinkin" that Theda Bara stood for the last word in bare. I hadn"t seen Betty costumed for the dinin"
room then. And I expect the blush roses in the flower bowl had nothing on my ears when it came to a vivid color scheme.
By that time, of course, she and Nicky had recovered from the shock of findin" themselves with their feet under the same table and they"ve settled down to bein" insultin"ly polite to each other. It"s "Mr. Wells"
and "Miss Burke" with them, Nicky with his eyes in his plate and Betty throwin" him frigid glances that should have chilled his soup. And the next thing I know she"s turned to me and is cuttin" loose with her whole bag of tricks. Talk about bein" vamped! Say, inside of three minutes there she had me dizzy in the head. With them sparklin", roly-boly eyes of hers so near I didn"t know whether I was b.u.t.terin" a roll or spreadin" it on my thumb.
"Do you know," says she, "I simply adore red hair--your kind."
"Maybe that"s why I picked out this particular shade," says I.
"Tchk!" says she, tappin" me on the arm. "Tell me, how do you get it to wave so cunningly in front?"
"Don"t give it away," says I, "but I do demonstratin" at a male beauty parlor."
This seems to tickle Betty so much that she has to lean over and chuckle on my shoulder. "Bob calls you Torchy, doesn"t he?" she goes on. "I"m going to, too."
"Well, I don"t see how I can stop you," says I.
"What do you think of this new near-beer?" she demands.
"Why," says I, "it strikes me the bird who named it was a poor judge of distance." Which, almost causes Betty to swallow an olive pit.
"You"re simply delightful!" says she. "Why haven"t we met before?"
"Maybe they didn"t think it was safe," says I. "They might be right, at that."