The next minute they makes a dash for an elevator goin' down, and that part of it was over. We'd worked the bluff all the way through, and Sis has lugged off the idea that Mallory was at the top of the bunch.

But there was Mr. Robert, waitin' to talk Dutch to us.49

49

Mallory he starts in to say that he's sorry for seemin' so cheeky; but that's about all he can say.

"Ah, cheese it!" says I, buttin' in. "What do you know about it? It was me put up the game, and if Mr. Robert had loafed another half an hour at the club like he usually does, there wouldn't have been any mix up. Say, you leave this to me."

Mallory didn't want to leave it like that; but Mr. Robert was holdin' the door open for him, so he couldn't do anything else. When we had it all to ourselves, the boss ranges me up in front of him for the court of inquiry session.

"Well?" says he, real solemn.

I takes all that in and gives him the wink. "Say," says I, "didn't I have my nerve with me, though?"

He kind of blinks at that; but it don't fetch him.

"Who's Dicky, your whisperin' friend?" says I.

"Nobody much," says he. "His father's a Senator."

"Well, say, now," says I, "you didn't want me to chase a Senator's son and a real swell girl like Sis off into a place like the general office reception room, did you! And wouldn't it have been a nice break if I'd let out that we50 was smotherin' the Great Skid under a twelve-dollar job?"

50

"Was that why you had the impudence to appropriate my office?" says he.

"That was part of it," says I.

And that gives me an openin' to tell him the whole tale about Mallory, from the hall bedroom act to the way he'd been postin' himself.

"You think he's a valuable man, do you?" says Mr. Robert.

"Valuable!" says I. "Why, he's all the goods. What if he did learn to talk Greek once? He's forgettin' it, ain't he? And look at the way he stands up to trouble! Don't that show there's good stuff in him?"

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