and then to see what was goin' on under the white lights.

From some youngsters that might have called for such panicky protests as Mother and Mrs. Purdy-Pell put up; but young Robin had a51 good head on him, and didn't act like he meant to develop into a rounder. Course I didn't hear the details; but all of a sudden something happened that caused a grand howl. I know Sadie was consulted, then Mrs. Hollister was sent for, and it ended by Robin marchin' into the studio one mornin' to say good-by. He explains that he's bein' shipped home. They'd got a job for him with an uncle out in the country somewhere. That must have been a year or so ago, and now it looked like he'd slipped his halter and had headed back for Broadway.

51

I finds Purdy-Pell peeved and sarcastic. "To be sure," he says, "I feel honored that the young man should make my house his headquarters whenever his fancy leads him to indulge his sportive instincts. Youth must be served, you know. But Mrs. Hollister has such a charmingly unreasonable way of holding me responsible for her son's conduct! And since she happens just now to be our guest—well, you get the idea, McCabe."

"What do you think he's up to?" says I.

Purdy-Pell shrugs his shoulders. "If he were the average youth, one might guess," says he; "but Robin Hollister is different. His mother is a Pitt Medway, one of the Georgia Medways."

"You don't say!" says I. I expect I ought to know just how a Georgia Medway differs from a New Jersey Medway, or the Connecticut brand; but, sad to say, I don't. Purdy-Pell, though,52 havin' been raised in the South himself, seems to think that everyone ought to know the traits of all the leadin' fam'lies between the Potomac and the Chattahoochee.

52

"Last time, you know," goes on Purdy-Pell, "it was a Miss Maggie Toots, a restaurant cashier, and a perfectly impossible person. We broke that up, though."

"Ye-e-es?" says I.

"Robin's mother seemed to think then," says he, "that it was largely my fault. I suppose she'll feel the same about whatever mischief he's in now. If I could only find the young scamp! But really I haven't time. I'm an hour late at the Boomer Days' as it is."

"Then toddle along," says I. "If I'm unanimously elected to do this kid-reformin' act, I expect I might as well get busy."

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