Torchy, Private Sec. | Page 7

G.
is; tall and thin, and with a big, bowwow voice that has a rasp to it.
"Huh!" says he, as he discovers me busy at the desk. "I heard of this out
in Chicago three days ago; but I thought it must be a joke."
"Them reporters do get things straight now and then, don't they?" says
I.
"Reporters!" he snorts. "Philip wrote me about it."
"Oh!" says I. "Cousin Philip, eh?"
And that gave me the whole plot of the piece. Cousin Phil was a
cigarette-consumin' college discard that Willis G. had been nursin'
along in the bondroom, waitin' for a better openin'; and this jump of
mine had filled a snap job that he'd had his eyes on for Cousin.
"I suppose you're only temporary, though," says he.
"That's all," says I. "Mr. Ellins will be resignin' in eight or ten years, I
expect, and then they'll want me in his chair. Nice mornin', ain't it?"
"Bah!" says he, registerin' deep disgust, as they say in the movie scripts.
"You'll do well if you last eight or ten days."
"How cheerin'!" says I, and as he swings off with a final glare I tips
him the humorous wink.
Why not? No young-man-afraid-of-his-job part for me! Briscoe might
get it away from me, or he might not; but I wa'n't goin' to get panicky
over it. Let him do his worst!

He didn't need any urgin'. With a little scoutin' around he discovers that
about the only assignment on my hook so far is this Rowley matter:
you know, the old inventor guy with the mill-tailings scheme. And the
first hint I had that he was wise to that was when Mr. Robert calls me
over after lunch and explains how this Rowley business sort of comes
in Mr. Briscoe's department.
"So I suppose you'd better turn it over to him," says he.
"Just as you say," says I. "The old gent is due at two-fifteen, and I'll
shunt him onto Briscoe."
Which I did. And at two-thirty-five Briscoe breezes in with his report.
"Nothing to it," says he. "This Rowley person has a lot of half-baked
ideas about briquets and retort recoveries, and talks vaguely of big
profits; but he's got nothing practical. I shipped him off."
"But," says Mr. Robert, "I think he was promised that his schemes
should have a consideration by the board."
"Very well," says Willis G. jaunty. "I'll give 'em a report next meeting.
Wednesday, isn't it? Hardly worth wasting their time over, though."
And here I'd been boostin' the Rowley proposition to Mr. Robert good
and hard, almost gettin' him enthusiastic over it! I was smeared, that's
all! My first stab at makin' myself useful in my new swing-chair job
has been brushed aside as a beginner's bungle; and there sits Mr. Robert,
prob'ly wonderin' if he hadn't made a mistake in takin' me off the gate!
I stares at a row of empty pigeonholes for a solid hour after that, not
doin' a blamed thing but race my thinkin' gears tryin' to find out where I
was at. This dummy act that I'd been let in for might be all right for
some; but it didn't suit me. I've got to have action in mine.
So, long before quittin' time, I slams the desk cover down and pikes out
on Rowley's trail. He might be a dead duck; but I wanted to know how
and why. I had his address all right, and it didn't take me long to locate

him in a fifth-story loft down on lower Sixth-ave. It's an odd joint too,
with a cot bed in one corner, a work bench along the avenue side, a
cook-stove in the middle, and a kitchen table where the coffeepot was
crowded on each side by a rack of test tubes. Old Rowley himself, with
his sleeves rolled up, is sittin' in a rickety arm chair peelin' potatoes.
He's grouchy too.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" says he. "Well, you might just as well trot right
back to the Corrugated Trust and tell 'em that Old Hen Rowley don't
give two hoots for their whole outfit."
"I take it you didn't get on so well with Mr. Briscoe?" says I.
"Briscoe!" he grunts savage. "Who could talk business to a smart Alec
like that! He knew it all before I'd begun. You'd think I was trying to
sell him a gold brick. All right! We'll see what the Bethlehem people
have to say."
"What?" says I. "Before you get the final word from us?"
"I've had it," says he. "Briscoe is final enough for me."
"You're easy satisfied," says I, "or else you're easy beat. I didn't take
you for a quitter, either."
Say, that got to him. "Quitter, eh!" says he.