Torchy and Vee | Page 6

quit. She's a stayer. And some grand little hustler, too. By Monday mornin' the Harbor Hills Community Kitchen Co. was a going concern. And before the week was out they had more'n forty families on the standin' order list, with new squads of soup scorchers bein' fired every day.
What got a gasp out of me was the first time I gets sight of Marion Gray in her working rig. Nothing old-maidish about that costume. Not so you'd notice. She's gone the limit--khaki riding pants, leather leggins and a zippy cloth cap cut on the overseas pattern. None of them Women's Motor Corps girls had anything on her. And maybe she ain't some picture, too, as she jumps in behind the wheel of the truck and steps on the gas pedal!
Also, I was some jarred to learn that the enterprise was a payin' one almost from the start. Folks was just tickled to death with havin' perfectly good meals, well cooked, well seasoned and pipin' hot, set down at their back doors prompt every day, with no fractious fryin'-pan pirates growlin' around the kitchens, and no local food profiteers soakin' 'em with big weekly bills.
This has been goin' on a month, when one day as I comes home Vee greets me with a flyin' tackle.
"Oh, Torchy!" she squeals, "what do you think has happened?"
"I know," says I. "Baby's cut a tooth."
"No," says she. "It's--it's about Marion."
"Oh!" says I. "She ain't bumped somebody with the truck, has she?"
"How absurd!" says Vee. "But, listen, Captain Ellery Prescott has come back."
"What! The old favorite?" says I. "But I thought he was over with Pershing?"
"Not yet," says Vee. "He has been out at some Western camp training recruits all this time. But now he has his orders. He is to sail very soon. And he's seen Marion."
"Has he?" said I. "Did it give him a jolt, or what?"
Vee giggles and pulls my head down so she can whisper in my ear. "He thought her perfectly stunning, as she is, of course. And they're to be married day after tomorrow."
"Z-z-z-zing!" says I. "That puts a crimp in the ready-made dinner business, I expect."
"Not at all," says Vee. "Until he comes back, after the war, Marion is going to carry on."
"Anyway," says I, "it ends 'Puffy' Biggies as an impendin' tragedy, don't it? And I expect that's worth while, too."
CHAPTER II
OLD HICKORY BATS UP ONE
Anybody would most think I'd been with the Corrugated Trust long enough to know that Old Hickory Ellins generally gets what he wants, whether it's quick action from an office boy or a two-thirds majority vote from the board of directors. But once in a while I seem to forget, and shortly after that I'm wonderin' if it was a tank I went up against so solid, or if someone threw the bond safe at me.
What let me in wrong this last time was a snappy little remark I got shot my way right here in the general offices. I was just back from a three-days' chase after a delayed shipment of bridge girders and steel wheelbarrows that was billed for France in a rush, and I'd got myself disliked by most of the traffic managers between here and Altoona, to say nothing of freight conductors, yard bosses and so on. But I'd untangled those nine cars and got 'em movin' toward the North River, and now I was steamin' through a lot of office detail that had piled up while I was gone. I'd lunched luxurious on an egg sandwich and a war doughnut that Vincent had brought up to me from the arcade automat, and I'd 'phoned Vee that I might not be out home until the 11:13, when in blows this potty party with the poison ivy leaves on his shoulder straps and demands to see Mr. Ellins at once. Course, it's me with my heels together doin' the zippy salute.
"Sorry, major," says I, "but Mr. Ellins won't be in until 10:30."
"Hah!" says he, like bitin' off a piece of glass. "And who are you, lieutenant!"
"Special detail from the Ordnance Department, sir," says I.
"Oh, you are, eh?" he snorts. "Another bomb-proofer! Well, tell Mr. Ellins I shall be back at 11:15--if this sector hasn't been captured in the meantime," and as he double-quicks out he near runs down Mr. Piddie, our rubber-stamp office manager, who has towed him in.
As for me, I stands there swallowin' air bubbles until my red-haired disposition got below the boiling point once more. Then I turns to Piddie.
"You heard, didn't you?" says I.
Piddie nods. "But I don't quite understand," says he. "What did he mean by--er--bomb-proofer?"
"Just rank flattery, Piddie," says I. "The rankest kind. It's his way of indicatin' that I'm a yellow dog hidin' under a roll-top desk for fear someone'll kick me out