Torchy, Private Sec.

  CHAPTER XII

  ZENOBIA DIGS UP A LATE ONE

  And first off I had him listed in the joke column. Think of that! Butwhen I caught my first glimpse of him, there in the Corrugated gen'raloffices that mornin', there was more or less comedy idea to his get-up;the high-sided, flat-topped derby, for instance. Once in a while you runacross an old sport who still sticks to that type of hard-boiled lid.Gen'rally they're short-stemmed old ginks who seem to think the highcrown makes 'em loom up taller. Maybe so; but where they findback-number hats like that is beyond me.

  Then there was the buff-cochin spats and the wide ribbon to hiseyeglasses. Beyond that I don't know as there was anything real freakyabout him. A rich-colored old gent he is, the pink in his cheeks shadin'off into a deep mahogany tint back of his ears, makin' his frosted hairand mustache stand out some prominent.

  He'd been shown into the private office on a call for Mr. Robert; but asI was well heeled with work of my own I didn't even glance up from thedesk until I hears this scrappy openin' of his.

  "Bob Ellins, you young scoundrel, what the blighted beatitudes does thismean!" he demands.

  Naturally that gets me stretchin' my neck, and I turns just in time towatch the gaspy expression on Mr. Robert's face fade out and turn into achuckle.

  "Why, Mr. Ballard!" says he, extendin' the cordial palm. "I had no ideayou were on this side. Really! I understood, you know, that you weresettled over there for good, and that----"

  "So you take advantage of the fact, do you, to make me president of oneof your fool companies?" says Ballard. "My imbecile attorney just let itleak out. What do you mean, eh?"

  Mr. Robert pushes him into a chair and shrugs his shoulders. "It wasrather a liberty, I admit," says he; "one of the exigencies of business,however. When a meddlesome administration insists on dissolving into itscomponent parts such an extensive organization as ours--well, we had tohave a lot of presidents in a hurry. Really, we didn't think you'd mind,Mr. Ballard, and we had no intention of bothering you with the details."

  "Huh!" snorts Mr. Ballard. "And what is this precious corporation ofwhich I'm supposed to be the head?"

  "Why, Mutual Funding," says Mr. Robert.

  "Funding, eh?" comes back Ballard snappy. "What tommyrot! Bob Ellins,you ought to know that I haven't the vaguest notion as to what fundingis,--never did,--and at my time of life, Sir, I don't propose to learn!"

  "Of course, of course," says Mr. Robert, soothin'. "Quite unnecessarytoo. You are adequately and efficiently represented, Mr. Ballard, by aprivate secretary who has mastered the art of funding, mutual andotherwise, until he can do it backward with one hand tied behind him.Torchy, will you step here a moment?"

  I was comin' too; but Mr. Ballard waves me off.

  "Stop!" says he. "I'll not listen to a word of it. I'd have you know,Bob Ellins, that I have worried along for sixty-two years without havingbeen criminally implicated in business affairs. The worst I've done hasbeen to pose as a dummy director on your rascally board and to see thatmy letter of credit was renewed every three months. Use my name if youmust; but allow me to keep a clear conscience. I'm going in now for achat with your father, Bob, and if he mentions funding I shall stuff myfingers in my ears and run. He won't, though. Old Hickory knows mebetter. This his door? All right. Thanks. Hah, you old freebooter! Inyour den, are you? Well, well!"

  At which he stalks into the other office and leaves Mr. Robert and megrinnin' at each other.

  "Listened like you was in Dutch for a minute or so there," says I. "Caseof the cat comin' back, eh?"

  "From Kyrle Ballard," says he, "one expects the unexpected. Only we neednot worry about his wanting to become the acting head of yourdepartment. To-morrow or next week he is quite likely to be off again,bound for some remote corner of the earth, to hobnob with the nativerulers thereof, participate in their games of chance, and invent a newpunch especially suitable for that particular climate."

  "Gee!" says I. "That's my idea of a perfectly good boss,--one that giveshis job absent treatment."

  I thought too that Mr. Robert had doped out his motions correct; for aweek goes by and no Mr. Ballard shows up to take the rubber stamp awayfrom me, or even ask fool questions. I was hopin' too that Ballard hadgone a long ways from here, accordin' to custom. Then one night--well,it was at the theater, one of them highbrow Shaw plays that I waschucklin' through with Aunt Zenobia.

  Eh? Remember her, don't you? Why, she's one of the pair of aunts that Igot half adopted by, 'way back when I first started in with theCorrugated. Yep, I've been stayin' on with 'em. Why not? Course ourlittle side street is 'way down in an old-fashioned part of the town;the upper edge of old Greenwich village, in fact, if you know where thatis.

  The house is one of a row that sports about the only survivin' specimensof the cast-iron grapevine school of architecture. Honest, we got adouble-decked veranda built of foundry work that was meant to look likeleaves and vines, I expect. Cute idea, eh? Bein' all painted brick red,though, it ain't so convincing but stragglin' over ours is a wistariathat has a few sickly-lookin' blossoms on it every spring and manages tocarry a sprinklin' of dusty leaves through the summer. Also there's anine-by-twelve lawn, that costs a dollar a square foot to keep in shape,I'll bet.

  From that description maybe you'd judge that the place where I hang outis a little antique. It is. But inside it's mighty comf'table, and it'sthe best imitation of a home I've ever carried a latch-key to. As forthe near-aunts, Zenobia and Martha, take it from me they're the realthings in that line, even if they did let me in off the street withoutaskin' who or what! The best of it is they never have asked, whichmakes it convenient. I couldn't tell 'em much, if they did.

  There's Martha--well, she's the pious one. It ain't any case of suddenspasms with her. It's a settled habit. She's just as pious Mondaymornin' as she is Sunday afternoon, and it lasts her all through theweek. You know how she started in by readin' them Delilah and Jona yarnsto me. She's kept it up. About twice a week she corners me and pumps ina slice of Scripture readin', until I guess we must be more 'n halfthrough the Book. Course there's a lot of it I don't see any percentagein at all; but I've got so I don't mind it, and it seems to give AuntMartha a lot of satisfaction. She's a lumpy, heavy-set old girl, Martha,and a little slow; but the only thing that ain't genuine about her isthe yellowish white frontispiece she pins on over her own hair when shedolls up for dinner.

  But Zenobia--say, she's a diff'rent party! A few years younger thanMartha, Zenobia is,--in the early sixties, I should say,--and she's justas active and up to date and foxy as Martha is logy and antique anddull. While Martha is sayin' grace Zenobia is gen'rally pourin' herselfout a glass of port.

  About once a week Martha loads herself into an old horse cab and goesoff to a meetin' of the foreign mission society, or something likethat; but almost every afternoon Zenobia goes whizzin' off in a taxi,maybe to hear some long-haired violinist, maybe to sit on the platformwith Emma Goldman and Bouck White and applaud enthusiastic when theestablished order gets another jolt. Just as likely as not too, she'llbring some of 'em home to dinner with her.

  Zenobia never shoves any advice on me, good or otherwise, and never asksnosey questions; but she's the one who sees that my socks are keptmended and has my suits sent to the presser. She don't read things tome, or expound any of her fads. She just talks to me like she does toanyone else--minor poets or social reformers--about anything she happensto be int'rested in at the time,--music, plays, Mother Jones, the war,or how suffrage is comin' on,--and never seems to notice when I makebreaks or get over my head.

  A good sport Zenobia is, and so busy sizin' up to-day that she ain't gottime for reminiscin' about the days before Brooklyn Bridge was built.And the most chronic kidder you ever saw. Say, what we don't do to AuntMartha when both of us gets her on a string is a caution! That's whatmakes so many of our meals such cheerful events.

  You might think, from a casual glance at Zenobia, with her gray hair andthe lines around her eyes, that she'd be
kind of slow comp'ny for me,especially to chase around to plays with and so on. But, believe me,there's nothin' dull about her, and when she suggests that she's got anextra ticket to anything I don't stop to ask what it is, but just getsinto the proper evenin' uniform and trots along willin'!

  So that's how I happens to be with her at this Shaw play, and discussin'between the acts what Barney was really tryin' to put over on us. Thefirst intermission was most over too before I discovers this ruddy-facedold party in the back of Box A with his opera glasses trained steady inour direction. I glances along the row to see if anyone's gazin' back;but I can't spot a soul lookin' his way. After he's kept it up a minuteor two I nudges Aunt Zenobia.

  "Looks like we was bein' inspected from the box seats," says I.

  "How flatterin'!" says she. "Where?"

  I points him out. "Must be you," says I, grinnin'.

  "I hope so," says Zenobia. "If I'm really being flirted with, I shallboast of it to Sister Martha."

  But just then the lights go out and the second act begins. We got sobusy followin' the nutty scheme of this conversation expert who plots topass off a flower-girl for a Duchess that the next wait is well underway before I remembers the gent in the box.

  "Say, he's at it again," says I. "You must be makin' a hit for fair."

  "Precisely what I've always hoped might happen,--to be stared at inpublic," says Zenobia. "I'm greatly obliged to him, I'm sure. You arequite certain, though, that it isn't someone just behind me?"

  I whispers that there's no one behind her but a fat woman munchin'chocolates and rubberin' back to see if Hubby ain't through gettin' hisdrink.

  "There! He's takin' his glasses down," says I. "Know the party, do you?"

  "Not at this distance," says Zenobia. "No, I shall insist that he is anunknown admirer."

  By that time, though, I'd got a better view myself. And--say, hadn't Iseen them ruddy cheeks and that gray hair and them droopy eyes before?Why, sure! It's what's-his-name, the old guy who blew into theCorrugated awhile ago, my absentee boss--Ballard!

  Maybe I'd have told Zenobia all about him if there'd been time; butthere wa'n't. Another flash of the lights, and we was watchin' the lastact, where this gutter-bred Pygmalion sprouts a soul. And when it's allover of course we're swept out with the ebb tide, make a scramble forour taxi, and are off for home. Then as we gets to the door I has thesudden hunch about eats.

  "There's a joint around on Sixth-ave.," says I, lettin' Aunt Zenobia in,"where they sell hot dog sandwiches with sauerkraut trimmin's. I believeI could just do with one about now."

  "What an atrocious suggestion at this hour of the night!" says she."Torchy, don't you dare bring one of those abominations into thehouse--unless you have enough to divide with me. About four, I shouldsay."

  "With mustard?" says I.

  "Heaps!" says she.

  Three minutes later I'm hurryin' back with both hands full, when Inotices another taxi standin' out front. Then who should step out butthis Ballard party, in a silk hat and a swell fur-lined overcoat.

  "Young man," says he, "haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

  "Uh-huh," says I. "I'm your private sec."

  "Wha-a-at?" says he. "My--oh, yes! I remember. I saw you at theCorrugated."

  "And then again at the show to-night," says I.

  "To be sure," says he. "With a lady, eh?"

  I nods.

  "Lives here, doesn't she?" asks Ballard.

  "Right again," says I. "Goin' to call?"

  "Why," says he, "the fact is, young man, I--er--see here, it's ZenobiaHadley, isn't it?"

  "Preble," says I. "Mrs. Zenobia Preble."

  "Hang the Preble part!" says he. "He's dead years ago. What I want toknow is, who else lives here?"

  "Only her and Sister Martha and me," says I.

  "Martha, eh?" says he. "Still alive, is she? Well, well! And Zenobianow, is she--er--a good deal like her sister?"

  "About as much as Z is like M," says I. "She's a live one, Aunt Zenobiais, if that's what you're gettin' at."

  "Thank you," says he. "That is it exactly. And I am glad to hear it. Sheused to be, as you put it, rather a live one; but I didn't quite knowhow----"

  "Kyrle Ballard, is that you?" comes floatin' out from the front door."If it is, and you wish to know anything more about Zenobia Hadley, Ishould advise you to come to headquarters. Torchy, bring in thosesandwiches--and Mr. Ballard, if he cares to follow."

  "There!" says I to Ballard. "You've got a sample. That's Zenobia. Areyou comin' or goin'?"

  Foolish question! He's leadin' the way up the steps.

  "Zenobia," says he, holdin' out both hands, "I humbly apologize forfollowing you in this impulsive fashion. I saw you at the theater,and----"

  "If you hadn't done something of the kind," says she, "I shouldn't havebeen at all sure it was really you. You've changed so much!"

  "I admit it," says he. "One does, you know, in forty years."

  "There, there, Kyrle Ballard!" warns Zenobia. "Throw the calendar at meagain, and out you go! I simply won't have it! Besides, I'm hungry.Torchy is to blame. He suggested hot dog sandwiches. Take a sniff. Dothey appeal to you, or have you cultivated epicurean tastes to such anextent that----"

  "Ah-h-h-h!" says Ballard, bendin' over the paper bag I'm holdin'. "Myfavorite delicacy. And if I might be permitted to add a bottle or two ofcold St. Louis----"

  "Do you think I keep house without an icebox?" demands Zenobia. "Stopyour silly speeches, and let's get into the dining-room."

  Some hustler, Zenobia is, too. Inside of two minutes she's shed herwraps, passed out plates and glasses, and we're tacklin' a Coney Islandcollation.

  "I had been wondering if it could be you," says Ballard. "I'd beenwatching you through the glasses."

  "Yes, I know," says Zenobia. "And we had quite settled it that you werea strange admirer. I'm frightfully disappointed!"

  "Then you didn't know me?" says he. "But just now----"

  "Voices don't turn gray or change color," says Zenobia. "Yours soundsjust as it did--well, the last time I heard it."

  "That August night, eh?" suggests Mr. Ballard, suspendin' operations onthe sandwich and leanin' eager across the table.

  He's a chirky, chipper old scout, with a lot of twinkles left in hisblue eyes. Must have been some gay boy in his day too; for even now heshows up more or less ornamental in his evenin' clothes. And Zenobiaain't such a bad looker either, you know; especially just now, with herears pinked up and her eyes sparklin' mischievous. I don't know whetherit's from takin' massage treatments reg'lar, or if it just comesnatural, but she don't need to cover up her collar bone or wear thingsaround her neck.

  "Yes, that night," says she, liftin' her glass. "Shall we drink justonce to the memory of it?"

  Which they did.

  "And now," goes on Zenobia, "we will forget it, if you please."

  "Not I," says Ballard. "Another thing: I've never forgiven your sisterMartha for what she did then. I never will."

  Zenobia indulges in a trilly little laugh. "No more has she forgivenyou," says she. "How absurd of you both, just as though--but we'll nottalk about it. I've no time for yesterdays. To-day is too full. Tell me,why are you back here?"

  "Because seven armies have chased me out of Europe," says he, "and mycharming Vienna is too full of typhus to be quite healthy. If I'ddreamed of finding you like this, I should have come long ago."

  "Very pretty," says Zenobia. "I'd love to believe it, just for the sakeof repeating it to Martha in the morning. She is still with me, youknow."

  "As saintly as ever?" asks Ballard.

  "At thirty Martha was quite as good as she could be," says Zenobia."There she seems to have stopped. So naturally her opinion of you hasn'taltered in the least."

  "And yours?" says he.

  "Did I have opinions at twenty-two?" says she. "How ridiculous! I hademotions, moods, mad impulses; anyway, something that led me to give youseven dances in a row and stay until after one A.M. when I had
promisedsomeone to leave at eleven. You don't think I've kept up that sort ofthing, do you?"

  "I don't know," says Ballard. "I wouldn't be sure. One never could besure of Zenobia Hadley. I suppose that was why I took my chance when Idid, why I----"

  "Kyrle Ballard, you've finished your sandwich, haven't you?" breaks inZenobia. "There! It's striking twelve, and I make it a rule never to besentimental after midnight. You and Martha wouldn't enjoy meeting eachother; so you'll not be coming again. Besides, I've a busy week ahead ofme. When you get settled abroad again, though, you might let me know.Good-night. Happy dreams."

  And before Ballard can protest he's bein' shooed out.

  "You'll take luncheon with me to-morrow," he calls back from his cab.

  "Probably not," says Zenobia.

  "Oh yes, you will, Zenobia," says he. "I'm a desperate character still.Remember that!"

  She laughs and shuts the door. "There, Torchy!" says she. "See whatcomplications come from combining hot dogs with Bernard Shaw. And ifMartha should happen to get down before those bottles are removed--well,I should have to tell her all."

  Trust Martha. She did. And when I finished breakfast she was stillwaitin' for Zenobia to come down and be quizzed. I don't know how farback into fam'ly hist'ry that little chat took 'em, or what Martha hadto say. All I know is that when I shows up for dinner and comesdownstairs about six-thirty there sits Martha in the lib'ry, rockingback and forth with that patient, resigned look on her face, as if shewas next in line at the dentist's.

  "Zenobia isn't in yet," says she. "We will wait dinner awhile for her."

  Then chunks of silence from Martha, which ain't usual. At seven o'clockwe gives it up and sits down alone. We hadn't finished our soup whenthis telegram comes. First off I thought Martha was goin' to choke orblow a cylinder head, I didn't know which. Then she takes to sobbin'into the consomme, and fin'lly she shoves the message over to me.

  "Wh-a-at?" I gasps. "Eloped, have they?"

  "I--I knew they would," says Martha, "just as soon as I heard he'd beenhere. He--he always wanted her to do it."

  "Always?" says I. "Why, I thought he hadn't seen her for forty years orso. How could that be?"

  "We-we-well," sobs Martha, "I--I stopped them once. And she engaged tothe Rev. Mr. Preble at the time! It was scandalous! Such a wild,reckless fellow Kyrle Ballard was too."

  "Wh-e-ew!" I whistles. "That was goin' some for Zenobia, wasn't it? Hownear did they come to doin' the slope?"

  "She--she was actually stealing out to meet him, her things all on,"says Martha, "when--when I woke up and found her. I made her come backby threatening to call Mother. Engaged for two years, she and Mr. Preblehad been, and the wedding day all set. He'd just got a nice church too,his first. I saved her that time; but now----" Martha relapses into thesob act.

  "The giddy young things!" says I. "Gone off on a honeymoon trip too!Say, that ain't such slow work, is it? Gettin' there a little late,maybe; but if there ever was a pair of silver sixties meant to be matedup, I guess it's them. Well, well! I stand to lose a near-aunt by thedeal; but they get my blessin', anyway."

  As for Aunt Martha, she keeps right on thinnin' out the soup.