?"

"He was cute once--ten or twelve years ago," says Sadie. "He isn't as
cute as he was. He doesn't wear ringlets now--he likes rings better. And
that's why I had to send for you, Shorty. I couldn't tell anyone else.
Oh, the little wretch! If it wasn't for mother I'd cure him of a lot of
things."

Well, we had some family history on the way out, beginnin' with the way
Buddy'd been spoiled at home, takin' in a few of the scrapes Sadie had
helped him out of, and endin' with his blowin' in at Rockywold without
waitin' for a bid from anyone. Seems he'd separated himself from the
last stake Sadie had handed out--nothin' new, same old fool games--and
now he wanted a refill, just as a loan, until he could play a tip he'd
got from a gent he'd met in a beanery.

"And I just wouldn't stand for that," says Sadie. "Those bookmakers are
nothing but swindlers, anyway. I know, because I bet ten dollars on a
race once, and didn't win."

Say, I had a lithograph of Buddy and his beanery tip goin' up against an
argument like that. Of course it wa'n't more'n two minutes before
Sadie'd got her Sullivan up. She offered Buddy his choice between a
railroad ticket home to mother, or nothing at all. Buddy wouldn't
arbitrate on those lines. He said he was a desperate man, and that she'd
be sorry before night. Sadie'd heard that before; so she just laughed
and said the steam-car ticket offer would be held open until night.

She didn't see anything more of Buddy for a couple of hours, and then
she caught him as he came up from the billiard-room. Bein' an expert on
such symptoms, she knew why he talked like his mouth was full of
cotton, but she couldn't account for the wad of bills he shook at her.
Buddy could. He'd run across a young Englishman down there who thought
he could handle a cue. Buddy had bet hot air against real money, and
trimmed his man.

"That wasn't the worst of it, though," said Sadie. "After I had got him
up to my rooms he pulled out the money again, to count it over, and out
came a three-inch marquise ring--an opal set with diamonds--that I knew
the minute I put my eyes on it. There were her initials on the inside,
too. Oh, no one but Mrs. Purdy Pell."

"Tut, tut!" says I. "You can easy square it with her."

"But that's just what I can't do," says Sadie. "She loves me about as
much as a tramp likes work. She tells folks that I make fools of her
boys. Her boys, mind you! She claims every stray man under twenty-five,
and