little
else."

"Well, it's a blessing, all right," says Gridley. "I have 'em sometimes;
but not so good as that. Say, I'll have to tell that to Gordon when he
comes out. No, he wouldn't see anything in it. But see here, Mr.
Marmaduke, what have you got on for the evening, eh?"

"My tablets are cleaner than my cuffs," says he.

"Good work!" says Gridley. "What about coming out and having dinner with
me?"

"With you or any man," says Marmaduke. "To dine's the thing."

With that, off they goes, leavin' Pyramid in the gym. doorway strugglin'
with his collar. Course, I does my best to explain what's happened.

"But who was the fellow?" says Mr. Gordon.

"Just Marmaduke," says I, "and if you don't want to get your thinker tied
in a double bowknot you'll let it go at that. He's harmless. First off I
thought his gears didn't mesh; but accordin' to Pinckney he's some kind
of a philosopher."

"Gridley has a streak of that nonsense in him too," says Pyramid. "I only
hope he gets it all out of his system by to-morrow night."

Well, from all I could hear he did; for there wa'n't any scarehead
financial story in the papers, and I guess the bank snarl must have been
straightened out all right. What puzzled me for a few days, though, was
to think what had become of Marmaduke. He hadn't been around to the
studio once; and Pinckney hadn't heard a word from him, either. Pinckney
had it all framed up how Marmaduke was off starvin' somewhere.

It was only yesterday, too, that I looks up from the desk to see
Marmaduke, all got up in an entire new outfit, standin' there smilin' and
chipper.

"Well, well!" says I. "So you didn't hit the breadline, after all!"

"Perchance I deserved it," says he; "but there came one from the forest
who willed otherwise."

"Ah, cut the josh for a minute," says I, "and tell us what you landed!"

"Gladly," says he. "I have been made the salaried secretary of the S. O.
S. G. W. H."

"Is it a new benefit order," says I, "or what?"

"The mystic letters," says he, "stand for the Society for Oiling Squeaky
Gulls' Wing Hinges. Mr. Gridley is one member; I am the other."

And, say, you may not believe it, but hanged if it wa'n't a fact! He has
a desk in Gridley's private office, and once a day he shows up there and
scribbles off a foolish thought on the boss's calendar pad. That's all,
except that he draws down good money for it.

"Also I have had word," says Marmaduke, "that my aged Uncle Norton is