akin' likeness of
a dropped egg that's hit the floor instead of the toast, he was it! He's
slumped all over the desk, with his head in his hands, and his hair all
mussed up, and his shoulders lopped. I always suspicioned he was built
out with pneumatic pads, and blew himself up in the mornin' before he
buttoned on the four-inch collar that kept his chin up; but I did'nt
guess he had a rubber backbone. It was a case of fush with Piddie. He
was all in. What I could see of his face had about as much color to it
as a sheet of blottin' paper.

Layin' on the floor was a map of the whole disaster. It was a Wall
Street extra, with a scarehead story of how Blitzen had kept 'em
guessin' all day and then, in the last quarter of an hour of tradin',
had gone bumpin' the bumps from twenty-eight down to almost nothin' at
all. I didn't stop to read the whole thing; but I read enough to find
out that Blitzen had gone soarin' on a false alarm, and that when the
facts was give out right the balloon had took fire. And there was
Piddie, still fallin'!

"Hello," says I. "You look like a boned ham that's in need of the acid
bath and sawdust stuffin'. What's queered you so sudden?"

He jumps and tries to pull himself together when he first hears me; but
after he finds who it is he goes to pieces again and flops back in the
chair groanin'.

"Is it new mown hay of the lungs, or too many griddle cakes on the
stomach?" says I.

But he only gasps and groans some more. Maybe I should of felt sorry for
him; but, knowin' the sort of sprung kneed near crook he was, I didn't.
He was scared mostly, and he was doin' all the sympathizin' for himself
that was needed. All of a sudden he braces up and looks at his watch.

"Perhaps you didn't get there in time?" says he.

"With the letter and package?" says I. "Watcher take me for? Think I got
mucilage on my shoes? I was there on time, all right."

"Oh, mercy!" says he. "Torchy, I'm a ruined man."

"You look it," says I; "but cheer up. You never was much account anyway;
so there's no great harm done."

Then he begins to blubber, and leak brine, and take on like a woman with
a sick headache. "It wasn't my fault," says he. "I was led into it.
Torchy, tell them I was led into it! You'll believe that, won't you?"

"Cert," says I. "I'll make affidavit I seen 'em snap the ring in your
nose. But what's it all about?"

"Oh, it's something awful that's happened to me," he wails. "It's too
terrible to tal