"But I--I don't know her at all," insists Ernie.

Just then, though, she reaches out a pair of bare arms and remarks real
folksy: "At last you've come, haven't you?"

"Seems to be fairly well acquainted with you, though, Ernie boy," says
I.

As for Ernie, he just stands there starin' bug-eyed and gaspy, as if he
didn't know what to do. Course, I couldn't tell why. I knew he always
had acted like a poor prune when he was kidded by the flossy key
pounders in the office, but almost any nut could see this was an
entirely different case. Here was a regular person, all dolled up in a
classy evening gown, with a fur-trimmed opera cape slippin' off her
shoulders. And she was givin' him the straight call.

"But--but there must be some mistake," protests Ernie.

"If there is," says I, "it's up to you to put the lady wise. You can't
walk off and leave her with her hands in the air, can you? Ah, don't be
a fish! Step up."

With that I gives him a push and Ernie staggers over to the curb.

"It's been so long," I hears the lady murmur, "but I knew you would
remember. Come."

What Ernie said then I didn't quite catch, but the next thing I knew
he'd been dragged in, the chauffeur had got the signal, and as the taxi
started off toward Fifth Avenue I had a glimpse of what looked very much
like a fond clinch, with Ernie as the clinchee.

And there I am left with my mouth open. I expect I hung up there fully
ten minutes, tryin' to dope out what had happened. Had Ernie just been
stallin' me off tryin' to establish an alibi? Or was it a case of poor
memory? No, that didn't seem likely. She wasn't the kind of a female
party a man could forget easy, if he'd ever really known her. Specially
a gink like Ernie who'd had such a limited experience. Nor she wasn't
the type that would go out cruisin' in a cab after perfect strangers.
Not her. Besides, hadn't she recognized Ernie on sight? Then there was
the quick clinch. No discountin' that. Whoever it was it's somebody who
don't hesitate to hug Ernie right in public. And yet he sticks to it,
right up to the last, that he don't know her. Well, I gave it up.

"Either he's a foxier sport than we've been givin' him credit for,"
thinks I, "or else the lady has made the mistake of her life. If she has
she'll soon find it out and Ernie will be trailing back on the hunt for
me."

But after walkin' up and down the block three times without seeing
anything that looked like Ernie I dodges into a c