u any hint?" I goes on.

Ernie can't remember that she did.

"What was all the chat about?" I demands.

"Oh, everything," says Ernie. "She--she said she'd been looking for me
long timesh. Knew me by--by my eyesh."

"How touching!" says I. "That must have been during the clinch."

"Yes," says Ernie. "But nexsh time----"

"Say," I breaks in, "if you don't know what her name is, or where she
lives, how do you figure on a next time?"

"Thash so," says Ernie. "Too bad."

"Still," says I, "the kiss stringency in your young career has been
lifted, hasn't it? And now it's about time I fixed you up and towed you
out to a hotel where you can hit the feathers for about ten hours. My
hunch is that a pitcher of ice water is going to look mighty good to you
in the morning. And maybe by tomorrow noon you can remember more details
about Louise than you can seem to dig up now."

You can't always tell about these birds who surprise you that way. I was
only an hour late in getting to the office myself next day, but I finds
Ernie at his desk looking hardly any the worse for wear, and grinding
away as usual. He looks a little sheepish when I ask him if Louise has
'phoned him yet.

"S-s-sh!" says he, glancin' around cautious. "Please!"

"Oh, sure!" says I. "Trust me. I'm no sieve. But I'm wondering if
you'll ever run across her again."

"I--I don't know," says Ernie. "It all seems so vague and queer. I can't
recall much of anything except that Louise---- Well, she did show rather
a fondness for me, you know; and perhaps, some time or other----"

"Yes," says I, "lightnin' does occasionally strike twice in the same
place. But not often, Ernie."

He's a wonder, Ernie is. Seems satisfied to let it go as it stands,
without trying to dope anything out. But me, I can't let anybody bat a
mystery like that up to me without going through a few Sherlock Holmes
motions. So that evening finds me wandering through Forty-fifth Street
again at about the same hour. Not that I expected to find the same
lovely lady ambushed in a cab. I don't know just what I was looking for.

And then, all of a sudden, I gets my eye on this yellow taxi. It's an
odd shade of yellow, something like a pale squash pie; a big, lumbering
old bus that had been repainted by some amateur. And I was willing to
bet there wasn't another in town just like it. Also it's the one Ernie
had stepped into the night before, for there's the same driver wearing
the identical squar