I, as I heard him runnin' over some of the
details to Mr. Robert, who he thinks can maybe be induced to join.

"Oh, come along, Bob!" says he. "We'll stop off for a look at Palm Beach
on the way down, hang up a few days at Knight's Key for shark fishing,
then run over to Havana for a week of golf, drop around to Santiago and
cheer up Billy Pickens out on his blooming sugar plantation, cross over
to Jamaica and have some polo with the military bunch up at
Newcastle--little things like that. Besides, we can always have a game
of deuces wild going evenings and----"

"No use, Babe," breaks in Mr. Robert. "It can't be done. That sort of
thing is all well enough for a foot-loose old bach such as you, but with
me it's quite different."

"The little lady at home, eh?" says Babe. "I'll bet she'd be glad to get
rid of you for a couple of months."

"Flatterer!" says Mr. Robert. "And I suppose you think I wouldn't be
missed from the Corrugated Trust, either?"

"I'll bet a hundred you could hand your job over to Torchy here and the
concern would never know the difference," says Babe, winkin' friendly at
me. "Anyway, don't turn me down flat. Take a day or so to think it
over."

And with that Mr. Cutler climbs into his mink-lined overcoat, slips me a
ten spot confidential as he passes my desk, and goes breezin' out
towards Broadway. The ten, I take it, is a retainer for me to boost the
yachtin' enterprise. I shows it to Mr. Robert and grins.

"There's only one Babe," says he. "He'd offer a tip to St. Peter, or
suggest matching quarters to see whether he was let in or barred out."

"He's what I'd call a perfect sample of the gay and careless sport,"
says I. "How does it happen that he's escaped the hymeneal noose so
long?"

"Because marriage has never been put up to him as a game, a sporting
proposition in which you can either win or lose out," says Mr. Robert.
"He thinks it's merely a life sentence that you get for not watching
your step. Just as well, perhaps, for Babe isn't what you would call
domestic in his tastes. Give him a 'Home, Sweet Home' motto and he'd
tack it inside his wardrobe trunk."

I expect that's a more or less accurate description, for Mr. Robert has
known him a long time. And yet, you can't help liking Babe. He ain't one
of these noisy tin-horns. He dresses as quiet as he talks, and among
strangers he'd almost pass for a shy bank clerk having a day off. He's
the real thing though when it comes to plea