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t, too. But of course she couldn't last out. And it's a wonder she didn't wind up at a nerve sanitarium." "Honest!" says Babe, beamin' on me and grabbin' my hand. "Is--is that all?" "Ain't that enough?" says I. "But that's so easy fixed," says he. "Why, I am bored stiff at these resort places myself. I thought, though, that Lucy was having the time of her young life. What a chump I was not to see! Say, we'll take a fresh start. And next time, believe me, she's going to have just what she wants. That is, if I can persuade her to give me another trial." It seems he did, for later on he tells me he's bought that cute little stucco cottage over near the country club and that him and Lucy are going to settle down like regular people. "With a nursery and all?" I asks. "There's no telling," says Babe. And with that we swaps grins. CHAPTER IX HARTLEY AND THE G. O. G.'S "Oh, I say, Torchy," calls out Mr. Robert, as I'm reachin' for my hat here the other noon, "you don't happen to be going up near the club on your way to luncheon, do you?" "Not today," says I. "I'm lunchin' with the general staff." "Oh!" says he, grinnin'. "In that case never mind." And for fear you shouldn't be wise to this little office joke of ours maybe I'd better explain that who I meant was Hartley Grue, assistant chief of our bond room force. Just goes to show how hard up we are for comic stuff in the Corrugated Trust these days when we can squeeze a laugh out of such a serious-minded party as Hartley. But you know how it is. I expect some of them green-eyed clerks on the tall stools started callin' him that when the War Department first turned him loose and he reports back to tackle the old job wearin' the custom tailored uniform with the gold bar on his shoulders. And I admit the rest of us might have found something better to do than listen to them Class B-4 patriots who would have helped save the world for democracy if the war had lasted a couple years more. Still, that general staff tag for Mr. Grue tickled us a bit. As a matter of fact he did come back--from the Hoboken piers--about as military as they made 'em. And to hear him talk about the Aisne drive and the St. Mihiel campaign and so on you'd think he must have been right at Pershing's elbow durin' the whole muss, instead of at Camp Mills and later on at the docks on a transport detail. But he gets away with it, even among us who have watched all the d
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