tomobile, that's all. And after I'd read
it through for the third time, and was sure it was so, I manages to gasp
out:

"Lucky is right, Mr. Ellins; that's the only word."

CHAPTER XV

A LATE HUNCH FOR LESTER

You might not guess it, but every now and then I connect with some true
thought that makes me wiser above the ears. Honest, I do. Sometimes they
just come to me by accident, on the fly, as it were. And then again,
they don't come so easy.

Take this latest hunch of mine. I know now that my being a high-grade
private sec. don't qualify me to hand out any fatherly advice to the
female sex. Absolutely it doesn't. And yet, here only a few weeks back,
that was just what I was doin'. Oh, I don't mean I was scatterin' it
around broadcast. It had to be a particular and 'special case to tempt
me to crash in with the Solomon stuff. It was the case of Lester
Biggs--and little Miss Joyce.

Now you'd almost think I'd seen too many lady typists earnin' their
daily bread and their weekly marcelle waves for me to get stirred up
over anything they might do. And as a rule, I don't waste much thought
on 'em unless they develop the habit of parkin' their gum on the corner
of my desk, or some such trick as that. I sure would be busy if I did
more, for here in the Corrugated general offices we have fifteen or
twenty more or less expert key pounders most of the time. Besides, it's
Mr. Piddie's job to worry over 'em, and believe me he does it thorough.

But somehow this little Miss Joyce party was different. I expect it was
the baby blue tam-o'-shanter that got me noticin' her first off. You
know that style of lid ain't worn a great deal by our Broadway stenogs.
Not the home crocheted kind. Hardly. I should judge that most of our
flossy bunch wouldn't be satisfied until they'd swapped two weeks'
salary for some Paris model up at Mme. Violette's. And how they did
snicker when Miss Joyce first reported for duty wearin' that tam and
costumed tacky in something a cross-roads dressmaker had done her worst
on.

Miss Joyce didn't seem to mind. By rights she should have been a shy,
modest little thing who would have been so cut up that she'd have rushed
into the cloak room and spilled a quart of salt tears. But she never
even quivers one of her long eyelashes, so Piddie reports. She just
comes back at 'em with a sketchy, friendly little smile and proceeds to
tackle her work business-like. And inside of ten days she has the lot