ven
out word that he meant to bust up this fool woman's opposition, if it
took his last cent.

Then, here the other night, I comes home to find Vee wearin' a satisfied
grin. As I comes in she jumps up from her desk and waves a check at me.

"Look!" says she. "Five thousand! I've got it back, Torchy, every
dollar."

"Eh?" says I. "You ain't sold out to Belcher?"

"I should say not," says she. "To the Noonan chain. Mr. Noonan came
himself. He'd read about our fight in the newspapers, and said he'd be
glad to take it off our hands. He's been wanting to establish a branch
in this district. Five thousand for stock and good will. What do you
think of that?"

"I ain't thinkin'," says I. "I'm just gaspin' for breath. Noonan, eh?
Then I see where Belcher gets off. And if you don't mind my whisperin'
in your ear, Vee, you're some whizz."

CHAPTER XIII

LATE RETURNS ON RUPERT

Vee and I were goin' over some old snapshots the other night. It's done
now and then, you know. Not deliberate. I'll admit that's a pastime you
wouldn't get all worked up over plannin' ahead for. Tuesday mornin',
say, you don't remark breathless: "I'll tell you: Saturday night at
nine-thirty let's get out them last year's prints and give 'em the
comp'ny front."

It don't happen that way--not with our sketch. What I was grapplin' for
in the bottom of the window-seat locker was something different--maybe a
marshmallow fork, or a corn-popper, or a catalogue of bath-room
fixtures. Anyway, it was something we thought we wanted a lot, when I
digs up this album of views that Vee took durin' that treasure-huntin'
cruise of ours last winter on the old _Agnes_, with Auntie and Old
Hickory and Captain Rupert Killam and the rest of the bunch. I was just
tossin' the book one side when a picture slips out, and of course I has
to take a squint. Then I chuckles.

"Look!" says I, luggin' it over to where Vee is curled up on the
davenport in front of the fireplace. "Remember that?"

A giggle from Vee.

"'Auntie enjoying a half-hour eulogy of the dear departed, by Mrs.
Mumford,' should be the title," says she. "She'd been sound asleep for
twenty minutes."

"Which is what you might call good defensive," says I. "But who's this
gazin' over the rail beyond--J. Dudley Simms, or is that a ventilator?"

"Let's see," says Vee, reachin' for the readin' glass. "Why, you silly!
That's Captain Killam."

"Oh!" says I. "Reckless Rupert, the great mind-play hero