rk himself. 'My old job, ma'am,' says
he. 'I was boots at the Argyle Club, ma'am, before I went out to strafe
the 'Uns. Seven years, ma'am. But they got a girl doin' it now, a
flapper. Wouldn't take me back.' Just fancy! And Tarkins a trench hero!
So I got to thinking."

"I see," says I. "You're going to set Tarkins up, eh?"

"I'm going to make him my manager," says Vee. "He will have charge of
the shop and solicit orders. We are going to start with only two
polishers; one for day work, the other for the night shift. And Tarkins
will always be on the job. They're installing a 'phone now, and he will
sleep on a cot in the back office. We will work this block first,
something like four hundred apartments. Later on--well, we'll see."

"I don't want to croak," says I, "but do you think folks will send out
their footwear that way? You know, New Yorkers ain't used to gettin'
their shines except on the hoof."

"I mean to educate them to my 'boots' system," says Vee. "I'm getting up
a circular now. I shall show them how much time they can save, how many
tips they can avoid. You see, each customer will have a delivery box,
with his name and address on it. No chance for mistakes. The boxes can
be set outside the apartment doors. We will have four collections,
perhaps; two in the daytime, two at night. And when they see the kind of
work we do---- Well, you wait."

"I'll admit it don't listen so worse," says I. "The scheme has its good
points. But when you come to teachin' New York people new tricks, like
sendin' out their shoes, you're goin' to be up against it."

"Then you think I can't make 'boots' pay a profit?" asks Vee.

"That would be my guess," says I. "If it was a question of underwritin'
a stock issue for the scheme I'd have to turn it down."

"Good!" says Vee. "Now I shall work all the harder. Tarkins will be
around early in the morning to get you as our first customer."

Say, for the next few days she certainly was a busy party--plannin' out
her block campaign, lookin' over supply bills, and checkin' up Tarkins's
reports.

I don't know when I'd ever seen her so interested in anything, or so
chirky. Her cheeks were pink all the time and her eyes dancin'. And
somehow we had such a lot to talk about.

Course, though, I didn't expect it to last. You wouldn't look for a girl
like Vee, who'd never had any trainin' for that sort of thing, to start
a new line and make a go of it right off the bat. But, so long as sh