p to date. Why? Was it
because I was a failure as a daddy? Looked so. And here was Auntie
taxin' me with it. Would other folks find out, too?

I begun thinkin' over the way different ones had taken the news. Old
Hickory, for instance. I was wearin' a wide grin and still feelin' sort
of chesty when I broke into his private office and handed him the
bulletin.

"Eh?" he grunts, squintin' at me from under them bushy eyebrows. "A
father! You? Good Lord!"

"Why not?" says I. "It's still being done, ain't it?"

"Oh, I suppose so. Yes, yes," he goes on, starin' at me. "But somehow,
young man, I can hardly think of you as--as---- Well, congratulations,
Torchy. You have frequently surprised me by rising to the occasion.
Perhaps you will in this also."

"Thanks, Mr. Ellins," says I. "It's nice of you to cheer me up that
way."

Piddie, of course, said the right and elegant thing, just as if he'd
learned it out of a book. He always does, you know. Makes a reg'lar
little speech, and finishes by givin' me the fraternal handclasp and a
pat on the shoulder.

But a minute after I caught him gazin' at me wonderin', and he goes off
shakin' his head.

Then I runs across my newspaper friend Whitey Weeks, who used to know me
when I was a cub office-boy on the Sunday editor's door.

"Well, Torchy," says he, "what you got on your mind?"

"Nothing you could make copy out of," says I, "but it's a whale of an
event for me."

"You don't say," says he. "Somebody died and left you the business?"

"Just the opposite," says I.

"I don't get you," says he.

"Ah, what's usually in the next column?" says I. "It's a case of
somebody bein' born."

"Why--why," says he, openin' his mouth, "you don't mean that----"

"Uh-huh," says I, tryin' to look modest.

[Illustration: "I was down on my knees doin' a buckin' bronco act, when
there comes a gasp from the doorway."]

"Haw-haw!" roars Whitey, usin' the steam siren effect. And, as it's
right on the corner of Forty-second and Broadway, he comes near
collectin' a crowd. Four or five people turn around to see what the
merriment is all about, and a couple of 'em stops short in their tracks.
One guy I spotted for a vaudeville artist lookin' for stuff that might
fat up his act.

"Say," Whitey goes on, poundin' me on the back jovial, "that's rich,
that is!"

"Glad it amuses you," says I, startin' to move off.

"Oh, come, old chap!" says he, followin' along. "Don't get crabby.
What--what is