my hat.

"So long, Fletchy," says I. "What work I put in on you the other day
I'm goin' to make you a present of. If I was you, I'd cash that check
and buy somethin' that would please Maizie."

"D'jer annex another five or six hundred up to the Brasstonia this
afternoon?" asks Swifty, when I gets back.

"Nix," says I. "All I done was to organise a wife convention and get
myself disliked. That ten-a-minute deal is off. But say, Swifty, just
remember I've dodged makin' the bath rubber class, and I'm satisfied at
that."

II

ROUNDING UP MAGGIE

Say, who was tellin' you? Ah, g'wan! Them sea shore press agents is
full of fried eels. Disguises; nothin'! Them folks I has with me was
the real things. The Rev. Doc. Akehead? Not much. That was my little
old Bishop. And it wa'n't any slummin' party at all. It was just a
little errand of mercy that got switched.

It was this way: The Bishop, he shows up at the Studio for his reg'lar
medicine ball work, that I'm givin' him so's he can keep his equator
from gettin' the best of his latitude. That's all on the quiet,
though. It's somethin' I ain't puttin' on the bulletin board, or
includin' in my list of references, understand?

Well, we has had our half-hour session and the Bishop has just made a
break for the cold shower and the dressin' room, while I'm preparin' to
shed my workin' clothes for the afternoon; when in pops Swifty Joe,
closin' the gym. door behind him real soft and mysterious.

"Shorty," says he in that hoarse whisper he gets on when he's excited,
"she's--she's come!"

"Who's come?" says I.

"S-s-sh!" says he, wavin' his hands. "It's the old girl; and she's got
a gun!"

"Ah, say!" says I. "Come out of the trance. What old girl? And what
about the gun?"

Maybe you've never seen Swifty when he's real stirred up? He wears a
corrugated brow, and his lower jaw hangs loose, leavin' the Mammoth
Cave wide open, and his eyes bug out like shoe buttons. His thoughts
come faster than he can separate himself from the words; so it's hard
gettin' at just what he means to say. But, as near as I can come to
it, there's a wide female party waitin' out in the front office for me,
with blood in her eye and a self cockin' section of the unwritten law
in her fist.

Course, I knows right off there must be some mistake, or else it's a
case of dope, and I says so. But Swifty is plumb sure she knew who she
was askin' for when she calls for me,