. "I--I'd rather not. I want first to---- Where is Miss
Hampton, Torchy?"

Well, I gives him full directions for findin' her, slips Mrs. Ryan the
twenty he sends her instead of news from hubby, and then goes in, to
find that Ella May is demandin' to be taken to the next train. We saw
that she caught it, too, before she changed her mind.

"By George!" Mr. Robert whispers confidential to me, as the limousine
rolls off with her in it, "if I could insure against such risks as that,
I would take out a policy."

"You can," says I. "Any justice of the peace or minister will fix you up
for life."

Does that sink in? I wouldn't wonder. Anyway, from the hasty glimpse I
caught of him and Miss Hampton strollin' out in the moonlight that
night, it looked that way.

So I did have a bulletin for Old Hickory Monday mornin'.

"It's all over but the shoutin'," says I.

CHAPTER XIX

SOME HOOP-LA FOR THE BOSS

I must say it wa'n't such a swell time for Mr. Robert to be indulgin' in
any complicated love affair. You know how business has been, specially
our line. And our directors was about as calm as a bunch of high school
girls havin' hysterics. Jumpy? Say, some of them double-chinned old
plutes couldn't reach for a glass of ice water without goin' through
motions like they was shakin' dice.

It's this sporty market that had got on their nerves. You know, all
these combine rumors--this bunk about Germany buyin' up plants
wholesale, and the grand scrabble to fill all them whackin' big foreign
orders, with steamer charters about as numerous as twin baby carriages
along Riverside Drive. Why, say, at one time there you could have sold
us ferryboats or garbage-scows, we was so hungry for anything that would
carry ocean freights.

And, of course, with Old Hickory Ellins at the helm, the Corrugated
Trust was right in the thick of it. About twice a week some fool yarn
was floated about us. We'd sold out to Krupps and was goin' to close;
we'd tied up with Bethlehem; we'd underbid on a flock of submarines and
was due for a receivership--oh, a choice lot of piffle!

But a few of them nervous old boys, who was placid enough at annual
meetin's watchin' a melon bein' cut, just couldn't stand the strain.
Every time they got fed up on some new dope from the Wall Street panic
peddlers, they'd come around howlin' for a safe and sane policy. I stood
it until here the other mornin' when a bunch of soreheads showed up
before nine o'cloc