Well, it's come! Uh-huh! And sudden, too, like I knew it would, if it came at all. No climbin' the ladder for me, not while they run express elevators. And, believe me, when the gate opened, I was right there with my foot out. It was like this: One mornin' I'm in my old place behind the brass rail, at the jump-end of the buzzer. I'm every-body's slave in general, and Piddie's football in particular. You know-head office boy of the Corrugated Trust. That's description enough, ain't it? And I'd been there so long-Honest, when I first went on the job I used to sneak the city directory under the chair so my toes could touch. Now my knees rub the under-side of the desk. Familiar with the place? Say, there are just seventeen floor cracks between me and the opposite wall; it's fifty-eight steps through into Old Hickory's roll-top and back; and the ink I've poured into all them desk-wells would be enough to float a ferry-boat.

I forget just what it was Vee was rummagin' for in the drawer of her writin' desk. Might have been last month's milk bill, or a stray hair net, or the plans and speci-fications for buildin' a spiced layer cake with only two eggs. Anyway, right in the middle of the hunt she cuts loose with the staccato stuff, indicatin' surprise, remorse, sudden grief and other emotions. "Eh?" says I. "Is it a woman-eatin' mouse, or did you grab a hatpin by the business end?" "Silly!" says she. "Look what I ran across, Torchy." And she flips an engraved card at me. I picks it on the fly, reads the neat script on it, and then hunches my shoulders. "Well, well!" says I. "At home after September 15, 309 West Hundred and Umpty Umpt street. How interestin'! But who is this Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton Porter Blake, anyway?"

Some of these stories were written while the Great War was still on. So the setting and local coloring and atmosphere and all that sort of thing, such as it is, came from those strenuous days when we heroic civilians read the war extras with stern, unflinching eye, bought as many Liberty bonds as we were told we should, and subscribed to various drives as cheerfully as we might. Have you forgotten your reactions of a few short months ago? Perhaps then, these may revive your memory of some of them. You may note with disappointment that Torchy got no nearer to the front-line trenches than Bridgeport, Conn. That is a sentiment the writer shares with you. But the blame lies with an overcautious government which hesi-tated, perhaps from super-humane reasons, from turning loose on a tottering empire a middle-aged semi-literary person who was known to handle a typewriter with such reckless abandon. And where he could not go himself he refused to send another. So Torchy remained on this side, and whether or not his stay was a total loss is for you to decide.

Sure, I was carryin' the banner. But say, I ain't one of them kids that gets callouses on the hands doin' it. When I'm handed the fresh air on payday, I don't choke to death over it. I goes out and rustles for another job. And I takes my pick, too. Why not? It's just as easy. This time I gets a bug that the new Octopus Buildin' might have been put up special for me. Anyway, it looked good from the outside, and I blows in through the plate glass merry go round. The arcade was all to the butterscotch, everything handy, from an A. D. T. stand to Turkish baths in the basement. "Got any express elevators?" says I to the starter guy. "Think of buying the buildin', sonny?" says he. "There'd be room for you on the sidewalk if I did," says I. "But say, if you can tear your eyes off the candy counter queen long enough, tell me who's got a sign out this mornin'."

Girls, I have some great news for you. I'm sure you'll be interested, and I hope you'll be as delighted as I am. Come on, all of you. Gather around in a circle just as if we were going to have a Council Fire and I'll tell you something that will-that will-Teddy Bear your teeth. A chorus of laughter, just a little derisive, greeted Katherine Crane's enigmatical figure of speech. The merriment came from eleven members of Flamingo Camp Fire, who proceeded to form an arc of a circle in front of the speaker on the hillside grass plot near the white canvas tents of the girls' camp. "What does it mean to Teddy Bear your teeth?" inquired Julietta Hyde with mock impatience. "Come, Katherine, you are as much of a problem with your ideas as Harriet Newcomb is with her big words. Do you know the nick-names some of us are thinking of giving to her?" "No, what is it?" Katherine asked. "Polly."