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 plugging my board and talk to Harold Lorraine, the handsome star, in a couple of. One was supposed to be a very dramatic scene and Mr. Daft carefully rehearsed me. He said Harold would rush up fearfully excited and say to me: "Call police headquarters at once. There's been a murder committed on the third floor!" I was then to exclaim "My God!" open my mouth and eyes wide and frantically try to get police headquarters. It was necessary to say something like that, said Mr. Daft, to get the proper expression of horror and excitement on the features. Well, Harold rushed up and said, "My, what beautiful eyes you have, girlie!" and I said, "Be yourself!" I suppose the lip readers will write complaining letters to the fan magazines when they see that scene.

Afterwards Mr. Daft took me and Hazel over to the big studio on Long Island and let us see the "rushes" of the hotel scene run off in the projection room. Honestly, he got quite enthusiastic over my "acting," which was just my natural self, and all the in the projection room told me I was a knockout, following "the Master's" lead. None of this made much of a hit with the brooding Hazel, and really I was glad when Mr. Daft detailed a willing young assistant director to show us all around the lot.

This sightseeing trip was quite interesting and replete with smiles, for me at least. I always get a kick

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 out of a movie studio—much more than I do out of most of the product thereof. I thoroughly enjoy the stars who absolutely cannot do their stuff without soft music playing on the set; the puttee-wearing directors who refuse to look at their daily rushes without ditto music in the projection room; the who hang about the executives and hold their jobs by simply being constantly affirmative; the upstage female stars who come to work with maids, chauffeurs, secretaries, lap dogs and what-not; the dare-devil, underpaid doubles who do the wild rides and wilder airplane jumps for the milk-fed leads; the "gag men" who furnish all the surefire hokum; the director who hurls away the scenario with the contemptuous remark, "What does an author know about a good story?" and adds that his best pictures have been made without any story at all; the actors who act both before and away from the camera; the hungry-looking extras hoping they are "the type"; the trained cats, hounds, horses, lions, monkeys, etc., that work oftener and harder and get and deserve more money than most of the actors; the hard-boiled camera men and electricians who think everything is all wrong; the producer, late of the cloak and suit industry, who is positive Scott's "The Lady of the Lake" was written for Annette Kellermann; the sleepless property man who incessantly tells the joke about the undertaker who used to be a director refusing to bury his first

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 corpse because it "wasn't the type!" etc., etc. and even etc!etc.! [sic]

Their thrilling plunge into the silent drama had disgusted Jerry Murphy and Pete Kift with hotel life. They were now a couple of artistes and all through with the St. Moe, so they thereupon got rosy with the manager and he promptly checked them out. By stating their pitiful case to Mr. Daft I managed to get them jobs as extras until he had finished with "Why Marry Your Husband?" at least. Knowing nothing of my intercession for them, they blew into the St. Moe one afternoon arm in arm and putting on dog like a sales person with her first engagement ring.

I pretended not to know what they were doing for an existence and they loftily informed me they were in pictures now, as Mr. Daft had quickly recognized their genius after seeing them in the hotel scene in his movie and had engaged them at exorbitant wages on the spot before Mr. D. Griffith could snatch them up. Really, this was a scream to me, especially as neither of 'em knew any more about the movies than they did about the Koran and were as out of place in a picture as a yacht on the desert. I'm positive they thought Alice Lake was a swimming pool!

"We're certainly sorry to see you still tied to the old switchboard and us on the top of the ladder, kid," says Jerry, looking around the lobby with a self-satisfied

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 grin. "We had lots of laughs together in this drum! We'll undoubtlessly be starred soon and we hope you come and see us."

"Don't be makin' the poor girl feel no worse than she does!" rebukes Pete Kift. "It ain't her fault that she ain't a actor, is it? You got to be born a actor, what I mean!"

"No fooling," I says. "Like you and Jerry were?"

"Sure!" says Pete. "My old man used to tend the stage door at Miner's old barleycue house on the Bowery. It's in the blood!"

Don't you love that?

Well, I kept on boosting Hazel to Mr. Daft till one day he cut me off short in the middle of a particularly glowing and first hand description of my girl friend's good points.

"Listen, Gladys!" he says earnestly. "I don't want to hire Hazel—she's a nice girl, but I've got no place for her. What I want to do is engage you and I predict a brilliant career for you! Why don't you let me"

"Mr. Daft," I interrupted, "I know you must think I'm a trifle demented for passing up this lifetime opportunity you're offering me, but honestly, I can't help it! Pictures are no new experience for me—I did time in Hollywood before coming to Manhattan from Bountiful, Utah."

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 "Bountiful?" says Mr. Daft. "I never heard of it."

"It's fifty-fifty," I says. "It never heard of you, either! However, while I have lots of dreams in the daytime, moving pictures don't figure in them at all—I mean I never have nightmares, just dreams! The studio game thrills me about the same way it thrills a correspondence school office boy to see a postage stamp. I thank you just the same. And now, just what is the matter with Hazel? Isn't she beautiful, hasn't she got"

"Oh, she's beautiful enough!" says Mr. Daft impatiently. "She's a snappy number and I just know she wears 'em, but she can't troupe! Her brains seem to be out on location too often, get me? In other words, while your girl friend makes a nice display in a bathing suit or an evening gown, she hasn't showed me a thing to make her stand out from a thousand similar beauteous dumbbells that I can have for the asking. You and her don't belong in the same room—she just hasn't got your stuff and that's all there is to it! To please you I'll give her a note to a comedy director who might use her in place of a title as a bathing beauty or"

"Never mind that note," I butt in. "I wouldn't expose you to writer's cramp for the world! Besides, it wouldn't mean anything, really. Hazel would only

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 bawl me out for trying to place her in the one-piece suit drama. She's long since tired of being a mere eye-feast and she wants to act or nothing!"

"I can heartily recommend nothing, then!" says Mr. Daft.

Finally the filming of "Why Marry Your Husband?" was almost completed and only the big scene—the hair-raising climax—remained to be shot. Mr. Daft said the title of the picture turned his stomach, as it was simply aimed at the box-office and had as much to do with the story as he had to do with the Japanese earthquake.

So he offered a prize of one thousand dollars for a better label and the contest was open to anyone on the lot outside of the watchmen, who were automatically barred, as the competition was for amateurs only and not for the people who have been composing all the motion picture titles right along. Well, really, I have a decided money complex and I made up my mind I would win that thousand or die in the attempt.

I won it and didn't even get ill, let alone perish!

The climax of this picture called for a thrilling rescue of the leading woman. Thelma Tasty, from a burning yacht in mid-ocean by Harold Lorraine, the star. But child Harold had other plans! The dashing screen hero calmly and refused to risk his precious life in the interests of bigger and better movies

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 and he insisted upon a double doing the large rescue. This eleventh hour mutiny on the part of his star got Mr. Daft red-headed and he ruled the double off on the grounds that Harold had used doubles so many times of late that the dear old public was beginning to get wise that their idol had feet of ice. The argument kept up for a week, with the star and director deadlocked. Honestly, Mr. Daft was frantic as the immense overhead of the company reporting daily went on and the release date drew nearer. Then he remembered how I had maneuvered Fighting Paddy Leary into a world's championship in London and in desperation "the Master" came to me.

"Show me an out to this jam, Miss Fix-It, and you can write your own ticket!" wails Mr. Daft.

Well, gentle reader, I did both!

In a hasty conference behind locked doors with Mr. Daft, his various assistants, production manager and publicity director, I outlined a rather daring and original plan to make the faint-hearted Harold Lorraine rescue. Thelma Tasty from the flames. There was a tense silence when I finished speaking—really, you could have heard a gag drop! Mr. Daft frowned, coughed, drummed on the table with a pencil, looked doubtful and finally remarked that he thought my scheme clever, but a bit too risky. That being the cue for the others, they thought so too. All except "Scoop"

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 Murphy, press-agent and two-thirds of the studio brains. He leaped up and loudly declared my little scheme was fourteen degrees above perfect and there was no way it could miss! Then Scoop made quite a speech, casting admiring glances at me and pointing out the enormous publicity value of my stunt—if it worked. At last the skeptical Mr. Daft was sold and gave his consent to a trial, adding that if one word of my plan leaked out in advance or afterwards there would be no use of anybody present ever showing up on the lot again, even as sightseers.

Several days after this me and Hazel are visiting the studio during a "re-take" of a scene in "Why Marry Your Husband?" The leading woman. Thelma Tasty, is framed in the topmost window of a high wooden tower blowing kisses to her lover, Harold Lorraine. The cameras were clicking away merrily, the usual gang of unnecessary hangers-on were giving matters their undivided attention and the action was progressing smoothly under Mr. Daft's megaphoned orders.

The scene with the principals finished, the extras were moving about the big stage herded by a perspiring assistant director when suddenly I let out a wild shriek at the top of my voice. Mr. Daft swung around on me with an angry exclamation, Hazel jumped away in alarm and I was the embarrassed object of all eyes.

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 In answer to the questions flung at me I simply pointed heavenwards in speechless horror.

High up in the wooden tower puffs of dense smoke were swirling around the beautiful form of Thelma Tasty and the vicious crackle of flame came clearly from below her. Instantly the studio was in the wildest confusion—here was an unscheduled thrill! Camera men, extras, carpenters, electricians, actors and visitors began milling back and forth in terrified excitement and the great Gordon Daft himself turned pale and also ran madly around calling for the fire department. Trapped high above the ground, with the flames below her already curling upwards, Thelma Tasty screamed piteously for help, but the panic-stricken mob below had all lost their heads and simply fell over each other like stampeded cattle, honestly! Harold Lorraine stood—stock-still staring up at his leading woman's plight, apparently petrified with amazement, while a hastily formed and wofully ineffective bucket brigade dashed past him. A pail of water, jostled from somebody's grasp, half drenched Harold and he found his voice.

"For heaven's sake!" he yells wildly, "Somebody climb up there and get her out! What's the matter with all you people? Get ladders, get—oh, hurry! She'll burn to death while you fools stand there looking at her!"

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 I'm right beside the excited young man, wringing my hands.

"Oh, oh, oh!" I moan in his ear. "This is terrible! Oh, if I was a man I'd"

But with a muttered oath Harold Lorraine pushes past me, dives through the gaping mob and runs for the burning tower. Another minute and our handsome star is frantically climbing its side. And Hazel had contemptuously called Harold a cake eater!

"Camera!" bawls Mr. Daft, snapping into himself on the instant that Harold's feet left the ground on their upward climb. "You people keep milling around there—shout, scream, holler, bump into each other—keep busy with those fire buckets—run for water—get ladders—that's it, gimme a riot! Remember your places, you extras, and don't all crowd on one side—if this screens like a movie I'll murder the lot of you!"

Well, after a series of breath-taking slips Harold reached the top of the tower, seized his swooning leading woman in his manly arms and carried her down to safety—just as I had assured Mr. Daft he would do if my stunt was properly staged! Honestly, as a "punch climax" it turned out to be far punchier than the one in the original scenario, calling for a rescue from a yacht. The cameras caught it all from a dozen different angles and really it photographed beautifully,

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 with Mr. Harold Lorraine still in ignorance of that "unprogramed" fire being carefully plotted and unceasingly rehearsed for weeks—while he was away from the lot! Harold thought he was a bona fide hero—and as a matter of fact he was!

Scoop Murphy, who, of course, had called out the fire department, plastered pictures and stories about Harold Lorraine, Thelma Tasty, Gordon Daft, the fire and the coming movie all over the front pages of the newspapers for one entire day. As they were New York newspapers, that was as good as having the incident run serially somewhere else. As for Mr. Daft, well, when he finally ceased congratulating me and thanking me for helping him out of the hole he was in with his temperamental star, he told me I could have anything I wanted.

"I don't care what it is—ask and it's yours!" he wound up, banging his fist on the top of the table in his office.

"Then I ask a contract—and a fair chance—for Hazel Killian!" I says promptly, while he gasps and stares at me in amazement. "I know you can make Hazel an actress—you can make anybody an actress! I've seen some of the dumbbells you've made famous on the screen, Mr. Daft—why can't you do the same thing for Hazel?"

"Why not for you?" demands Mr. Daft. "You're

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 no dumbbell, Gladys, you're that rare animal, a born actress, and"

"Some other time!" I interrupted, smiling at him. "I have a job, Hazel hasn't. She's crazy to get into the movies—I'm not!"

Mr. Daft leans back in his chair and looks at me with the same curiosity he'd probably view me with if I was a four-headed mouse.

"Gladys," he says finally, "you're what I'd call a phenomenon of the first water! Offered a contract by"

"By the greatest director in the world!" I put in, still smiling.

"By—eh—by a director of standing," he corrects me, but he's pleased; "I repeat, offered a contract by a director, you refuse it and plug for your less capable girl friend. The fair sex—fair is right!"

"Or square," I says. "I rather like 'the square sex!

"Like it!" yells Mr. Daft, suddenly sitting straight up. "I love it! The Square Sex—a pip! That's what we'll call this picture, 'The Square Sex.' It means something, it fits, it will tickle the ladies! Well, I'll sign Miss Killian—that's that! But say, I wish you'd let me do something for you!"

"You can!" I says coolly. "You can write me a check for one thousand dollars for supplying your title."

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 "Yes—and I'll write you another for five thousand for supplying the punch!' he says, reaching for his pen.

A nice boy, now wasn't he?

A couple of days later Hazel, who knew nothing at all of the part I played in the sensational incident of the studio fire, got her contract from Mr. Daft. She woke me up and tossed it on my bed triumphantly. I looked sleepily at her flushed cheeks and delightfully tousled hair. She is a beautiful thing, really!

"Good for you!" I says. "I—I wish I could act!"

"I wish you could too, dear!" says Hazel jumping on the bed and smoothing my hair. "I hate to think of you moored for life to that old switchboard; you're so awfully pretty and such a darn good fellow, Gladys. But then we can't all be born with a talent for acting and I'll bet you have hidden gifts that are just as good as mine. I'll speak to Mr. Daft about you from time to time and maybe after a while I can work you in somewhere—I suppose he remembers you, all right?"

I looked at Hazel and smiled a smile that was wasted on her blissful ignorance.

"I suppose he does!" I says.

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"How often things occur by mere chance which we dared not even to hope for!"

According to the official records, the above bald statement was first made by a fellow called Terence who prowled around the bustling village of Carthage some two thousand years ago. This young Roman with the Dublin name was accused of being a poet, but I really believe your personal habits are nobody's business, so I'm not going into that part of it here. What I wish to say is that whether or not Terry was guilty of premeditated poetry, that crack of his about chance is at least one hundred percent correct.

Don't let anybody ever tell you there's no such thing as luck, for every man, woman or child who's managed to rear their heads above the mob has been more or less assisted to the dizzy heights by chance. I don't claim that mere luck will always put a dumbbell over, though it often does and you know it, but it's te ee

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 nearly always luck that gives the person with the goods the opportunity to deliver. It's generally chance that snatches you from the ashcan of oblivion and stands you up there in the limelight. If you've got stuff, you get over, if you don't instantly click—well, they shut off the light!

Perhaps you know a few hundred shining examples of this yourself. So do I, but who the Berlin wants to listen to a few hundred examples of anything? I'll give you one—the case of two silken-clad limbs and a kind heart. Bee Swenson had the limbs and I had the heart.

I suppose you think me a very foolish young lady for not making the most of Mr. Daft's paternal interest in me, considering the position he's in to help me get somewhere. However, Gordon Daft is a bit too juvenile for the heavy responsibilities of guardian to a bouncing blonde infant like me. I wouldn't mind an extra male parent, but the bulk of the ambitious applicants aren't satisfied to be just "father," they want to be "sweet papa" and that's out!

At the trifling cost of going to lunch exactly once with Mr. Williams, I got Jerry and Pete their jobs back at the St. Moe. Should I have broken bread one more time with our admiring boss, I bet I'd have won Jerry and Pete portfolios as room clerks, no fooling!

Well, shortly after Hazel took up the exacting duties

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 of a motion picture actress, Mr. Daft hauled off and bought the film rights to "My Wife's Husband," a book which had the literary world and the censors positively agog. Honestly, this horrible example of what can be done with pen and ink in the wrong hands was as risqué as the tourists hope the Folies Bergère is and was selling like cheese at a rats' convention. If you happened to read it I'm satisfied you'll heartily agree that comparing that novel to cheese is a good thought. However, Hazel was awarded a nice little part in the picture which left me deserted in New York with only seven million other people for company. That's a trifle too many to crowd into my living room, really, so I didn't even try it, but stayed lonesome.

Mr. Daft took the troupe to Synthetic, Maine, on "location," as about fifteen miles of this film called for a rural setting and Pete Kift sold the director the idea of using a farm belonging to his parents. Pete's a smart boy and will argue himself into affluence yet. For the benefit of the lay reader, not so familiar with the technical language of the magic lantern game as I am, I'll tear the veil of mystery from the term "location." Going on location means that the boys and girls leave the studio, the watchful eye of the production manager, cost department, sightseers and spies from the New York office, hide away on a chartered yacht, an unpoliced island, hick town, desert, etc., and—clown.

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 Oh, of course they "shoot" some of the movie, too; in its proper turn. Movie actors hate location the same way they loathe, five-year contracts and publicity!

When I went to the station to bon voyage Hazel, she and Mr. Daft made me promise to take a week off and visit them at Synthetic the moment I found their absence beyond human endurance. As I knew our jovial manager would give me the lobby if I asked for it, I was sure he'd present me with a vacation if I got another girl to take my place. Eventually that's just what I did.

Then the merriment started!

A few days after Hazel left me all by myself in pitiless Gotham, an interesting young gentleman stepped into my life. His name in even figures was Royal Underwood Corona and he was a self-confessed author. He writes novels—read 'em and weep! I ran across him on Broadway, and "ran across him" is not poor English, it's true! I hit him with an automobile and made him like it; fate and a defective emergency brake brought us together—wasn't that thrilling? You see, I fulfilled a life-long ambition with some of that six thousand I got from Mr. Daft by buying a horseless carriage. This car was a great deal like myself; small but expensive and neat but not gaudy. It didn't take me any longer than it did you

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 to learn the secret of driving, although I still have trouble at times telling the clutch from the foot-brake. Really, the darn pedals do look alike, don't they?

Well, one afternoon I'm careening up the Great White Way in my brand new sport model Puddle-Jumper when at Seventy-Second Street a perfect idiotic traffic policeman decided to blow his whistle. I stepped on the gas by mistake and leaped past him, evidently to his vast astonishment, for he waved his hands wildly at me and blew that whistle like an annoying child. I managed to stop a little past the corner and immediately Mr. Policeman deserted his post to interview me, leaving the greatly peeved traffic in a hopeless snarl.

"What's the big idea?" he bellows at me, red in the face. "I told you to stop—didn't you see me wave my hand at you?"

"Yes, sir," I says, giving him lots of smile and eye-work.

"Then why the—eh—why didn't you stop?" he roars, pulling out his summons book.

I produced a blush—you can do it by biting your lip.

"I thought you were trying to flirt with me!" I murmured—and honestly, before that big fathead got over it I was two blocks away and bounding along great!

However, this was to be an eventful day, and full of grief for Gladys. Ten minutes after I defeated John

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 Law, Mons. Royal Underwood Corona jay-walked off the pavement and deliberately dented my front mud-guard with his body. Really, I thought at first I had ruined him and so did the pleased mob that quickly forgot their own affairs and rushed over to look at the catastrophe. An ant-hill is the only place on earth where a crowd collects quicker than on Broadway, you know that! But my prey was more burnt up than wounded and the moment he arose from the street he let out a frightful squawk.

"Why don't you learn how to drive?" he demands loudly, brushing off his clothes.

"Why don't you mind your own business?" I answered calmly. "If you don't like my driving, keep off the streets!"

The innocent bystanders hee-hawed gleefully and Royal glared at me with violence in each glittering eye.

"Shall I take you to a hospital?" I asked hurriedly. Honestly, he looked as if he had evil designs on my health.

"No!" he growls. "Fortunately, I'm not hurt—but that's no fault of yours, young lady! Don't you ever blow your horn to warn pedestrians?"

"Well, I used to," I admitted, "but it makes such a fearful noise it upsets my nerves and then I can't drive at all!"

He didn't seem able to cope with that kind of patter,

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 so he gave up and helped out the crowd with its laugh.

"You've made me miss a train and an important engagement," he says severely. "Now I've got to go back to my apartment, change my clothes and"

But out of the corner of my eye I had pegged an officer approaching. With me to think is to act.

"Jump in and I'll drive you to your place," I interrupted quickly.

"Fair enough!" remarks an envious voice from the throng. "Pretty soft for you, brother!" says another slapping Royal on the arm. Royal appeared to be giving the matter lots of due consideration, which irritated both myself and the greatly interested audience. "Go on, you dizzy tomato!" calls the third masculine voice angrily. "Flop in there with 'at cutey. You're sittin' pretty and ain't got brains enough to know it. If you don't want to go with her, they's plenty others that will!"

Royal took a long lingering view of me and I guess what he saw didn't cause him any pain. He smiled and at once became a nice-looking boy.

"Well, I don't know," he says, still grinning. "You are so lovely, and I am so poor"

And then he hopped in beside me and we drove away just as the scowling policeman came up on the run to find out what the crowd was cheering about.

Really, we got along fine! I warned him at the go-in

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 not to bank too heavily on the fact that I was escorting him home, as I was merely doing so to escape embarrassment and that nosey policeman. That seemed to be in the nature of a severe disappointment for Royal, though I knew I'd be safe with him anywheres—in reason! What I mean is that even if Royal Underwood Corona wasn't the greatest writer since Moses, he was a perfect gentleman and acted that way. On the way to his domicile, we talked about this and we discussed that, till if you'd been on the rear seat and wasn't adverse to eavesdropping, why, you'd have thought we'd been in fifth grade together, honestly! He generously forgave me for running over him and not to let him outdo me in courtesy, I accepted his apology for denting my mud-guard. So that was all settled.

Then Royal suddenly decided he'd let his train go until the next day and began to promote himself. He was nobody's fool. Within a few minutes he had built up a dinner and theater engagement with me for that very same night. Now don't begin raising your eyebrows and curling your lip. It's all fun and there was nothing wrong in it, besides he'd been so nice about me colliding with him that I just couldn't refuse. I left him at the curb outside a beautiful apartment house on Central Park West, promising to be all set when he called for me that evening at seven.

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 "You certainly knocked me over, girlie!" he says, cautiously touching a bump on his head that looked painful. "The minute I saw you I fell for you—right on the asphalt!"

Well, Royal proved to be even more entertaining at dinner than he was as a motor companion and we had a nice time, really, in spite of the fact that I pulled one terrible fox pass right after we sat down to the nourishment.

"Have you read any recent novels—'My Wife's Husband,' for instance?" he asked me over the hearts of artichoke.

That was like asking Willie Hoppe if he ever saw a billiard table.

"Yes," I says Promptly, "and I think it's terrible, don't you?"

He gave me an odd look. "Why, no—I wouldn't exactly call it terrible," he says, with a faint smile, "but then I imagine I'm a bit prejudiced in its favor. You see, I wrote it!"

Good night! A wonderful start for a pleasant evening, what? I rallied gamely and threw him a dazzling smile.

"You're easily kidded, aren't you?" I asked him. "I knew you wrote it, of course; I just wanted to get a rise out of you. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed the book immensely!"

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 "You did?" he says eagerly. "Well, that's fine. Thanks awfully!"

Honest to Coolidge, I didn't know Royal was the perpetrator of that literary outrage any more than I know how to make a clock. I'm no Dumb Dora, but seldom remember authors' names, though Francis Shakespeare's is familiar. But I got out of that jam nicely, didn't I?

At any rate, now that Royal's horrible secret was out, we had much to talk about. He had been on his way to board a train for Synthetic when the bumper of my car took his mind off his appointment. Royal was scheduled to assist Gordon Daft in the filming of his book, and when I heard that sensational news I devoted the bulk of the time to boosting Hazel to him. Before we called it a night and dismissed school, he had faithfully promised to fatten Hazel's part if it was in any way possible.

A week arrived and departed as weeks will and then Jerry Murphy and Pete Kift got their vacations. Both boys are set and rarin' to go to Synthetic, Maine, where Daft's actors are doing their stuff on Pete's farm. In spite of their previous sad experience, each of these first-class half-wits told me he was going to try and talk himself into a part in "My Wife's Husband."

"Why don't you check out of this drum and come with us to Synthetic, Kid?" invites Pete. "You'll get

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 a lot of laughs on the old man's farm, no foolin'! Then them movie friends of yours is up at that slab and we can throw a party every night. Our farm's worth important sugar today and only a few years ago pop bought it for a song!"

"What was the name of the song?" I asked him.

"I forget the words," says Pete, "but I remember the notes because I had to pay most of 'em off myself."

"C'mon, Gladys," urges Jerry, "tell 'at big boloney Williams you're tired of sayin' hello and you want to say good-by to him for a while!"

"Yeh," says Pete, "think of the fresh milk and eggs, the simple life in the country, the cows and chickens and that kind of stuff, which I loved so well that I left 'em flat on their shoulder-blades at the age of ten! C'mon up and watch me do a piece of farmin'. If I do say it myself, I milk a mean cow and pitch a nasty stack of hay!"

I thanked Pete for his kind invitation and told him I'd think it over. It didn't take me long to argue myself into the idea that I'd like to give Pete's farm a look-see, so I arranged a two week's furlough from the switchboard. Then I wired Hazel to meet my train, packed up and did a fade-out from the Hotel St. Moe.

Not only the beauteous Hazel, but Pete and Jerry are on hand when I tripped off the train at the little dilapidated station, bearing a weather-beaten sign,

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 "Synthetic." My playmates have thoughtfully brought along an ancient farm rig to drive me to the village, and Hazel, in movie make-up and a Colonial costume, attracts as much attention from the awe-struck yokels hanging around the depot as a fur overcoat would attract in Hades. She explained that she had been working all day and had to dash away to meet me just as she was. Honestly, the disturbance Hazel was creating amongst the natives would have been highly embarrassing to me, but it tickled my girl friend's vanity.

"This is a great tank—it's as dead as Napoleon," says Hazel as we drive away. "Most of the population belong in the comic supplements of the Sunday papers and nowhere else. I've got the male clowns all standing on their ears. I think I'll write Sears-Roebuck for a commission on mail order sales of Klassy-Kut Clothes that the local bloods have ordered to strut with for my entertainment. By the way, Royal Underwood Corona, the fellow who composed our movie, is up here. He's a cute kid, and I think I've goaled him!"

"See if I care," I says. "I've met the boy myself, in fact we broke bread together and caught a show in Manhattan just before I came up here."

Hazel's pretty face was a picture of bafflement and envy.

"For cryin' out loud!" she says peevishly. "It seems

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 to me you've fussed around with everybody but Columbus!"

"But my affairs are all harmless, Hazel," I remind her.

"Blah!" retorts my charming chum—and conversation lagged a bit.

Jerry and Pete told me that they hadn't yet convinced Mr. Daft that they were Grade-A actors, but they said they had great hopes now that I was in their midst. Pete kidded Jerry about winning the heart of his mother's hired girl, Bee Swenson, who Pete declared had a face like a jig-saw puzzle with the important key-pieces missing. This joshing seemed to greatly disturb the huge Jerry and he told me confidentially that if Bee was the last woman in the world and he was the last man, he'd take arsenic before he'd marry her! Both Pete and Jerry spoke affectionately of the farm's hard cider, which they swore had drug store gin and Long Island Scotch beaten forty ways for smoothness and potency. They said this stuff was the real McCoy and that Prohibition meant nothing in the life of a farmer—except that he helped put it over. Both of my boy friends seemed to have managed to get on the most intimate terms with Mr. Cider, particularly Peter.

"I didn't come back home a minute too soon, kid," he confides to me, swaying dizzily on the wagon seat.

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 "My lovin' parents was on the brink of gettin' a divorce, but I patched all that up!"

"Why did they want to separate, Pete?" I asked him.

"Oh, nothin' in particular," says Pete, "but they been wed over fifty years now and they're kind of beginnin' to get on each other's nerves!"

A loud and unseemly chuckle from Hazel appeared to steam Pete and he shut up like our useful friend, the clam.

Well, honestly, by this time it was getting as dark as Harry Wills and we seemed to have lost our way. Jerry, a total loss, had crashed asleep, and Pete didn't look exactly like a victim of insomnia. The alarmed Hazel said the road we were on wasn't even faintly familiar to her.

We came to a deserted crossroads in the gloom and I sent Pete ahead to read the sign-post. After using up a box of matches trying to read the sign, Pete stag: gered back.

"Well, what does it say on that sign?" I asked him impatiently.

"Hic—I think it says—hic—no smokin' allowed!" answers Pete, and collapses under the wagon wheels, burying his face to the hilt in the mud. Ain't we got fun?

However, we finally arrived at the home of Pete's

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 parents and they put me up very comfortably in a big bright room with Hazel. One of Peter's choice collection of brothers was sprawled all over the kitchen table, ravenously reading a three-year-old-magazine.

"Here, Frequent!" called his father. "Take the lady's grips upstairs!"

"Frequent?" I says, trying not to laugh in his son's weird features. "Isn't that a queer name for a human being?"

"Wal, you see, I was the eighth child," explained Frequent—and passed up the stairs with my suitcases.

In a few days I'd fitted myself into the gay life on the farm as if I'd never lived anywhere else, really. I resumed my acquaintance with Mr. Daft and Royal Underwood Corona, who battled furiously day and night over the constant changes the director kept making in Royal's novel while filming it. In fact, Royal barked and meowed that Mr. Daft had put everything into the picture but the battle of Chickamauga and all that was left of Royal's original story was its name. In return, Mr. Daft coolly told the raging Royal that the company had bought his book, "My Wife's Husband," for its box-office title only and not for the story, which neither Mr. Daft nor anybody connected with him had read or had the slightest intention of reading. At that, Royal rushed out of the house tear-

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 ing his hair and fell on a hay pile in a hysterical condition!

One of the first persons I met on the farm was Bee Swenson, the hired girl that Pete claimed was wild over Jerry and greatly resembled a baboon. Well, after looking Bee over I was forced to admit that the hired girl had a face which must have greatly dismayed her parents when they first saw it. I felt awfully sorry for her, really; a glance at her would make any man remain a gentleman in her company no matter where they were! I didn't know then that Bee needed sympathy like I need a third ear. Bee had talents that more than overcame the handicap of her unbeautiful face!

Hazel and the unhappy Royal seemed to be getting along like sliced tomatoes and lettuce, while Mr. Daft fairly sprayed me with attention, but Synthetic itself and its inmates furnished me with sufficient in the way of amusement. There was old Judge Bass, former champion quoit pitcher of the county and now a contender for the checker title, who always announced to the children on his way to court, "Come right over—there's goin' to be a big hearin' this mornin'!" He'd then soak the unfortunate prisoners the limit, assuring them that they must have been guilty of whatever crime they were credited with or they wouldn't have been arrested. "Maybe I ain't so much on law," says Judge Bass, "but I'm strong on logic and no rapscal-

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 lion can fule me!" I learned later that a handsome city chap had once sold his Worship a ten percent interest in the League of Nations for five thousand dollars!

Mr. Daft called Judge Bass a find and commandeered him into "My Wife's Husband" in his judicial role, paying him twenty fish a day. That didn't stop his Honor from bearing down heavy on Pete and Jerry when they were pinched for serenading me at three o'clock in the morning. These two masterpieces of imbecility had told me they sang wonderful harmony and I said I'd like to hear 'em sometime. This set of scofflaws got saturated with that two-fisted cider and that night they gave me the promised treat. The uncalled for open-air recital awoke the entire burg, including the constable, Mephistopheles Simpson, who took the choristers to the local hoosegow.

When they were brought before him, Judge Bass glared at the two trembling imported Broadway nightingales and ordered 'em to sing the song for him. Pete and Jerry smiled nervously cleared their throats and rendered the following operatic tidbit from "Carmen" in tones that rattled the window-panes:

With his fingers in his dumfounded ears, Judge Bass angrily called a halt and fined the boys ten dollars

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 each, with the stern promise that if they ever came up before him again on a charge of singing, he'd send 'em to the penitentiary, where with those voices they belonged!

Then there was Ike Mason, the village blacksmith, who rowed an oversize dory ten miles out into the ocean and back on a bet. This feat of endurance, skill and lunacy took Isaac twenty-four hours and when he reached shore on the return trip it was found that the 100-pound anchor was overboard and dragging all the way. Also Hans Schmidt, the German shoemaxer, whose loyalty was questioned during the war. Thereupon Hans sat down and personally wrote a song dedicated to the local draftees and entitled, "Ve Are Caming py der Millions!" It cost Hans $250 to get this horrible ballad published and he was nearly lynched when it was discovered that the tune was criminally close to "Deutschland über Alles!"

Likewise Abner Young, so miserly he wouldn't give his daughter a middle initial. Abner built a catboat in his cellar one winter and had to break the craft up to get it out. Then let me present "Shiftless," the town loafer, who was leading Judge Bass's horse across an open plank bridge over the lake when the fiery steed reared, slipped out of the neck halter and fell overboard. Shiftless, annoyed at the animal's capers, flung the halter in the bathing fluid after it and continued blithely on

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 his way. Or take Ulysses Grant Jones, the undertaker. Mons. Jones complained bitterly about the movie troupe's autos being parked in front of his place of business, on the grounds that "they're liable to prevent me from gettin' my bodies in!" And last but far from least, Hank Knowles, the druggist. Hank tired of moonshine, hard cider and plain alcohol, so he took a handful of prescriptions from his file, mixed 'em all up together and drank the result to get a thrill. He got one!

These and many others, too humorous to mention, kept me in a continual state of merriment and Mr. Daft seized upon them eagerly for "types" in his movie. He drafted the bulk of 'em as "extras" and soon had practically the entire metropolis working in the film, to the consternation of Royal Underwood Corona, who vainly protested at our rewriting his book to fit these casual characters. Honestly, Mr. Daft even cameraed the mayor's trained dog, most of the town's babies and Zeb Whitcomb's prize two-headed calf.

The early rising and retiring hours, the wholesome food, the wonderful air and the fact that nobody knew where I was all made a decided hit with me, and I'm enjoying my stay immensely. I aided Pete's mother in putting up preserves and Pete showed me how to milk a cow. Neither me nor the bovine liked it.

But by far the most entertaining spectacle to me was

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 the devotion of Bee Swenson for Jerry Murphy. Bee's pursuit of the ungainly Jerry bordered on the unmaidenly. She waited on him hand and foot. She gave him the choicest delicacies at a table where delicacies were at a premium and stood around watching him in mute but quite open admiration. Jerry viewed these unusual attentions with disgust and alarm. Through Pete I learned that Bee was a rabid reader of detective stories, and ninety percent of her infatuation for Jerry was based on the fact that he was house detective at the St. Moe. Bee was a bit vague as to what "house detective" meant, but she was positive that Jerry was a combination of Nick Carter and Sherlock Holmes with a dash of Hawkshaw.

Jerry got one chance to display his prowess as a sleuth when the Kift rabbits strangely disappeared from the farm. The night that happened, Jerry went to retrieve them and at daybreak he returned with fourteen cabbage-leaf addicts. Pete's mother told Jerry he did a good job, and Bee admiringly added that Jerry's recovery of the fourteen bunnies was particularly good in view of the fact that they had only lost eight!

Enthralled by the movie atmosphere, Bee naturally desired to enter pictures, but her face was her misfortune. She told that to me and the scornful Hazel and also bragged about her affection for the unrespon-

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 sive Jerry, who she asserted was just "an elegant fellah!" I tried to get Mr. Daft interested but I might as well have tried to get him interested in ping-pong. However, I did manage to show Bee how to make her raven locks mean something and instructed her in the possibilities of a and mascara. I likewise presented her with some raiment I was going to throw away anyhow. The result was a decided improvement. Bee wanted to pay me for the clothes and when I refused to accept, she said she'd saved forty dollars for something she'd wanted all her life and never had—silk undies. She added sorrowfully that probably nobody but herself would ever see her in 'em, yet nevertheless she'd personally get enough enjoyment out of standing before her mirror garbed in a sheer silk teddy to warrant any sacrifice.

This pathetic confession moved me to the point of giving Bee one of my prettiest combinations. The delighted Bee rushed to her room to don the lingerie and I went down to visit Jerry and Pete, who were confined to their beds, Pete as the result of upsetting a wasp's nest in search for more apples for cider, and Jerry through falling in the well. Royal came in while I was calling on the invalids, and in raving about the way Mr. Daft was murdering his story we got into a discussion on novels versus real life. Royal mentioned the farm as a place where nothing unusual would hap-

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 pen in ten generations, but being a strong believer that truth is stranger than fiction, I declared to the contrary. Royal's air of indulgent superiority captured my goat and I offered to prove I was right. I bet him a dozen pairs of silk stockings, intending to give them to Bee if I won.

About an hour later I happened to pass Bee's room. She called me in and I got the shock of my life. Arrayed in my discarded lingerie, Bee of the unlovely face had the most beautiful form I, you or anybody else ever saw! Honestly, her figure was a living definition of the word "ravishing" and it left me breathless with admiration for a work of art. From shoulders to instep Bee's every curve—and she had plenty—was an undiluted thrill, but her legs were her piece de resistance. As I gazed on Bee's dimpled knees I was certain that I was viewing the most entrancing pair of limbs in the wide, wide world. I wondered what the unimpressed Jerry would say if he knew—but you follow me, don't you?

Bee appeared to be unconscious of her remarkable charms, but I soon convinced her that she was a world beater. I pondered long after I left her on her peculiar and unfortunate predicament—possessor of the homeliest face and the most beautiful form in Christendom! I wanted to help Bee cash in on her attractions in some legitimate way, but I could think of nothing to assist

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 her. Mr. Daft wouldn't even consent to look at her in a bathing suit.

At this critical period, Scoop Murphy, Mr. Daft's press agent, appeared on the scene. Scoop wanted photographs of all the female legs in the company. Why? The Cant-Rip Hosiery Company had offered a prize of a thousand dollars, a gross of Cant-Rip stockings and several other inducements to the possessor of the world's most beautiful legs. Photographs were to be submitted without names—merely a mark of identification. Scoop hoped that one of Mr. Daft's employees would win the prize and the ensuing publicity, so he photographed the lower extremities of Hazel and the other girls who were working in Mr. Daft's picture.

Well, that thousand dollars looked good to me, so I entered my own limbs—unknown to Hazel—and then my thoughts immediately flashed to the beautiful legs of Bee. I explained the hired girl to Scoop and he was enthusiastic. Between us we overcame Bee's embarrassed objections to the—to her—immodesty of the thing, and photographed her fascinating legs.

Well, they finally finished filming "My Wife's Husband" at Synthetic and we all went back to New York, where, as I figured, the photo of Bee's knees was announced as winner of the Cant-Rip Hosiery Contest. Then plenty excitement! Scoop induced the hypnotized Bee to sign a five-year contract with Mr. Daft,

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 flooded the country with stories about her, how she was "discovered" by Mr. Daft on a farm, how her limbs have been insured for a hundred thousand dollars, etc., etc., etc.

Within two days you couldn't pick up a newspaper without seeing a photo of Bee's knees. She got offers to pose for noted artists, go into vaudeville and what-not. But the scream to me was Jerry! This almost Sherlock Holmes, realizing what he had lost, tried to win Bee, but she gave him the air haughtily. She was now Scoop's girl friend!

Bee was grateful to me for my assistance, but she gloated over Hazel's failure to win the prize. The exhired girl sighed that the fresh butter, milk and air, the cackling chickens, the mooing cows, the familiar haystacks and farmhands were now a thing of the past; Bee had exchanged these priceless things for noisy, stuffy, gaudy New York.

"You're sorry?" I asked her.

"Yes," says Bee, crossing her legs with raised skirt, a now unbreakable habit, "I'm sorry I didn't leave that darned old farm and come here long ago!"

As proof of my contention that anything could happen anywhere, I presented the case of Bee to Royal and won the dozen pairs of stockings—which I kept, as Bee had more stockings now than she'd ever wear!

A few days later I got a package in the mail from

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 Scoop. Opening it I found a photograph and a note. I won't annoy you with the picture, but here's the note:

I looked at the picture. Then I gave a start. The legs in the photograph were undoubtedly beautiful, no fooling, they were immense. There was another thing about them that strangely interested me—they weren't mine! They were Bee's!

On the breakfast table was the morning paper and staring right at me was a photograph of the prizewinning limbs. I recognized a well remembered and unusual design on the stockings. Then I got the answer—in some way Scoop had mixed the photos up, and the picture that won the prize was a picture of my legs, not Bee's!

Well, naturally my first impulse was to rush to Scoop and disclose to him this serious mistake, thus dethroning the happy Bee. Scoop's wire was busy, which gave me a chance to reflect. Never again will I think—brains ruined Caesar! I thought a thing such as this was Bee's only chance to rise from oblivion. I have

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 other attractions, many more opportunities, so I decided to let matters stand as they were; and I was complacently gazing at my uncrowned but rightful heirs to the title of the world's most beautiful legs when Hazel enters.

"Can you imagine that hired girl winning?" asks Hazel indignantly. "Why, that contest was nothing but a frame-up! If my legs aren't prettier than that homely Scandinavian's, I'll eat 'em. Why, Gladys, even yours are as pretty as hers—you should have taken a chance and entered the thing!"

"I wish now I had," I says with an odd smile, "but then legs are so hard to identify, the judges might never have known mine from the others."

"Well, I would," says Hazel. "You have such a bony instep, dear!"

Don't you love that?

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upon a time a charming young man with the high sounding title of William Shakespeare hauled off and committed a play called "Romeo and Juliet." This frolic could easily be rated a first-class success as it is now in its fifteen thousandth week, with every indication that it will be a riot on the road. Along around the second act of this delightful evening at the theater, Romeo steps boldly to the footlights and hurls the following at the dumfounded audience:

From then on the fun waxes fast and furious, but as the critics say, I won't disclose the plot and spoil the show for you. That one speech is all I'm going to take up now. Far be it from me to argue with Bill Shakespeare, but honestly I'm satisfied that the world's

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 champion playwright's foot slipped when he indicated there was nothing in a cognomen. I don't doubt that soap would furnish as much lather if it was called mush, that Coolidge would still be President if his name was Smith and that the income tax would be just as poisonous if we paid it under the head of outcome tax; but really, when a person is used to their own name for years and then is suddenly called upon to change it, it does affect he, she or its game. Honestly it does!

For today's lesson I offer the case of Hershel Rosenberg, a bellhop in the winter under his honest-to-Boston name, a in the summer as "Kid Rose."

When they took away Hershel's name they took away plenty.

One morning during a lull in the daily hostilities, I'm busy doing nothing and just being myself when Jerry Murphy prowls up to the switchboard.

"Well, Cutey, what d'ye know?" he remarks with what he thought was a killing smile.

"Oh, nothing much—two and two's four, that's about all I'm positive of, Jerry!" I says. "What do you suspect?"

"Not a thing, kid," answers Jeremiah. "I ain't even heard no rumors. D'ye want to get a laugh?"

"You've already given me one of your photos," I says sweetly.

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 At sounds like a dirty dig," says Jerry. "But then I never clout no women. We win a new bellhop this mornin' and if he ain't a clown, I'm a French pastry! He speaks English like he picked it up in Siberia. His name's Hershel Rosenberg and he hops a nasty bell, what I mean!'

"Where's he come from?" I ask idly.

"Dublin, of course," snorts Jerry. "As I was sayin', his name's Hershel Rosenberg, but 'at monnicker only goes when he's a bellboy. When he climbs into citizen's clothes, his name's Kid Rose, the box fighter. Personally I don't think this egg could punch his way out of a paper bag. He's only been workin' in this trap two days, but he's already got Pete Kift fit to be tied!"

"What did Hershel do to Pete!" I ask dutifully.

"Well, to begin with," says Jerry, waxing confidential, "Pete sends this master mind up with a pitcher of ice water to Mister Young in five-o-two. You know how liberal 'at old mock orange is—he ain't puttin' nothin' out. 'At baby would throw a drownin' man an anvil, any time. Well, in a few minutes old man Young comes boundin' downstairs squawkin' his head off. He wants to leave the St. Moe flat, he wants last week's rent back and he wants the manager's job. But most of all he wants Hershel Rosenberg's heart!"

"How come?" I asked, out of idle curiosity.

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 "Ha, ha, ha, ha!" cackles Jerry. "Oh, this is one for the book! Hershel tried to sell the old jazzbo the ice water and when Young wouldn't buy it at a quarter a pitcher, Hershel tells him to take a drink from the sink, 'Vot d'ye tink, ve get this ice for nothin'—you should run a hotel!' says Hershel and then he had to take it on the lam!"

At this minute Pete Kift came by to pay his respects.

"I'm just after tellin' Gladys about Hershel," says Jerry. "I understand he's givin' you a shovin' around and makin' you like it."

"I'll make that banana love it before I get through with him!" says Peter, bitterly. "I asked him this mornin' where he ever hopped bells before and he says he never was no good at rememberin' names. Can you tie that? If we wasn't short of boys I'd throw him out in the alley. As it is, I got him ruined—I put him on a elevator, where tips is as plentiful as mufflers in Hades!"

At's what you think!" grins Jerry. "But I think he'll cross you! 'At baby's no mug and if you figure he is you're crazy. He'll be chargin' the guests a dime a ride on his elevator as sure as you're born!"

Pete starts to laugh, frowns, looks thoughtful and then dashes off to see for himself.

A few days later I had the pleasure of making Her-

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 shel's acquaintance. He sidled over to the switchboard on his lunch hour, a thing that is as much against the St. Moe rules as hitting the manager with a slapstick. That, however, didn't appear to bother Hershel.

"They call me Hershel Rosenberg," he says, without any preliminaries.

"I can't help it," I says truthfully. "Take the air, Hershel, you're on a busy wire!"

"Say, don't put on dog vit me," says Hershel. "I ain't exactly vot I look like."

"See if I care," I says. "Do you know any more jokes?"

"Say, if I vos a goil and as pretty as you, I'd nevaire be no operator from a telephone," remarks this inveterate fool. "I'd go to work and, now, marry a rich millionaire and"

"Tend to your own sewing, will you?" I butt in frigidly. "When I wish advice I'll go to a lawyer and when I wish to get married I'll marry whoever I please!"

"Vell, you please me!" grins Hershel. "So ve got that all settled!"

If I had Hershel's nerve I'd throw up my job and go through Gehenna with a line of foot warmers. But honestly, you couldn't get sore at him.

"What do you mean by saying you're not exactly

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 what you look like?" I asked him, to change the subject and also the predicate.

"Vell, I look like a bellboy, but I ain't," he explains. "I'm only a bellboy in the, now, vintaire time. In the summaire time it's too hot I should be vorkin' from a hotel. So from June to August I'm a fightaire. I'm Kid Rose, the sensational middleweight. In twenty-four fights I only been knocked out twenty times."

"Wonderful!" I says, trying without any success to keep from laughing in his face. "Did you win the other four?"

"No," says Hershel. "By a odd coincidence, I lose 'em on rotten decisions from rotten referees. But vait til"

"Don't tell me any more about that, I can't afford to get hysterical on the job," I shut him off, wiping my eyes. "What was the idea of trying to sell the party in five-o-two that pitcher of ice water? If you hadn't been so grasping he might have given you a nice tip."

"Vot do I want vit a tip?" says Hershel. "I vouldn't play the races and I'm off from Vall Street. Say, a couple months ago a cousin of mine took a tip he should buy, now, Mexican Pete. Oy oy, vot a tip! You couldn't trust them Mexicans. My cousin lost his store, his car, his insurance policy, his house and his, now, vife!"

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 "It's a wonder he didn't lose his temper too," I says when I could talk.

"Say, vot's the matter—you're laughin' from me?" asks Hershel indignantly.

Just then Pete Kift comes up with murder in his eye.

"Get on that elevator, monkey," he hollers at Hershel, "or I'll knock you from under your hat!"

"Thenks just the same," says Hershel, moving away, "I could take it off myself!"

Thus Hershel.

Really, how this young man ever managed to hold his portfolio at the St. Moe is a subject for bigger brains than mine, but hold it he did. In spite of constant persecution from morning till night, he carried on smartly and clung like a cold in the head. Hershel was a little too burly for the other bellhops to trifle with and then that "Kid Rose" seemed to mean something to them too, but honestly, Jerry and Pete made his life positively brutal. That bothered Hershel the same way the income tax bothers an almshouse habitué; he was a silent partner in the noted firm of Grin & Bear It, an absolute gourmand for cruel and unusual punishment!

One day Hazel drags me off bodily to a private auction sale. Private auctions are the milk-fed Hazel's specialty; she bids as if she was playing pinochle

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 and I have yet to see her come home from one of these things with something of any more use to her than a second nose. While personally I could never cuddle up to them, there's a lot of our sex who go to these auction sales like they'd go to a show. They hang around all day, bid their heads off on every article offered for sale, eat the usual nifty lunch put out by the hoarse auctioneer and his merry men and then go home with a second-hand vacuum cleaner or something that cost them about four dollars more than they could get a new one for in a store.

Well, anyways, on this day Hazel and me ran amuck and blew about a hundred dollars each on a choice collection of knick-knacks that no self-respecting junk dealer would be found deceased with, really. The auctioneer rubbed his hands together and said we got a bargain for our hundred, but Hazel sneered that it was about the same kind of a bargain as we'd have got by paying a hundred dollars for a cauliflower. Mr. Auctioneer, who wasn't any more girlproof than the rest of 'em, then tries to promote himself with us and plied us each with a Japanese pin tray—value, about three marks. Always looking for the best of it, Hazel is talking herself into a carved mantel clock when I hear a familiar voice behind me and wheel to see the grinning face of Mr. Hershel Rosenberg, née Kid Rose.

"Vell, vell, vell—vot a small voild it turned out to

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 be!" he says. "A feller couldn't go nowheres no more vitout he should meet somebody. How's it by you?"

"What are you doing here?" I asked him surprisedly.

"Vot's the matter—shouldn't I go places?" says Hershel. "Just because I'm a, now, bellhopper I don't have to hide ven I ain't vorkin', do I? C'mon vit me, I'll show you a real auction—McCue and Levy, over by Sixth Avenoo. Oy, vot bargains! Say, ven you walk out from that place vit your arms full of goods, you feel like a tief!"

Glancing out of the corner of my eye, I happened to see the feverish auctioneer presenting Hazel with that beautifully carved clock, in return for a phone number that would get anybody in the world but Hazel. Out of pure maliciousness I immediately introduced her to Hershel.

Hazel was an instantaneous hit with our dizzy boy friend and as my delightful room-mate likes anybody who can make her laugh, why, Hershel managed to get past. Honestly, he was just twice as funny as he should have been, because he had no idea he was comical—his delivery was all impromptu, if you know what I mean. He took us to his friends McCue and Levy where another auction was under way and when we left there at five in the afternoon we had more packages than Parcel Post himself. All articles we

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 needed like we needed scarlet fever. Hershel was busier than an ant with a bread-crumb. He was all over the place—bidding for us, pointing out the auctioneer's "plants" in the audience, laying us off the apple sauce goods and telling us which was the bonded stuff. Hazel, who believes one and all guilty till proved innocent, said Hershel for making us buy probably got ten percent of what we squandered. That was doing Hershel a rank injustice, really. I found out afterwards he only got five percent.

While we're disrobing to commute to Dreamland that evening, Hazel gets inquisitive.

"Where on earth do you get those Johns like the one we met this afternoon?" she asks me. "You must have nailed that bird the minute he escaped from the immigration people."

Some day I'm going to send Hazel a present. I'm going to give her a nice box of catnip.

"You seemed to think he was pretty keen when he was paying for that vase you insisted on having," I says, a bit steamed.

"Blah!" says my lovely girl friend. "It only set him back fifteen dollars and the tears just streamed down his cheeks when he paid off. What's his trick?"

"He's in the hotel business," I says carelessly.

"He owns a hotel?" asks Hazel, sitting up straight with glistening eyes.

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 I pensively pulled back the covers of my downy bed.

"He's a bellboy," I says, having the time of my life.

"My Gawd!" gasps Hazel, dropping her hair brush. "A bellhop—and I gave him my address!"

"What you need is a guardian, Hazel," I purred with a smile.

"What we both need is keepers!" Hazel angrily cuts me off. "If that dialect comedian ever comes up here he'll run into nothing but grief. I'll about crown him with that vase he made me take!"

A week later, or maybe it wasn't, I'm sitting at the switchboard absorbing my daily dose of culture by reading the ads in the "Pacific Monthly" when a voice remarks:

"I vant Kin-al eight six five three vun and make it sneppy, please!"

In about four minutes I look leisurely up and see a heavy-set youth with an unquestionably broken nose and a face that is strangely familiar. He looks like someone I know, but I don't know who, get me?

"Ven you get 'em, say Kid Rose vishes to speak vit 'em," continues the handsome city chap.

"Kid Rose!" I says in astonishment, thinking of Hershel Rosenberg. "Are you Kid Rose?"

"Absolutely!" he says proudly, swelling up like a balloon, "I"

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 "Say—what's your real name?" I interrupted.

"Do I have to pass a civil service examination to get a telephone numbaire here'r" says the stranger peevishly. "I vos born in Koshva, I'm single, I got my foist papaires, I'm a fightaire, Vashington vos the foist President, I don't believe in the I. W. W. and my name is Rosenberg! Now could I get that telephone call?"

"Your name is Rosenberg?" I gasp. "What's your first name—Hershel?"

"No—Isaac," he says. "I got a brother Hershel. You know that lowlife?"

"He works here," I told him. "He's a bellboy and he also calls himself Kid Rose. Your family's a regular bouquet, isn't it?"

"Oy, catch me a gless of vataire!" says Ike, with a groan. "So that's vot he is—a bellhop, hey? Gevhalt, that's a business!"

"Which of you is the real Kid Rose?" I asked him, as curious as you are.

"Vy, naturel, I am, of course!" says Ike. "Hershel couldn't vin a fight if they should let him come in the ring vit a hatchet in each hand. He don't know a right hook from the timekeepaire!"

This affectionate brother then proceeded to give me the lowdown on his charming relative, and honestly it was rich. It seems that Ike Rosenberg, the real fighter

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 and cake provider of the family, had built up quite a reputation for himself as Kid Rose. On the other hand, Hershel Rosenberg had never been anything but unnecessary overhead as far as the old folks were concerned, Hershel liked work and arsenic the same way and had run away from everything from school to the probation officer in his home town, Idiotic, Wyoming. In his travels hither and yon, Hershel one day found a newspaper that somebody had hurled from a Pullman window and sitting beside the right of way he gave himself up to the vice of reading. On the sporting page he found this:

That anybody should get five thousand for stopping or even starting anything interested Hershel highly, and when he read further that Kid Rose was no less than his loving brother Isaac, Hershel nearly swooned. Boarding the first freight, this boy scout dashed home to use his ingenuity on his brother's five thousand. Well, Hershel got service. Isaac divided the money with him—that is, he gave him ten dollars—and then kicked Hershel out of the house when Hershel claimed he was too heavy for light work and too light for heavy work.

However, all this gave Hershel an idea. He was

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 nobody's fool and he figured he was sitting pretty now. Not only did he look a great deal like his box-fighting brother, but he was also big and husky. There must be plenty states where Ike hadn't displayed his wares as yet, reasoned Hershel, and to those he gave his undivided attention.

According to Ike, it was Hershel's hobby to descend upon some medium-sized town where assault and battery was all the rage, sell himself as Kid Rose and get himself matched with a local expert at the art of breaking noses. His brother's reputation would enable Hersel to get big money for his appearance and his resemblance to the real Kid Rose was sufficiently close to befuddle what few had seen the latter perform. Once in the ring, Hershel was a pacifist of the first water and quickly claimed exemption, diving gracefully to the canvas the instant his vis-à-vis made a hostile move towards him. He would then collect his share of the purse and continue on his merry way.

What could be sweeter?

Honestly, for my part, after hearing all this I thought Hershel was a pretty smart boy, but brother Isaac was of a highly different opinion. Ike raved that Hershel was driving him to the poorhouse by using his name as a nom du ring. Hershel wins exactly never, whinnies Ike almost tearfully, and that detracts from his own earnings as the fight promoters get the boys

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 mixed up. They will not believe Ike's story that his brother is using his name and every time Ike happens to be away from New York, and Hershel, as Kid Rose, gets smacked down in some other village, the boxing impresarios around Gotham tell Ike he must fight for less money as the proxy has damaged his value as a drawing card. Ike has begged, threatened and bribed Hershel to take his beatings under some other name than Kid Rose and Hershel's only answer is to tell Isaac to cut himself a slice of pie!

When Mr. Winter bows out, Hershel Rosenberg, now Kid Rose again, resigns from the cabinet at the St. Moe to take up his annual summer tour around the country, clicking off pennies on his brother's fame as a boxer. Hazel, who heard the whole story, thought this was a scream and pointed out that the money-mad Hershel at least had a sense of humor, because he'd send her a telegram every time Ike won a fight saying, "I win again, kid!" The fact that Hershel's wire might come from Chicago and the battle had taken place in New Orleans made no difference whatever to the jovial Hershel Rosenberg. He was just a nice boy.

Well, both Ike and Hershel were conspicuous by their absence from my ken for quite a few weeks. I guess I would have forgotten about them if Jerry Murphy and Pete Kift didn't keep them alive in my

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 memory with anecdotes of the fox passes Hershel pulled while a bellhop at the dear old St. Moe. Then one day friend Isaac's bulky form suddenly looms up at the switchboard. Honestly, the boy is a photograph of gloom. He looked fearfully low!

"Greetings," I says pleasantly. "Long time no see—how come?"

"Maybe you seen that lowlife brother of mine, hey?" says Ike mournfully.

"No, I haven't seen Hershel either," I says, telling the truth, "But I read in the paper the other day where Kid Rose was knocked out in one round by somebody or other in Boston. Which one of you boys was that Kid Rose?"

"That vos Hershel," wails Ike. "I ain't vorked in a couple of months on account from that bum! I couldn't get no fights vile he keeps gettin' himself knocked stiff and the promoters think it's me. Honest, for vot I think about that feller they could send me back to Russia! Ven I tell 'em about my brother, they chuckle at me. I vould give a tousand dollars—vell, maybe five hundred dollars—for a idea to make Hershel quit bein' Kid Rose."

I thought this one over for a few minutes while I'm plugging in wrong numbers and Ike tells his troubles to Pete Kift, who happened to saunter along.

"Hello," says Pete to Isaac. "I see where you got

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 slapped for a bath-house again the other night. They lay you like a carpet, don't they?"

"Shut up!" Ike howls, covering his scalloped ears with his hands. "That vos my brother, not me! Oy, should I get my hands on Hershel, I'll"

"Hold everything!" I interrupt. "Listen, are you really in earnest about paying five hundred dollars for a way to make your brother stop advertising himself as Kid Rose?"

"In earnest?" says Ike. "Say, I must of been insane! You got a idea?"

"Positively!" I says. I speak several languages.

"Vell, I'll give you a hundred dollars for it, should it be good," says Ike after a minute. "But I vouldn't pay another nickel if you cry all over the place!"

That burnt me up.

"Look here, young feller me lad," I says. "I simply cannot do any heavy thinking for such a piffling sum as a hundred dollars. Really, that thrills me about as much as it thrills a deep-sea diver to step into a bath tub. But for five hundred"

Ike pulls a roll of bills from his pocket.

"Here, take the three hundred," he says. "I ain't nice to argue vit a lady. Vot's your scheme?"

"Five hundred dollars or I don't turn a wheel!" I says firmly.

"Oy, vot a voman!" moans Ike, handing over the

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 other two hundred on the verge of tears, "How vos everybody in Moscow ven you left 'em?"

Well, my suggestion to Isaac was simply that he and Hershel meet in the ring for the right to wear the much coveted title, "Kid Rose." Ike had told me that he and his brother were both the same weight, except that Hershel was a little heavier above the ears. The winner could continue to say it with uppercuts as Kid Rose, while the loser would have to bear up and be content with the label pasted on him by his fond parents. I pointed out to the skeptical Ike that this scheme had plenty to recommend it, apart from offering a permanent solution to his problem. For instance, with proper publicity, a fight between two brothers each claiming the same ring name would be sure to draw a record crowd, especially as the alias at stake was so well-known. I presented other arguments, equally strong if not stronger, but why take up your time with them? Let it be enough to say that I finally got Ike sold on the idea that my plan was a good thought and he departed to proposition Hershel.

So that you won't perish from curiosity, I'll come right out and tell you that the boys fought as per my recipe and Ike was returned the winner, with the right to call himself Kid Rose forever and a day. I say they fought, but really that's a rather reckless use of the verb. Before a howling mob that jammed

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 the Manslaughter A. C. in Jersey City, Isaac put his affectionate brother down and out with one enthusiastic punch on the jaw about two seconds after the start of the first—and last—round. Honestly, I felt terrible about it and something more than sorry for Hershel, but Hazel laughed herself sick. Jerry and Pete, who escorted us over to the catastrophe, sneered that both Ike and Hershel were false alarms and Jerry declared he wouldn't be afraid to choose either of them. Pete remarked airily that he'd like to take them both on at once; but neither of these heroes yelled loud enough for the Rosenberg boys to hear.

The mere fact that his brother had knocked him from under his former cognomen didn't appear to disturb Hershel's activities as a boxer. As plain Hershel Rosenberg now he continued to browse around the country, collecting various and sundry amounts for giving an uncannily correct imitation of a punching bag. I kept in touch with him by scanning the sport pages, Thus:

The reports were always the same, except for the name of the town where the crime took place and the

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 pugilist who assaulted our boy friend. Really, Hershel didn't seem able to cope with any of them!

A couple of months came and went before I had the extreme pleasure of gazing upon Hershel's battered features again. However, he strolled into the lobby one day, swapped a few lies with Pete and Jerry and then roamed over to me.

"Vell, how's all the telephone numbaires today, eh?" is his greeting.

"Busy," I says. "How's our champion?"

"Not so good!" says Hershel. "Ven I lost that name Kid Rose I lost plenty! I couldn't fight no more vitout it. Y'know, all this time I been used to bein' introduced to the customaires as Kid Rose. Vell, now the announcer says, 'Over here, ve have Hersel Rosenberg, the Divin' Venus!' and that kind of upsets my, now, stomach, I ain't used my real name for so long that I couldn't even get knocked out properly vit it."

"How's Ike?" I asked him.

"I should care!" growls Hershel. "There's a brother! You seen vot he done in that fight we had in Joisey City. He's afraid to take a chance, vit me in a long fight, so he goes to vork and knocks me out in the, now, foist round. Honest, he vos scared stiff!"

"But you were knocked stiff!" I gently reminded him, "Hershel, why don't you give up boxing and stick to bellhopping? It's less wearing on the features

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 and it certainly don't look like you're ever going to get anywhere in the ring, now does it?"

"Vell, maybe you're right," sighs Hershel. "I got to fight One-Feint Heehaw, middleveight champeen of Baffin's Bay, in Madison Square next veek. If I lose, I'm through! No more boxin' in the summaire time for me, I"

"It'll be the last summer of Rose, eh?" I couldn't resist butting in.

"Absolutely!" says Hershel. "I'm commencin' to get sick and tired of dustin' off the canvas vit my, now, shoulder-blades. But vit proper handlin' I could positively beat this One-Feint Heehaw. Up to date I ain't had nothin' in my cornaire but a bunch of lowlife kidders, which all the advice they could give me between rounds is to tell me how rotten I am. Vot do I need seconds to tell me that for—don't I know it?"

"Why don't you get your brother to be your second in this bout with One-Feint Heehaw?" I asked him, struck by a sudden thought. "Ike knows a lot about boxing and being your brother you'd have confidence in him. If"

"Say—you're a vondaire!" Hershel cuts me off excitedly, "That's just vot I'll do. I'll get Ike he should go behind me and I'll knock this feller Heehaw for a ghoul! I nevaire seen nobody like you for, now, schemes. You got more ideas than Edison!"

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 Honestly, if Mons. Hershel Rosenberg had had the faintest ideas as to what would be the result of that clever suggestion, I'm satisfied Hershel would have murdered me right then and there in hot blood!

Hershel managed to talk his brother into seconding him and then the fighting bellhop went in training for his petting party with One-Feint Heehaw. Hershel's idea of getting in shape for this bout was to have his nails manicured and I think he got shaved—I'm not sure about that. Anyhow, when the night of the big fight rolled around, Hershel got his first setback. He was just one pound overweight and the laughing manager of One-Feint Heehaw collected his five-hundreddollar forfeit. Gnashing his pearly teeth, Hershel remarked that all the Shylocks are not Jewish. Really, that untoward pay-off was poison to Hershel, who was so tight he wouldn't even harbor a fear.

Our party at the shambles consisted of Hazel, Pete, Jerry and your correspondent and we had to wade through a crowd that would make you think there was nobody at the Dempsey-Firpo scuffle but the reporters. Hershel was the first to enter the ring—his body cocoa-buttered, face vaselined to prevent cuts, as Jerry explained it, and a grim look on his slightly irregular profile. He was greeted with mingled cheers and jeers and politely acknowledged both. Hazel, the money

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 addict, had bet heavily on Hershel for some reason known only to herself and she cheered him loud and lustily. Hershel immediately arose and bowed solemnly to the opposite side of the ling from where Hazel was sitting.

"At's the tip-off!" says Jerry disgustedly. At big tomato don't know what it's all about. He won't last a round with this guy Heehaw. I seen 'at baby go—he's as tough as a year in the pen."

"Leave my fighter alone, stupid!" says Hazel irritably. "What do you know about boxing?"

"I know enough not to do it," says Jerry. At's more than 'at maniac does!"

Further discussion and possibly violence was prevented by the entrance of One-Feint Heehaw, a villainous-looking, bullet-headed facsimile of a gorilla. He was welcomed with riotous applause and tried out a smile on the admiring mob. Honestly, the result was so horrifying that Hazel and me shuddered and hid behind Jerry's broad back. The crowd breaks into an excited buzz of incoherent conversation as the men are called to the center of the ring for the referee's instructions. One-Feint Heehaw looks Hershel up and down sneeringly and then turns to the referee.

"Do I walk to the ropes and wait for the count every time I knock this chump down?" he asks the grinning official.

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 "Oy!" gasps Hershel to Ike. "Vot a rough von I picked for myself tonight!"

"Sssh!" says Ike. "Don't let him kid you. They ain't none of 'em rough ven they're on the floor."

"Maybe," agrees Hershel. "But the thing is—how d'ye get 'em there?"

"Are you guys gonna fight or do a act?" asks the referee. "This is a ring, not no theayter!"

The next minute the panic was on!

The instant the bell rang, One-Feint Heehaw sprang from his corner and hit Hershel with a terrible blow right on the nose. The only witty retort Hershel could think of was to sink slowly to the canvas with a rather reproachful expression on his face. "Knock him dead, Heehaw!" howls the mob and a patron in back of us, slightly under the influence of Volstead antidote, added sleepily, "Go on, you tramps, knock each other out!" Hershel arose as the referee reached "seven" and his brother Ike immediately yelled, "Bore in, Hershel, bore in!" One-Feint Heehaw had other plans for Hershel, however, and drove him across the ring with a volley of punches that kept poor Hershel plenty busy trying to keep from being exterminated. In the midst of this furious mix-up, some comedian in the gallery convulsed the crowd by bawling. "Hey, Hershel, you're wanted on the phone!"

So far it was just a case of guffaws with nobody

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 hurt—except Hershel. Above the roar of the mob Ike's voice rose hysterically in what soon became a chant, "Bore in, you sap, bore in!" Hershel tried manfully to follow his brother's instructions, but really, it wasn't Hershel's night. One-Feint Heehaw, who figured it was more blessed to give than to receive, was simply making a chopping block out of him. Honestly, it was pitiful. Hazel was on the verge of tears. For Hershel? Be yourself. For the dimes she was losing on him!

Suddenly Hershel, with a despairing effort, woke up and began to take an active interest in his assassination. For a full minute these cavemen stood toe to toe and exchanged blows that would have killed anybody else but them. The crowd was now just twenty thousand lunatics and the noise awoke our friend behind us, Mr. Intoxicated. This hard-boiled young man blinked his eyes, looked up at the two panting, wildly punching warriors whose efforts had the mob in a frenzy and remarked loudly: "They're just a couple of stallin' bums, Make 'em fight or throw 'em out!"

"My Gawd!" gasps Hazel. "You'd find fault with a lynching!"

But our critical friend was asleep again.

When Hershel came staggering to his corner at the end of the first round, honestly, he was as weak as a cup of boarding-house tea. He had hit the floor either five

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 or thirty-six times and looked every inch of it. Ike disgustedly waved a towel in front of his brother's bruised face while the other seconds sponged off his reddened and heaving body.

"If you'd bore in there like I tell you, you'd put this feller avay!" says Ike to Hershel. "Vot's the matter from you—couldn't you hear me? This tremp don't like it—bore in there and stay close vit him!"

"Huh?" says Hershel, rolling his eyes glassily.

The bell cut off Ike's peevish oath.

Hershel gamely got to his feet and rushed to the center of the ring just in time to keep an engagement with One-Feint Heehaw's left glove. After carelessly ejecting a couple of teeth that were of no further use to him, Hershel looked wildly to his corner at Ike. "Bore in!" howls Ike. Instead, Hershel led with his chin to the point of Heehaw's right glove and then sat down quickly on the floor to think things over. He reached some sort of a hasty decision with regard to his future and was up at "nine," about as steady as a flagpole in a hurricane. One-Feint Heehaw sprayed him with punches and Hershel ran frantically backwards all around the ring. Ike seemed to be on the verge of a fit. "Oy!" he hollers. "Vot a fightaire—bore in, I tell you, bore in!"

For the first time that evening the good-natured Hershel got irritated.

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 "Say, leave me alone!" he pants. "How could I bore in vit a human buzz-saw like this feller? You should bore in vit him!"

This innocent answer seemed to get Ike red-headed. Before anybody had the faintest idea of what was in his mind, Ike jumps into the ring and caught Hershel with a terrible uppercut right on the jaw. Hershel went down as cold as a glance from a glass eye!

"That's the vay to bore in!" yells Ike hoarsely; and while the dumfounded crowd is still crazy at this amazing turn of affairs, a punch that One-Feint Heehaw had started for the inert Hershel caught Ike flush on the chin. Isaac flopped almost on top of his brother, a total loss. Mr. Pandemonium immediately took charge, Jerry and Pete hustled Hazel and me out with the aid of some hysterical coppers and that's the last I saw of the two Roses from that day to this!

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intelligent crack was originally whinnied eighteen hundred years ago by a snappy young Eyetalian limerick writer who I've decided to refer to as Juvenal, as that's how he referred to himself. By a strange freak of circumstances, I didn't have the pleasure of knowing Juvy personally, mainly because in the fiscal annum of 124 I was far too immature to go out with the boys. I absorbed the above poetry from a novel called "Satires", presented to me as an Arbor Day gift by one of my countless admirers at the Hotel St. Moe.

Really, giving me a book of poems is about five-eighths as sensible as sending passes for the Follies to the blind men's home. I'm not too ignorant to appreciate poetry, simply too busy. The only bound volume I get a chance to peruse in the day time is gotten out

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 by the telephone company and when the shades of night begin to fall—well, I generally have plenty other places to browse around in besides the pages of somebody's book, you know that!

Before I lost my literary complex I used to be crazy about reading, though—Honest to McAdoo, I was a regular addict! For no reason whatsoever, I bought whole armfuls of best sellers, encyclopedias and what-not, including those pamphlets on first-class etiquette containing the answers to such burning questions as "Should she have asked him in?" and "Does your face flame with shame when you can't figure out which fork to use on the salad?" Honestly, I even read history and similar dizzy fiction till I got all cultured up—and all fed up, too!

I get no more thrill anymore out of an evening with the classics than Noah would get out of an April shower. I think they're all blah, no fooling! You can figure me a total loss if you like, but I know plenty of people who don't say "ain't" or raucously gargle their consomme and yet suspect that Mr. Woolworth wrote "Nicholas Nickleby" and that Boccaccio is an Eyetalian pastry.

Then again, gentle customers, why should I fritter away my sparse spare moments trying to get synthetic experience and a second-hand kick out of antique books? From my perch on the hotel switchboard I

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 see a little more life daily than a judge and a little less than a taxi driver. Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, lawyer, doctor, merchant-chief—they all pass in constant review before me in the gorgeous lobby of the St. Moe.

But to get back to the topic of reading; magazines and newspapers are my favorite brain massagers, really. If you crave descriptions of life as it should be, the magazines will give you lots of service. If you want life as it is, the daily papers are on the job with drama, comedy, tragedy, romance and thrills—practically fresh every hour! The heroes and heroines are real people, even as you and I. The ambitions, success, griefs, adventures and mistakes of billionaire and bootblack are served up piping hot to feed your hungry curiosity. Especially the mistakes. How we do love to see each other slip on the banana peel Chance and fall in the mud puddle Disgrace. Monsier Juvenal had the right dope—the average human is a fool for scandal!

For instance, let's take Tommy Brown, née reporter for the Evening Wow. I say let's take him, "but it really borders on the brutal to pick on the boy further, for he spoke out of turn and New York took him plenty! However, Tom has one distinction that makes him stand out from the mob. He's absolutely the only living male in captivity that Hazel ever did anything for without a return—and she did that for me!

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 Hazel Killian is still in pictures, but Mr. Daft swears by his puttees and megaphone that she cannot troupe, as she can only think for about ten feet of film, but Hazel has two wonderful reasons for believing she'll sooner or later click on the screen—both reasons are usually encased in the modish champagne-colored silk stockings. In fact, Hazel's last heavy boy friend, broke in heart and in pocket trying to make her see matters his way, once dolefully remarked as he thoughtfully watched Hazel climb a Fifth Avenue bus that she should be arrested for carrying concealed weapons. My fascinating chum lays her failure to goal Mr. Daft to the fact that she once committed the mortal sin of uttering the adverb "No" in the projection room, the "Yes" men's paradise!

Well, nobody but a visitor from dear old Gehenn: can properly appreciate mid-summer in New York. Honestly, when Mr. Sun gets the proper range and bears down on Gotham along around August, you can light a cigarette from the pavements and get a coat of tan in the subways! So one torrid day when our jovial mayor had given Hon. Humidity the freedom of the city, I decided to stake myself to an afternoon off. Really, I just had to abandon that switchboard, for one more "Is it hot enough for you, girlie?" would have driven me twelve feet past insanity!

When I arrived at our fashionable uptown apartment

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 —ahem!—I found friend Hazel in a tantrum. We usually keep several tantrums handy, it's a well-appointed place.

Being temporarily fluent with money, we had advertised for a maid to do the cleaning, answer the bulk of Hazel's lavish phone calls and otherwise give us a fair break for about seventy-five a month. We should be annoyed about hoarding jack—you can't take it with you when you decease, because there's no pockets in a shroud!

Hazel leaped up in alarm when I let myself into our domicile.

"My Gawd! What are you doing home this early—did the St. Moe give you the air?" she gasps.

Wouldn't Hazel be a panic on a welcoming committee?

"Sit down and don't be so boisterous!" I says, throwing a twenty-dollar chapeau on what would be a chaise longue if it wasn't a sofa, "Haven't I got as much right to a holiday as you have? You act as if you were a guest here, or something!"

"I'm resting between pictures" remarks Hazel haughtily, striking a Ritzy pose.

"Listen, Hazel" I says, "Don't try to high-hat me—I knew you when you thought Caviar was a tenor! Did you manage to sign up a slavey this morning?"

This innocent question seemed to have the same

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 effect on our heroine that a sedlitz powder has on a glass of water. Honestly, she wheeled around on me in a young fury.

"Don't talk to me about maids!" she says angrily, "I've had all the charwomen this morning that I can take. If any more of 'em show up, you can entertain 'em!"

"There, there, little girl" I smiled, patting her on the shoulder soothingly. "Tell me your story—perhaps I can right the wrong and"

"Oh, cut the comedy!" Hazel rudely interrupts, wrenching away from me, "I'm in no mood for that applesauce now. I'm so steamed up I feel like kicking a few window-panes out, just to be nasty!"

"You're dizzy!" I says. "If you wish to confirm the neighbors' suspicions, there's much less costlier ways than that. Stop squawking and tell me what happened to you this morning—you've got me tantalized to death!"

"Well," says Hazel. "When no candidates appeared up to ten o'clock in answer to our ad, I decided to give this drum of ours a thorough cleaning myself—you needn't laugh, me and labor have met before! So I put on that old brown smock you insist should go to the Salvation Army, rolled up my sleeves and tied in. I was busy saying it with the vacuum cleaner when the first volunteer stabbed the doorbell. This entry, who

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 looked like she stepped right out of somebody's nightmare, was a gayly caparisoned importation from either Latvia or the one next to it. Her English wasn't much better than ours and"

"I love that!" I butted in, "Speak for yourself—there ain't a thing the matter with my grammar!"

"Yeah?" sneers Hazel, "Well, see if you can find 'ain't' in the dictionary! Anyhow, when I opened the door that complexion was still in the cans on the dressing table, the skin they love to touch was covered with soot, my hair was in an uproar and you know how that old torn smock looks. I admit I was exactly assembled for a dinner party at the Ambassador. Well, this immigrant takes one long, lingering look at me, sticks up her nose and before I can proposition her she flounces out, remarking that she's not going to work for nobody that looked worse than she did herself!"

Oo la la! I can imagine how that crack ruined the highly self-satisfied Hazel!

"Well, don't cry," I says, "As Congress tells the Japanese, it's all in fun! Suppose we go down to one of the beaches and see if we can foil this heat. It must be all of a hundred and eighty in the shade, really!"

"We'll never have any decent weather as long as the forecaster's job is a political appointment!" says Hazel, "But that beach idea of yours is the elephant's brassiere. Let's go down and teach the fishes how to swim. Warm

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 puppy! I'm full of pep and no control! I just bought a bathing suit that"

"I saw it" I interrupted, "And you'd better take along enough change to pay your fine. All that costume conceals is your religion!"

"Is that so?" says Hazel, curling her lip, "Well, that sea-going negligee of yours is one garment that calls for beauty—and courage—on the part of its wearer, believe me!"

"What of it?" I asked her "Haven't I got enough of both?"

"Don't let's fight" yawns Hazel, "It's too hot."

Well, as we can each dress as fast as any firemen in the world, we're motoring to Long Beach within the hour to find out for ourselves just what the wild waves were saying. Honestly, had I known what was going to happen to me, I'd have stayed home and listened to the rollers over the radio!

Leaving the bath house, dressed to thrill, we found the beach just littered with likely young men and that coincidence immediately removed Hazel's desire to plunge into the briny. Even I had to admit that my beauteous room-mate was something to think about in a bathing suit, especially, in that lo and behold one she was wearing. As far as that part of it goes, the boys didn't seem disposed to laugh me off either. Several masculine gasps of admiration—which we divided

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