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 of England occasionally dresses in that, and generally misplayed his hand till everybody was squawking and in no time at all Jimmy Burns was about as popular as a mad dog in the St. Moe hotel. He failed to go through college like he promised he would, but he certainly went through everything else, and only for Guy, Jimmy would have been streeted fifty times a day!

The next desire that attacks James is the ambition to see his name in the newspapers, so he advertises for apress agent. The first publicity purveyor who showed up made James think he was good by using nothing but adjectives in his conversation and asking for a honorarium of $250 the week. Mr. Burns thought the salary was more than reasonable, but as he's the type that would ask Coolidge for a reference, he demanded one from the candidate for the job.

"You have asked the man who owns one—just a minute!" says the press agent cheerily, and not at all abashed he dashes out of the room. I heard all this when he stopped at my switchboard with Jimmy and asked me where the writing room was. In five minutes he's back, waving a paper in Jimmy's face.

"Look that over!" he says.

James read it out loud for my entertainment. According to this testimonial, the bearer had did about everything in the publicity line but act as press representative for a school where middle-aged eagles are

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 eaught how to fly. James seems to get quite a kick out of it.

"I think I'll take this guy," he remarks, as he looks up from the reference.

"Fine!" says the delighted applicant. "That's a good thought. I'll snap right into it and"

"Tomato sauce!" butts in James sneeringly. "I don't wish no part of you, the baby I want to hire is the bozo which wrote this recommendation of you. He's good, what I mean, a letter writin' idiot!"

"A bit odd that we should both be thinking the same thing," says Mr. Press Agent coolly. "As a matter of fact, I wrote that recommendation myself. So now that I'm engaged as your publicity expert, let me have a few of your photos and"

The following morning nearly every front page in town displayed a picture of James Burns and this glaring headline:

That was the press agent's first effort and, as far as I was ever able to see, his last. But it got ample results!

Within a week, Jimmy Burns had discovered what millions have discovered before his little day—that the mere possession of lucre does not mean happiness, and for some it means positive misery! Not only did

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 James become the prey of the charity solicitors, confidence workers, stock swindlers, "yes men," phoney promotors and other parasites that infest the hotel, but he was constantly in boiling water through his cuckoo escapades growing out of sudden wealth that sent his brains on location. After purchasing a diamond as big as Boston, only brighter, he bought the highest priced horseless carriage he could find in the market and the same identical day it slipped out of his hands and tried to climb the steps of the Fifth Avenue library. The gendarmes pinched him for reckless driving, though Jimmy protested that it wasn't really "wreckless" as he had plenty wreck, and his worship tossed the trembling James into the hoosegow for three days, remarking, "I'll teach you rich men a lesson!" Then the income tax beagles read that newspaper headline and came down on Burns like a cracked ceiling. So all in all, Jimmy was finding few chuckles connected with his pieces of eight.

When the rich but unhappy James got out of the Bastille, he decided to throw a party in his costly suite at the St. Moe for his former associates of the bellhops' bench. As Jimmy confided to me, apparently his only friend, he felt the immediate need of mixing with people who spoke his language. He wanted to forget his troubles and get back on a friendly footing with the boys, who had severed diplomatic relations with him on

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 account of his acting like he was Sultan of Goitre or something when he became a thousandaire over night. Jimmy felt that a first-class soirée would do the trick.

The party came off as advertised, but all it meant to the poor little rich man was more grief! It was really a respectable enough affair, no hats being broken or that sort of thing, and a pleasant time was had by all with the slight exception of the charming host. Our hero made two fatal mistakes. The first was not inviting Jerry Murphy and the second was laying in a stock of canny Scotch for medicinal purposes, in case any of his guests should get stricken with the dread disease of thirst. The result was that an epidemic of parched throats broke out early in the evening and pretty soon the other habitués of the St. Moe began complaining bitterly about the unusually boisterous race riot that was being staged with a top-heavy cast on the sixth floor, Mr. Williams, the manager, who liked Jimmy Burns and arsenic the same way, called upon Jerry Murphy to quell the disturbance and Jerry licked his lips with delight. The man-mountain house detective run all the way upstairs, figuring the elevators too slow to whisk him to a job as tasty to him as cream is to puss. Jerry pounded on the door of Jimmy's salon and demanded admittance. Recognizing his voice, James climbed unsteadily on a chair, opened the transom and peered with a rolling eye at Jerry.

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 "Go roll yer hoop—hic—you big shtiff, thish is gen'lmen's—hic—gen'lmen's blowout!" says Jimmy, carelessly pouring a pitcher of water, cracked ice and all, on Jerry's noble head. "Hic—shee kin you laugh that off!"

Foaming at the mouth and uttering strange cries, the infuriated Jerry broke through the door and the panic was on! The beauty and chivalry present fled before the charging sleuth like they'd flee before a charging hippo, but the unfortunate Jimmy got left at the post. After cuffing him around the room till the sport palled on him, Jerry dragged James off to durance vile and once again Jamesy is put under glass, this time credited with illegally—possessing spirits frumenti. They held him under lock and key all night and it took all of Guy Tower's influence and quite a few of his quarters to get Jerry to withdraw the charge and free Jimmy the next morning.

Well, honestly, I felt sorry for Jimmy Burns, who was certainly taking cruel and unusual punishment and being made to like it. I thought perhaps if I injected a lady into the situation it might make things a bit more pleasant for him, so I introduced Hazel Killian to the "millionaire bellboy," as the newspapers were still calling James. O sole mia! as they say in Iowa, what an off day my brain was having when it cooked up that idea! With visions clouding her usually painstaking

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 taste, of the Riviera, Paris, Monte Carlo, gems, yachts, Boles-Joyce limousines or what have you, Hazel took to Jimmy like a goldfish takes to a bowl and our evening expeditions now consisted of your correspondent and Guy, assisted by Hazel and Jimmy. We went everywhere together, with James insisting upon paying most of the bills. But while Jimmy was civil enough to Hazel, he simply showered his attentions on your little friend Gladys, grabbing every chance to make the most violent love to me. This greatly annoyed Guy and Hazel and equally greatly amused me—Jimmy was just a giggle to me, not a gasp!

In the meanwhile, Mr. Williams and Jerry Murphy had banded together to make James sick and tired of living in the Hotel St. Moe. He seldom found his room made up, there was always something wrong with the lights, the water and the steam, none of the help would answer his bells, and when he hollered for service he was told he would find it in the dictionary under S. But Pete Kift pulled the worst trick of all on him. With the radiant Hazel on his arm and Guy keeping military distance behind, Jimmy was proudly strutting through the lobby one fine evening. All were resplendent in evening clothes, and to show you I'm not catty I'll say that Hazel in an evening gown would attract attention away from the Yosemite. As the party neared the desk, Pete Kift suddenly looks at

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 Jimmy and bawls "Front!" at the top of his bull elephant's voice, and mechanically responding to the habit of a lifetime, poor Jimmy Burns grabs an amazed guest's suitcase and hastily starts for the elevator! The witnesses just screamed when they grasped the situation and recognized James as the ex-bellhop. Even Guy smiled, but it was different with Hazel, who could have shot down Mr. Burns on the spot in cold blood. As for Jimmy, well, honestly, he would have welcomed the bullet!

Nevertheless, in spite of this fox pass Hazel believed Jimmy had actually inherited an even million, and evidently James had not gone out of his way to make her think different. So one day Hazel tells me she's determined to make Jimmy her very own. When she adds that he has sworn to star her in a musical comedy or back her in a movie production, I nearly passed out! Can you imagine Jimmy, with only a few thousand left, making any such maniacal promises as that to a girl with a memory like Hazel's? Oo la la, what a fine disturbance James was readying himself for!

As I had vowed to say nothing about how Jimmy got his bankroll, I couldn't very well give the ambitious Hazel the lowdown on matters, but I did try most earnestly to lay her off him. I got nowhere! Refusing to be warned, Hazel point-blankly accused

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 me of having a yen for Jimmy myself, and then she set sail for this gilded youth in dead earnest.

Well, knowing nothing of Hazel's plans with regard to himself, the doomed Jimmy kept on entertaining like his first name was Astor, his middle name Vanderbilt and his last name Morgan. He took me, Hazel and Guy to the races at Belmont Park and stabled us all in a box. As James had loudly declared that he knew more about horses than Vincent Ibañez, we all played his feed box tips for five races and we learned about losers from him. When the sixth and last scramble arrived, Guy had donated $1,500, I had sent in $50, and Hazel had parted with $80 to the oral books and was fit to be tied! What Jimmy lost, nobody knows. Anyhow, he gazed over the program for the sixth race, a mile handicap, and suddenly let out a yell.

"Hot dog!" he says, much excited. "Here's where we all get independent for life! They's a beagle in this dash by the name of Bellhop and if that ain't a hunch then Pike's Peak's a pimple. Get down on this baby with the family jools and walk outa here rancid with money!"

We split a contemptuous grin between us and presented it to Jimmy before getting down on the favorite in a last attempt to break even on the day. Jimmy milled his way back to our box, flushed and panting,

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 and gayly announced that he had shot the works on Bellhop's nose. He said we were all paranoiacs for not doing the same. Well, it was all over in a twinkling! The favorite found the handicap of our bets a bit too much and finished an even last. Bellhop tripped the mile in something like 0.96 and won from here to the Ruhr, clicking off $15,000 for Mr. James Joseph Aloysius Burns. James then announced his intention of buying the horse and presenting it to Hazel for Arbor Day, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that me and Guy talked him out of it. Hazel gave us a murderous glare and for the rest of the day you couldn't have got a nail file between her and Jimmy, honestly!

Whirling back to New York in Jimmy's car, now steered by a uniformed chauffeur, I began to reprove James for this gambling and stepping out when he should be using his money and time to secure his future. What about all his promises to me? How about all the big things he was going to do? When was he going to enter business, or whatever he thought he could do best?

"Don't make me laugh!" says Jimmy, tapping an imported cigarette on a solid gold case. "I'm sittin' pretty. What a sucker I'd be to pester myself about work when I got all this sugar!"

"Of course," says Hazel, nestling closer to him. "Imagine a millionaire working!"

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 And the only thing that really burned me up was Jimmy's grin at Guy and the sly dig in the ribs he gave me, the little imp!

Well, from then on Jimmy had lots of luck and all of it bad. The fellow who invented money was a clever young man, but he really should have stayed around the laboratory for another couple of hours and invented an antidote for the trouble it brings. The well-to-do ex-bellhop used his jack as a wedge to get into one jam after another, till finally came the worst blow of all, and Miss Hazel Killian delivered it.

It seems that Hazel got fatigued waiting for Jimmy to unbelt the roll and star her in a musical comedy or a super-production, so she requested a showdown. Jiminy checked up and discovered he had blown all but about five thousand of his ill gotten gains, and as trustworthy reports had reached him that it would take about ten times that much to group a show around the beauteous Hazel, he calmly told her all bets were off. Hazel promptly fainted, but Jimmy's idea of first aid being an alarmed glance and a dash for the door, she quickly snapped out of it and demanded ten thousand dollars for the time she put in entertaining him.

"Aha—a gold digger, hey?" says Jimmy indignantly. "So you wish ten grand for entertainin' me? Where d'ye get that stuff? They ain't no ten thousand dol-

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 lars' worths of laughs in you for me, I'll tell the world! Take the air!"

Infuriated beyond speech, Hazel brought suit for $100,000 against James the following day, charging that promising young man had promised to wed her. Further, deponent sayeth not!

That was the end of the high life for Jimmy Burns. Honestly, he was scared stiff and he got little comfort from me, for I was absolutely disgusted with the way he had carried on from the time Guy gave him that money. Opportunity had knocked on this little fool's door and he had pretended he wasn't at home. Not only that, but I felt he had got me in wrong with Guy Tower, whose $25,000 investment for a plot now seemed a total loss. I told Guy tearfully how sorry I was that my scheme had failed to pan out, but he cut me off in the middle of my plea for forgiveness, his face a mass of smiles.

"My dear girl, you owe me no apology," says Guy, patting my shoulder. "It is I who owe you a debt of gratitude. I've written a farce-comedy around Jimmy's adventures with the twenty-five thousand, and Rosenblum predicts it will be the hit of the season! I've never seen him so enthusiastic. Your idea was more than successful, and Jimmy is welcome to whatever he has left of the money when the time limit expires!"

Wasn't that lovely?

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 In the meantime, the miserable Jimmy had tried to forget his worries again by mixing with his former fellow workmen about the hotel. Jerry Murphy and Pete Kift wouldn't give him a tumble, so he sat on the bellhop's bench all night, trying to square things with his ex-playmates. But now that he was a "millionaire" they put on the ice and treated him like a maltese would be treated at a mouse's reception.

A great longing comes over Jimmy to be a carefree bellboy again, without the burden of wealth. He felt the irresistible call of the ice water, the stationery and the tip! So, unable to lick the temptation, he sneaked the baggage of a few guests upstairs and was promptly run out of the hotel by the other boys for poaching on their preserves. To make things perfect, a couple of days later he was served with the papers in Hazel's suit.

Unable to cope with the situation and hysterical with fear, Jimmy rushed to the switchboard and made an appeal to me that would have melted a Chinese executioner. He placed the blame for the trouble he was in on my georgetted shoulders—manlike—and insisted that I had to get him out of the mess. The legal documents Hazel had him tagged with smacked to the terrified Jimmy of pitiless judges, stern juries, jail—perhaps even the gallows! Honestly, James was in fearful shape, no fooling. I shut off his moans finally, and told

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 him to get rid of whatever money he had left and I would take on myself the horrible job of explaining everything to Hazel. With a wild whinny, Jimmy dashed out of the hotel without even thanking me, gambled his remaining ducats in one wild stock market plunge—and two days later the ticker informed him that he was worth $25,000 again!

But money was now smallpox to Jimmy Burns. It was just three weeks and four days since Guy Tower gave him the original $25,000, and under the agreement Jimmy still had three days left to splurge. Nothing stirring! What he wanted to do now was to get rid of his wealth, as I had told him Hazel's barristers would never let her sue him should they find out the defendant had no more nickels. Jimmy wanted to go to law with Hazel the same way he wanted to part with his ears, so he busts in on Guy and tells him to take back his gold because he don't wish any part of it. Before the astonished Guy can open his mouth, Jimmy hurls twenty-five one thousand dollar bills on the table and flees the room!

Well, being an important customer of the St. Moe, Guy got Jimmy back his old job hopping bells, broke, but happy for the first time in a month. Then Guy insisted on me accepting a small royalty from his play for producing Jimmy Burns as the plot. That left everybody taken care of but the raging Hazel, who de-

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 clared herself off me for life and was packed and ready to leave me alone in New York. Guy solved that problem and made Hazel crazily happy by engaging her to play herself in his comedy, "Money to Burns."

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of the other nights me and Hazel went to see an endless reel super-production called "Murdered in Fun!"—one of these movies where "the audience stood up and cheered," according to the advertisements. Well, about the middle of this deliberate insult to the adult intelligence, Hazel and me stood up and jeered, departing for the great outdoors with most of the other indignant patrons of the mute drama. Calling this magic lantern atrocity terrible would be giving it a boost, no fooling!

The scenarioof "Murdered in Fun!" was remembered by a first-class maniac named Galahad O'Mercy and it had everything in it but the Johnstown Flood. It was one of these mystery pictures where suspicion is sprayed on everybody in the cast and then at the welcome finish you find out it was really the camera man who shot the old banker right in the library. But honestly I wasn't fooled a bit when the web of circum-

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 stance was wove around the hero, heroine, comedian, ingénue and so forth to make each appear to be the criminal. Personally, I suspected the producers of the film!

But speaking of detectives reminds me of Oliver Thurston, and what Oliver Thurston reminds me of I am much too ladylike to mention. However, after I tell you about him, maybe you can guess it.

To begin with, Thurston was a jig-saw puzzle to me from the first, and generally I can read the sturdy menfolk with one swift glance. Oliver just didn't click with me, and somehow he seemed all wrong for a first-class, blown in the flask, Simon-pure sleuth! This gentleman didn't check up like the gum shoes of the books, plays and movies a-tall. He should have been middle-aged, slightly gray and stoop-shouldered, wearing horn-rimmed cheaters, packing a magnifying glass and a bulldog pipe, dressing in fearful taste and being slightly more bashful than a rabbit. Instead of that, Thurston was tall and broad-shouldered, a regular fashion plate, handsome in a cold-eyed, man of the world manner and about as timid as a hungry lion in a sheep pen. He was passionately in love with himself and took it for granted that everybody else was, too.

Around the St. Moe they certainly gave him ample reason to think he was good, the awed hired help treating him with a reverence that burned me up. Honestly,

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 he had 'em buffaloed, but it was different here! Before he'd been registered a week he fell right in line, filing his application to take me out, donating candy and flowers and stalling around the switchboard till the other girls were gnashing their teeth with envy. They said Thurston was just grand. I thought he was apple sauce, and from my actions he must have thought I was as cold as Nanook's nose. Without being able to put my finger on the reason, I just didn't like him. You've met people like that, haven't you?

One morning the newspapers are full of a big diamond robbery that baffles the local police. Jerry Murphy, moored at my board as usual, points to the headlines in a paper which, with the copper's instinct, he's carrying rolled up like a club.

"They'll never nail them babies," he says scornfully. "This is the softest slab in the world for a crook. When I think 'at I'm slavin' away keepin' law and order in this cave for a hundred and twenty bucks the month and a swell mob can go down in Maiden Lane and glom ninety grand for a few minutes' work, it's all I can do to keep honest!"

"What gives you the crazy idea that you're honest," I says, "when you're taking thirty dollars a week from this hotel for hanging around my switchboard all day? What a swell detective you are! All you've shown me since I've been here is that you got adenoids!"

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 "Is it my fault 'at they don't pull off a big job in this joint and give me a chance to display my wares?" says Jerry indignantly. "I only wish I could lure a flock of high-class crooks in here and I'd show you some stuff, Cutey! But you can't get the boys within radio distance of the St. Moe since I been on the job. The word's went out through them secret underground channels 'at Jerry Murphy, the new Sherlock Holmes, is on watch at the St. Moe, and they duck this place like the outside was nothin' but smallpox signs! Why, say, Cutey, when I was on the po-lice force I was the gossip of New York. Remember 'at fatal trunk murder on Tenth Avenoo about twenty years ago?"

"No, you big goof," I says angrily. "Twenty years ago I was busy being born!"

"Well, even so, you must of heard the nurse talkin' about it," says Jerry unruffled. "It was the mest sensational murder since the Custer massacre and as full of mystery as boardin' house hash, I was only a young rookie copper, crammed with ambition and brighter than Jackie Coogan. For a month you couldn't pick up a newspaper without findin' my name in it!"

"For catching the murderer?" I asks breathlessly.

"For lettin' him go," says this clown coolly. "I nailed him as he run out of the house and the big stiff talked me out of it! Say, can I throw a party for you some night this week?"

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 "Nothing stirring, Jerry!" I says firmly. "I've told you that before. I can't afford to be pegged bounding around with you while we're both working here. It would cause embarrassing talk in the hotel and"

At's all right, Cutey," butts in Jerry soothingly. "Don't you worry your pretty head about them embarrassin' me. If any of these monkeys sees us playin' around I'll say it wasn't you at all I was with, but some other crazy admirer of mine. By the way, I see this Mr. Thurston is givin' you quite a play."

I looked up in surprise because, honestly, that was the first time I had ever heard the hard-boiled Jeremiah call anybody "Mister" since I've been one of the show places of the St. Moe. Jerry would address President Coolidge as "Cal," no fooling!

"Thurston would give any woman a play, Jerry," I says contemptuously. "He's just like you—always looking for the best of it. The next time you see him parked at the board here you have my permission to chase him!"

"I think you're out of order there, Cutey," says Jerry seriously. "Mr. Thurston is a high-class fellah, what I mean, and the rumor around here is 'at he's a perfect gent. And if 'at ain't sufficient, he's one of the greatest detectives which ever solved a bafflin' mystery from one look at the murdered man's sleeve garters! Nobody's hep to what he's here for, because like all

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 guys which knows their business he's under cover, but you can gamble it's big stuff. Prob'ly got somethin' to do with 'at diamond robb'ry. All I got to say is if he's after them mugs they might as well confess. He's the bat's larnyx, I'll tell the cross-eyed world!"

"Oh, be yourself!" I says impatiently. "I never heard of Thurston till he blew in here, and I don't believe anybody else ever heard of him either, outside of his parents. What mysteries did he ever solve? He looks like a big false alarm to me and if he doesn't keep away from me I'm going to send you out for a cop and have him put under glass for a while!"

"Well," says Jerry thoughtfully, "he may look all wrong to you, but he looks like a million to me in 'at swell scenery he wears. I only wish I had the art of dressin' like 'at baby does! He sure wears a wicked tuxedo. Nevers the less, should he speak out of turn with you, Cutey, I'll smack him down, and 'at goes for Jack Dempsey?"

At this critical minute who should come along but the very person we're talking about. Not Jack Dempsey, but Oliver Thurston. He curls: his lip contemptuously when he sees Jerry, but our charming house sleuth greets the private detective like a dog greets its master. Really, I thought for a minute Jerry was going to tip his derby to this big fathead, and 1f he had I would have crowned him with my inkwell!

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 Jerry didn't linger long now that the great Thurston was on hand, but found himself needed in a place called Elsewhere. The second he waddled away Thurston bends over the board.

"If that big animal is annoying you, Gladys," he says, throwing his chest out a foot, "I'll be pleased to take him outside and give him a thrashing he'll never forget!"

Sweet spirits of niter! Both of these huskies ready to leap at each other's throats at a word from me! Don't you love that? I felt like the heroine in a movie—a very dull movie.

"You needn't commit suicide on my account," I says coldly. "Jerry Murphy may have plenty to learn about this and that, but he's nobody's fool in a rough and tumble. I've seen him go and I'd advise you not to choose him!"

Then I reached over and threw my fur about my shapely shoulders. I was very properly dressed, but georgette is rather sheer and with Thurston's eyes—beady even when he smiled—boring through it I honestly felt positively naked! I loathe men who look at you like that, don't you?

"I don't think I should have much trouble with Murphy, in spite of his prowess," sneers Thurston in an affected drawl. "Eh—I was a champion amateur boxer at one time, you know."

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 "Fawncy that!" I drawled back. Then I looked him up and down with a cold smile and added, "You hate yourself, don't you?"

Thurston frowns, and honestly his eyes become slits.

"Why are you so antagonistic to me?" he asks, like he can't understand how anyone can't resist him. "Don't you like me?"

"Do you expect me to leap up and kiss you?" I says evasively.

"Stranger things could happen," he remarks, with what I bet he thought was a killing smile.

"But not to me!" I snapped. "I don't like to slam the door in your face, but really I must ask you to shove off. It's against the rules for us girls to kid with the customers, and if you don't go away you'll get a ticket for violating the parking ordinance here."

"Will you dine with me tonight?" he asks eagerly.

"Mr. Thurston," I says, "I might as well tell you once and for all that I wouldn't go out with you if it was a felony not to. As who's this says, 'You may be all the world to your mother, but you're an awful bust to me!

"Is that so?" softly says Thurston, but he's fit to be tied—I can see it. "Is that so? Well, I'll make you a little wager that I'll take you out within a month!"

"Blaah!" I says politely. "You sound like a scenario, Step into number four booth, please!"

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 "Why?" he asks, a bit puzzled.

"I've got your number!" I says sweetly, and turned my back to him.

That was the beginning of one of the most exciting adventures I've had in an exceedingly exciting life!

Amongst the inmates of the St. Moe was Abigail Monkton, a charming tot of some fifty hard winters, enjoying the delights of her second childhood. Abigail was richer than a cup custard and as foolish as you'll find 'em outside of a sanitarium. Among the things Miss Monkton had failed to do in the mad rush and bustle of living was get married, and she was now making a frantic attempt to rectify that annoying error. Abigail was staging a stand against the ravages of time that proved she was as game as she was silly. Her weapons in a futile daily battle against the advancing years were rouge, powder, mascara, belladonna, lip sticks, expensive wigs, extreme clothes, much display of jewelry, ceaseless massages and manicures, baths of every known variety in the deadfalls called beauty parlors, and instruction in the latest dance steps from all the best known masters but St. Vitus.

Well, this gold-plated old maid was a scream to my little playmates of the telephone switchboard, but honestly Abigail was too tragic to me to be just a giggle. I pitied her, in spite of the fact that her continual "girlie" and "dearie" got on my nerves plenty.

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 Likewise I was a bit steamed up about her for making my popular sex ridiculous by going boy-crazy at fifty. She specialized in advice to the lovelorn, inviting the confidences of the other girls at the board and listening as breathlessly as a chambermaid at a keyhole to their alleged adventures and difficulties with their Johns. Realizing that Abby got quite a kick out of this stuff, these impish young ladies took the brakes off their lively imaginations, enjoying her eager attention just as much as she enjoyed their cuckoo stories—which was ample! Old enough to be their grandmother, Abby always addressed the bunch as "we girls," and when I bawled 'em out for kidding Old Mother Goose with their fairy tales they told me to tend to my own activities, because it was all fun and Abigail was a find that they didn't intend to lose now that they had her all built up. They could always put the bee on her for pin money between pay days, and an especially good love story in which one of 'em played the wronged victim would bring a hat or a gown from the champion listener of the world. Terrible, weren't they?

Being twice as flirtatious as Potiphar's wife, Abigail knew where the sterner sex gathered and honestly she lingered around the switchboard like the odor of boiled cabbage in a Sixth Avenue kitchenette. She vamped one and all, featuring coy glances and kittenish snickers, to the great entertainment of the males. But as I

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 feared, it was Oliver Thurston that goaled her. One glance at the handsome Nick Carter and Abby was overboard!

With a cynical grin I watched her set sail for him, and while her work was fearfully crude and amateurish, I must say she got results. Edging up beside Mr. Detective one day when he was making a stall of looking up a name in the phone book so he could pester poor little me, Abigail's first imitation was to cough and drop her handkerchief. That's all been done away with in the new rule books. Following a life-long and expensive habit, Thurston turned his comely head at the feminine cough, immediately seeing the bit of silk on the floor and the "you-chase-me-and—I'll-chase—you" expression on Abigail's face. His own features were a three-second movie, really! A harsh laugh stopped at his tonsils and his cold, rather cruel eyes narrowed. Then off comes his chapeau, as with a drawing room bow and a dazzling smile he recovers the handkerchief and returns it to the delighted Abigail Monkton.

Thus began Abigail's mock romance, caused by Cupid changing from an angel-eyed chubby little darling to a hard-faced, devilish little brat!

After that day Thurston seemed as unable to keep away from Abby as a sardine is unable to keep away from a can. They were always meeting in the lobby and the wires between their rooms were busier than

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 Busy himself. The other girls were convulsed by the stuff they eavesdropped, but honestly I wouldn't be bothered listening in to any sweet nothings passed between a Romeo of thirty and a Juliet of fifty, if you know what I mean. However, I did kid Thurston once about his affair of the heart, as they say in Guatemala, and his reaction surprised me. Instead of laughing it off, he told me very seriously that Abigail was delightful and dwelt on her charms to such an extent that I soon stopped smiling and became very, very thoughtful. When I saw them having tea together on the roof garden later, with Abigail gazing into Thurston's eyes as if they were a couple of suppressed novels, I began to speculate in earnest on just what the big boy's racket was.

The mysterious private detective's attentions to the simpering foolish virgin didn't seem to slow up his ambitions in my direction a particle, though whenever dear old Abby was in the immediate vicinity Thurston throttled down and became merely polite to me. This amused me so highly that simply because I didn't like his work I made matters harder for Oliver Thurston by flirting outrageously with him the minute Abby came near the switchboard and refusing even to talk to him when she was nowhere to be seen.

Then one bright morning Abigail hurls the fashionable St. Moe into a turmoil by excitedly dashing into

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 the manager's office and loudly squawking that her $100,000 pearl necklace has been abducted from her boudoir. Honestly, she made more noise than a dress rehearsal of a lynching about losing this gewgaw, and in spite of the frantic efforts of the hotel management to keep the thing quiet, why, the thrilling news seeped out and the panic was on. Anyone who can keep a matter like that a dark secret in a large New York hotel can also make a stone bleed to death!

Well, for the next few days you couldn't turn around in our well known inn without bumping into a plain-clothes man, a reporter or a photographer. This got Mr. Williams, the manager, red-headed, but it tickled Abigail silly. Honestly, she was having the time of her life, giving out interviews and posing for newspaper pictures all day long. When public interest in the robbery seemed to be dying down, Abby hauled off and offered a reward of $10,000 for the return of her necklace and that started something!

For one thing, it threw a pair of people right into the spotlight and put it up to them to make good or turn in their shields as detectives and forever hold their peace. The two were Jerry Murphy, our noble house gum shoe, and Oliver Thurston, the private pussyfooter. Jeremiah promptly swelled all up like a sprained ankle and told the world fair that the ten thousand was the same as in the bank to his account, as he had every

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 intention of restoring the pearls and jailing the thief over the week-end. Nobody gave poor Jerry a tumble, beyond telling him he was a comic opera detective and to keep his nose out of the case as he'd only make a bad matter worse. It was Mr. Oliver Thurston who got the undivided attention of one and all. Here was the big chance for him to prove that he meant something, and the habitués of the St. Moe, positive he was bonded goods, sat back expectantly to watch him do his stuff.

But to everybody's astonishment, Thurston seemed only mildly concerned about Abigail's robbery and made little or no comment on it, intimating that million dollar thefts and unusual murder mysteries were more in his line. So lordly was his manner that this explanation evidently satisfied and impressed the rest of em, but it was the turkey's fountain pen to me! The first chance I got I asked this so called clue collector how come he wasn't functioning in the great $100,000 pearl necklace mystery. Thurston smiled carelessly and flicked the ash off his cigarette with a carefully manicured nail.

"In the first place, my dear girl," he says, pushing back a yawn, "nyther Miss Monkton nor the hotel management has retained me in the matter, and in the second place"—another flick of his cigarette ash—"eh—in the second place, I am not particularly interested in petty larceny!"

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 "Tomato sauce!" I says sarcastically. "I suppose you could ponder all night and yet not find use for that ten thousand dollars' reward, eyether?"

"The reward doesn't attract me," says Thurston coolly. "You do—which is why I am here instead of idiotically dashing around hunting the thief like that fool Murphy. Another thing, my dear girl, I never take a case because of a reward. That is for amateurs. If the hotel or Miss Monkton wishes my services in recovering her necklace, they may be obtained at any time on my usual terms."

"Fair enough," I says. "But personally, I wouldn't have your services in anything on any terms. I think you're the bunk, I do for a fact!"

Thurston smiled, but with his lips only. His eyes looked stilettos at me, really!

Well, Jerry Murphy's attempts to make a name for himself as a thief-catcher will be remembered at the St. Moe for many a year. For a week Jerry was busier than an epileptic bill-poster on a windy day, and at the end of that time he hadn't found Abigail's necklace, but he had lost his job! He sent Abby right up in flames with personal questions as to how she lost the necklace, suspected everybody in the hotel as the robber, gave the indignant guests the third degree, till in forty-eight hours sixty cash customers had checked out of our hostelry foaming at the mouth, busted into the rooms

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 at all hours of the day and night hunting clues, fingerprinted the entire staff and all the guests who would stand for it, and at one time or another tried to pinch the entire ship's company at the St. Moe.

Thurston seemed to get more unholy fun out of Jerry's clowning than anyone in the hotel, and the way this big goof baited Jeremiah was positively brutal. He'd wink at me and call our light-brained house detective aside, filling him full of crazy suggestions for catching Abigail's burglar, and where anybody else would have run Thurston bow-legged, the awed Jerry eagerly followed these tips with the result that he was in hot water as often as steam is.

About this time Miss Abigail Monkton, the elderly charmer of a thousand surprises, sprung a fresh sensation. Three or four weeks after her necklace disappeared, she stopped at the switchboard one day all excited.

"Have they found your necklace yet?" I asked her for the 'steenth time.

"No!" says Abigail, with a grimace that threatened her facial enamel. "My dear, I'm positively disgusted with the police and that impossible Murphy creature. Positively dis-gus-ted! Beyond subjecting me to imbecilic and insulting cross-examinations, they have done nothing. Ab-so-lute-ly nothing! But s-s-sh! May I trust you not to repeat something?"

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 "I keep a mean secret!" I says.

"Well," says Abigail smilingly, "I have engaged Mr. Thurston to catch the thief and solve the mystery of my missing necklace. What do you think of that?"

"I don't think you could have engaged anyone who knows more about it!" I says, with deliberate significance.

Abby checks a smile, frowns and looks at me queerly. "Just what do you mean by that remark?"

"Why—er—I mean—er—I think Mr. Thurston is just the man to cope with a mystery of this kind," I told her, covering up. "But he's quite expensive, isn't he?"

This time Abigail's face was just the background for a large, happy grin.

"Mr. Thurston's services are not costing me a penny!" she simpers. "Not one penny. You see—I—we—oh, congratulate me, girlie, we're engaged!"

Good night!

"Do you actually mean to tell me that big—er—that Mr. Thurston has proposed marriage to you?" I asked, in a faint voice.

Abigail saw that I was a bit upset over the news, but she misguessed the reason.

"There, there—don't be downcast, dearie," she says soothingly. "I know all you girls must have had fond hopes in Oliver's direction, he's so thrillingly hand-

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 some and clever, isn't he? But cheer up, maybe some other Oliver will come along and—who knows?"

I felt like telling her you could get Oliver Thurstons for a dime a dozen and that I'd think that price exorbitant. I wanted to warn her that this patent-leather haired, sleek young vulture was a type as familiar to me as the subway and that I gave his superiors the air every day. But what would be the use? Already filled with the maniacal idea that every girl in the hotel was jealous of her charms, putting in the rap for Thurston would only make her more in love with him than ever and less in love with me. So as I frequently use my head for more than a hat rest, I kept my little mouth shut and let nature take its course!

But as for this Thurston Don Juan—well, honestly, I was simply furious at him! The very idea of his trying to take me out, when all the time he was scheming to marry this silly old maid for her doubloons! The more I thought matters over the more I was determined to punish this fellow, and that brought me around to thinking of Abigail's robbery. All of a sudden I made up my mind to solve the mystery of the missing necklace myself! That ten thousand dollars' reward would make at least one of my daytime dreams come true, and at the same time I could help Jerry Murphy come back.

Having been rubbed off the payroll by the disgusted

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 hotel management, poor Jerry was forlornly hanging around outside the St. Moe like a lost sheep. Well, I decided that I'd help him regain his job and former glory by giving him a chance to steal the private detective's thunder. Having that all settled in my mind, I smoothed back my hair and went to work!

The first thing was to find out what, if anything Thurston had discovered in the way of clues pointing to who stole the necklace, so I began alternately flirting with him and riding him hard on his failure to show some results. But Abigail's boy friend was so madly infatuated with himself that he accepted my attention as no more than his due, and when I switched to sarcasm it rolled off his egotism like water off an oilskin. Finally, however, he began to respond to treatment, and one day he point blankly declared he had solved the mystery. He made that interesting statement with so little of his usual bluster that somehow I instantly believed him.

"Who's the thief?" I asked excitedly.

Thurston smiled mysteriously.

"Ah!" he says, "that will indeed surprise you, my dear girl. So will the solution of this unusual case. I expect to make an arrest within twenty-four hours, and when I do—well, to say you will be astonished would be making a most conservative statement!"

"Yes, yes—go on!" I begged. "If you don't tell me

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 who stole that costly bauble from Abigail's alabaster neck, I'll perish of excitement!"

And really I was no more than half kidding, at that!

"I wouldn't have you perish for worlds," says Thurston, leaning over the board. "But it's much too long and too interesting a tale to relate here and now. Dine with me tonight and I promise you a story as fascinating as yourself!"

I know that curiosity killed the cat, but I am no cat and here was the chance I had played for. I promptly said I'd go and the sudden glitter in Thurston's eyes actually made me shiver!

When I went off duty at five that afternoon, the disconsolate Jerry was parked outside with the doorman as usual. I called a taxi and told Jerry to get in it with me, and although our ex-house detective looked plenty puzzled, he leaped inside with astonishing speed. Jeremiah started right in making love to me but I quickly stopped that part of it and told him where I was going, why I was going and what I wanted him to do. With the dumb, unquestioning obedience of those born to obey orders, Jerry placed himself at my commands. He had the pawn ticket for the tuxedo he'd been compelled to wear when on night duty at the St. Moe, and when we reached my flat I staked him to twenty-five dollars and sent him home to climb into the tux after letting a barber have his way with his face

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 and hair. Then I bribed Hazel Killian to dress and accompany Jerry to the Palais, where Thurston was taking me to eat, drink and be merry. Thurston had never met Hazel and I figured if there was a girl with Jerry when Thurston saw him at another table, he wouldn't be unduly suspicious.

I put on my war paint, had my blonde tresses dressed, arrayed myself in my most daring—and only—evening gown and sat down to wait for Mr. Oliver Thurston with about the same delightful anticipation that a spider watches the approach of a nice fat fly! Promptly at seven o'clock he appeared, and the soft whistle that accompanied the gleam in his eyes showed me that the time I had devoted to readying myself had not been wasted.

Although I liked him and measles the same way, I had to admit that Thurston in evening dress was no eye-irritant. It seemed to me that his cheeks were somewhat flushed and he was more talkative than usual, burning me up by acting as if I belonged to him from the time he arrived to the time we sat down in the Palais.

On the way to our table we passed Jerry and Hazel, but, as instructed, they didn't give us a tumble. Thurston saw them, however, and sneered.

"Where does that gil rate a snapper like that?" he says, nodding to the beautiful Hazel at Jerry's table.

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 "He's as out of place here as a celluloid suit would be in Hades?"

Honestly, I was so surprised by his language that for a moment I didn't do anything but stare at him! Around the hotel his English had been painfully correct; now, with a half silly grin on his flushed face and an unusual brightness in his eyes, he was as coarse and slangy as a bellhop.

After we ordered and Thurston drives me wild with embarrassment by loudly browbeating the waiter, I asked him who stole Abigail's necklace.

"All in good time, sweetie!" he says, leering at me. "All in good time. First we'll have a little snifter!"

With that he yanks a silver flask out of his hip pocket and pours me a generous drink, in spite of my protests. I didn't argue with him about it, as I didn't want to attract too much attention, but I did want Thurston to talk so I didn't object to him tossing off the swallow he had poured for me and another one, too. These two stiff jolts on top of what he'd already inhaled loosened him up considerably. His suave, polished, affected manner just melted away like fried ice and his real self came to the surface.

He scarcely touched his food, but lolled back in his chair looking me up and down and telling me over and over again what a knockout I was. I wanted to murder him, but I let him rave on in the hope of hearing about

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 Abigail's necklace, though his language and manner got rougher and rougher. He spoke of Jerry as a "dick," mentioned "harness bulls," referred to lawyers as "mouthpieces" and Sing Sing as "the big house." A strange premonition was slowly creeping over me and I listened to him with palpitating heart and bated breath. Then out of a clear sky came the fireworks!

Pawing across the table, Thurston managed to get hold of my hand.

"Listen here, beautiful," he says thickly. "Forget about that job of yours at the St. Moe. You got too much stuff to be answering phone calls at that trap, get me? S'pose you answer my calls for a while. I got important money and I'm going to get plenty more. I'll take you to Europe, and, girlie, we'll go places! I'll cover every inch of you with a jewel, show you some towns that would make New York look like Oshkosh, give you twice whatever you ask for! Will you play?"

I don't know what stopped me from slapping his face—I've done it for much less than that!

"What about Abigail Monkton?" I asked him, turning my face away so he couldn't see my disgust.

Thurston looked puzzled for an instant and then he threw back his head and laughed so uproariously that heads turned in our direction from near-by tables.

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 I caught Jerry Murphy's inquiring eye and signaled him to be ready!

"Abigail Monkton, eh?" says Thurston, wiping his eyes and then pouring himself another drink, "Well, sweetie, that dame is about the softest thing I've ever met up with in a mighty soft world! She's double cuckoo over your little boy friend and I'm all set to glom her rocks and do a vanishing act. I got that dizzy old maid jumping through hoops, no kidding! Why, she thinks I'm going to marry her, can you feature that?" He lowers his voice and leans over the table. "Listen, kid," he whispers. "She's got five hundred grand worth of jewelry that I can put my hands on tonight, and before she'd ever peg me we could be in Monte Carlo! When that dough runs out, we'll breeze over to London and I'll grab another Abigail. The world's full of that kind of dames, kid, just full of 'em, and there's never a chance of a pinch because they can't stand the exposure themselves, get me? I'll give you a square deal, sweetie, P'll—why, say, I'd even marry you if you insisted on it, that's how you got me jazzed up! Don't worry about Abigail making a squawk, either, she won't dare. Why, I took one of these female saps down the line in Nice about two years ago and"

Too full of Scotch to read the expression on my face, Thurston rattled on, boasting of his disgusting adventures with these silly old women while I listened speech-

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 less and wide-eyed, absolutely hypnotized with amazement and contempt!

Finally I got up enough nerve to ask him if he was the one who stole Abigail's necklace. This brought more laughs from my charming vis-à-vis.

"No, sweetness," he says, "I haven't nailed that—yet! She never lost it, what d'ye think of that? I told you I'd surprise you, didn't I? Well, get this—the old fool is crazy to see her name in the papers, so she frames up that robbery story. Then I was to solve the 'mystery' and she thought we'd get married, see? That would make a first-class romance from a newspaper angle—'Weds Sleuth Who Recovers Stolen Heirloom!' Can't you see the headlines?"

I had seen and heard enough—plenty! I stood up and called to the waiting Jerry, who came on the run.

"Arrest him, Jerry," I panted. "He's not a detective, he's a thief!"

When Jerry gruffly told this Sir Galahad he was pinched, really, I thought for a moment Thurston was going to knock me down, and I felt very faint and scared, but I held my ground. He seemed suddenly fairly sobered up by the shock as he glared at me ferociously and muttered something about "a woman and booze" having licked him. Jerry hustled him outside se quickly that only those right around us had even a hazy idea of what it was all about.

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 Once out in the clean open air, the somewhat puzzled Jerry asked me what was next on the program. Thurston had bragged about being an amateur champion boxer once, but a look at the grim-faced, scowling Jerry seemed to quell any ambitions he might have had to do any boxing right then! Calling a taxi, I told the chauffeur to drive to the nearest police station and Thurston laughed wickedly.

"Go ahead," he sneers. "You have nothing on me—not a single solitary thing! All you'll do is make your friend Abigail the laughing stock of New York, because if they hold me I'll spill everything, get me? That story about her pretending she was robbed will look nice in print and make the Hotel St. Moe crazy about her, won't it?"

Well, honestly, this gave me something to think about. After all, poor Abigail was one of my own sex. A silly old woman? Sure! But to me there was tragedy in the thing, too. I didn't fancy the job of letting the whole world know what a fool she had been—maybe there was another way out of the mess. Anyhow, I decided to leave Thurston's fate to her, so I rapped on the window and told the chauffeur to turn around and drive to the Hotel St. Moe.

The gorgeously attired Abigail's face was the playground of many emotions as we all stalked solemnly into her suite, telling her maid to stay outside. I

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 wasted no time in preliminaries, but told my story at once. I left out nothing, hating myself as I saw ten more years add themselves to her drawn features as she listened in stony silence. Jerry stopped Thurston's first interruption by hurling him into a chair, and there our villain sat in sneering quiet till I finished. The moment I stopped talking, however, he sprang to his feet and denied everything, telling Abigail I had made up my entire story out of jealousy because he had thrown me over for her!

Honestly, this astonishing statement and the cool way Thurston made it dumfounded me for a moment, and Abigail seemed to read my silence and the dazed expression on my face as an admission of guilt. She looked daggers at me and Thurston smiled triumphantly, stepping quickly to her side. But it was the usually slow thinking Jerry Murphy who came to my rescue and ruined Mr. Thurston. Jerry stepped forward, yanked out a brutal looking automatic and grabbed Thurston's arm.

"You and me is goin' down to Headquarters, fellah!" growls Jerry. "It's against the rules in this man's town to impoisonate a dick. Maybe after they fingerprint you and look up your Bertillon down there they'll want you to stick around for a while! Are you comin' quiet, or do you want me to bend this gun over your head? Makes no difference to me!"

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 Thurston got real pale and stared from Abigail to Jerry's set face. From there his frightened gaze fell upon me and I curled my lip at him, turning away in scorn. Then the phoney detective looked longingly at the windows—but we were twelve stories up! Suddenly he shook Jerry off and faced Abigail.

"All right, I'm licked!" he blurts out. "This woman has told you the truth!" He looks at me and his lips draw away from his flashing teeth. "If I had laid off the booze you'd never got hep to me in a million years, with all your smartness. As for this fellow here"—he nods contemptuously at Jerry—"he's a joke, that's all, a laugh! Well, now you got me, what are you going to do with me? It's a cinch Miss Monkton don't want me pinched. She don't want me to tell my story to the reporters, you can gamble on that part of it! Suppose we call it a stand-off and I'll duck the hotel. Fair enough?"

Really, it seemed a terrible crime to let this fellow walk out scot-free after all he'd done and tried to do to Abigail, yet that appeared to be the only thing to be done if she was to be spared the ridicule of the newspapers. However, the stunned Abigail, who had loved and learned, showed unexpected spirit at this critical point. She took a long, searching look at me—a look that began at the top of my blonde hair, traveled slowly

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 over me to the tips of my slippers and then went back again to my face. There was a kind of wistful admiration in her tired eyes. Then she walked over to the mirror and stared at her own aged and haggard reflection for a lengthy moment. There wasn't a sound in the room!

Abigail let forth a sigh that must have come from her very heels and slowly opened one of the windows. She looked so tragic and resigned I felt sure she was going to jump and I started over to her with Jerry, who had the same idea. But Abby waved us back with a queer smile, as if reading our minds. Bang! Out of the open window goes wig, beauty clay, rouge, powder, chin straps—everything! Off comes rings and bracelets and into a drawer with them. Next she snatches up a towel and vigorously rubs all the paint off her face, finally standing before us a plain, wrinkled gray-haired, disillusioned old woman, but there's a fiery sparkle in her rather nice eyes.

"That's that!" she says, in a firm voice that broke the unnatural silence. "I am finished masquerading—quite finished!" She looked at Thurston, who grinned callously at her, and a bit of natural color flushed her wan cheeks. "As for this contemptible creature who threatens me with ridicule if he is arrested—well, arrest him! I hope he gets a life sentence! Let him tell what he pleases, and I would like to see a metropoli-

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 tan newspaper print any reflection on me without proof!"

I ran over and threw my arms around her, and, darn it, I was the one to burst into tears!

"This way to the hoosegow!" says Jerry to Thurston. "Make it snappy!"

"You little, double-crossing" hisses Thurston at me.

"Ah!" roars Jerry, smacking his lips. "I been waitin' patiently for you to crack somethin', you yegg!"

Sock! Scrunch! Biff! . . . And Mr. Oliver Thurston instantly became unhandsome, undignified and unconscious!

At police headquarters they welcomed him later with open cells, quickly identifying him as being wanted in Des Moines, Chicago, Philadelphia and Walla Walla for similar swindles on similar foolish women. Abigail made Jerry and me split the ten thousand reward she had offered for the return of the necklace she never lost, saying we had earned it for exposing Thurston and saving the rest of her jewels. Jerry got back his job at the St. Moe, Abby went to Europe and a pleasant time was had by all.

Except Thurston!

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"Sweet is revenge—especially to women!"

The above remark, which, as I read it over, seems to have all the earmarks of a nasty dig at one of our most popular sexes, was pulled by no less than Lord Byron nearly a hundred years ago. I don't know which of his prolific affairs de heart the boy was trying to get out of when he sneered that one, but I do know that the talented peer said a mouthful!

I'm in a position to O. K. Byron's statement for two excellent reasons: First, I'm a woman; and second, I once had a generous portion of revenge, the saccharin taste of which is in my mouth yet! Please don't get the idea that I'm mean, I'm not, really. As a rule it's all fun to me and I want to see everybody get by. But when some impossible clown like this Grenadier Tompkins gets rosy with me, it's all different! Then I'm positively poison, as I'm sure the Grenadier will be glad to tell you—if he's regained consciousness yet. The last time I saw the perfectly priceless old thing he

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 was reclining at full length on the canvas at the National Sporting Club of jolly old London, as stiff as a head waiter's shirt. I put him there, with some kind assistance from Fighting Paddy Leary.

When he crossed my path, Monsieur Leary was just a nice young fellow who earned an honest living breaking noses. He was just one of a thousand others, with nothing about him that particularly stood out except maybe his ears, which bore a really clever resemblance to overripe cauliflowers. Well, I snatched him out of the mob and made him a king—king of the middleweight boxers!

I hope you won't think I'm in the habit of cuddling up to prize fighters, because nothing could be further from the truth, unless possibly one of Sinbad's travelogues. I'm no fight fan; honestly, I wouldn't trip across the street to see Dempsey versus two gorillas even if they gave the gorillas axes to even things up. In fact I still shudder when I think of Fighting Paddy Leary and Grenadier Tompkins, two young men who might have been useful bookkeepers or something, beating each other into a highly unpalatable Jelly in that London arena while a blood-thirsty crowd cheered them on. Heavens, what animals men are! Still, they're pretty good company.

There's an old saying that familiarity breeds contempt, and I guess the reason the male sex is just a

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 road show to me is because I see so many of the boys daily. Their constant attempts to get familiar with me is what has made me contemptuous—and plenty wary! I learned to say "No!" when I was fifteen. In that way I suppose I've missed plenty of laughs, but then think of the tears I've avoided!

As the result of rescuing Abigail Monkton from the clutches of Oliver Thurston, I won myself five thousand dollars. That kind of money might make Mr. H. Ford giggle, but what it made me do was gasp! It raised my bank account to $5,056.23 and gave me a chance to do something I'd been wanting to do for ages, i.e., take a voyage to Europe. Hazel Killian wanted to shove off, too. Her name was now up in the lights of a Broadway show, but still Hazel doesn't broad-A me, knowing that I can put on a bathing suit and ruin her!

Well, I casually mentioned our contemplated journey abroad to my boy friends, and honestly I was simply buried under a landslide of offers of escort and tickets. Old Mr. Rankin, the retired something or other, who has fifty-six dollars for every German in Berlin and evidently an unfulfilled yearning for each dollar, even tried to ply me with the use of his private yacht. I coldly turned everybody down because I never do that kind of stepping. But Hazel called me a sap for the ages and moaned bitterly when I rejected the pri-

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 vate yacht. I carefully described the look in the ancient mariner's fishy eyes when he made his generous proposition and Hazel laughed me off.

"You're dizzy!" she says. "That old Rankin is the real McCoy. I'll bet he's a gentleman and a scholar and that yacht has some well-stocked wine vaults aboard. We'd have the time of our lives without any hats broken or any harm in it at all!"

"He wants to go with us," I gently reminded her.

"I can take care of myself anywhere!" brags Hazel. "And for all you know, he may be just a nice old man who loves company."

"Be yourself!" I sneered. "Listen—I have had to get out and walk from nine million automobiles, Hazel, and I don't propose to get out and walk from a yacht!"

So that was all settled.

About ten days before we went down to the sea in ships I met Fighting Paddy Leary. I was breaking in the girl who was going to try and take my place while I was giving Europe a treat when a broad-shouldered, well-dressed young fellow came over to the switchboard. Really he wasn't bad looking, if you forgot about his battered ears and rather long nose.

"Good morning," he says. "Say, will you git me Columbus eight-six-seven-five-four-three and ask for Mister Vasiloff? V-a-s-i-l-o"

"V like in veal?" I interrupt his spelling.

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 "No," he says. "Not V like in veal—V like in Vasiloff!"

"What's the difference?" I says.

"Plenty difference," returns the handsome city chap without cracking a smile. "I don't wish no veal!"

"Pick up the marbles, you win!" I laugh. "V like in Vasiloff coming up. Who will I say wants to speak to this Irishman?"

"Fighting Paddy Leary," he says, a bit proudly.

At that I threw the laugh into high. "So your name's Leary, eh?" I says. "Well, I wish I had your nose full of nickels!"

Fighting Paddy returns my grin with interest. "My real name's Herschel Goldstein," he breaks down and confesses. "Now will you throw the voice with the smile into the phone and git me that number, or do I have to bring a note from my parents?"

I shoved in the plug. "Say—what's your racket?" I ask him, just for fun.

"I'm in the glove business, Good-lookin he says and hands me a card. So's you'll miss nothing, I want you to see it:

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 Don't you love that?

"What does that apple sauce mean at the bottom of the card?" I ask him. "I can't read Persian."

"Oh— ' Dieu et mon droit ' ?" says Fighting Paddy airily. "That's Frog for 'God and my right!' the motto of King Richard the First. I found that part of it out in the Fifth Avenoo lib'ry, where I hang out when I ain't boxin'. I get lots of laughs out of that hokum like 'Hamlet,' 'Three Weeks,' 'The International Cyclopedia' and the like. At the same time I'm educatin' myself, what I mean!"

"Fair enough," I says. "But what has all that got to do with your putting a king's motto on your business card?"

"Well," explains Fighting Paddy seriously. "King Dick's slogan seems to of been made to order for me! I also bank everything on God and my right—my right hook to the button! I don't know what kind of a puncher his highness was with his right, but when I sock 'em they stay socked, don't think they don't. That's a swell dress you got on, Blondie."

"Knowing how to wear your clothes runs in our family," I says. "My uncle on my mother's side was for years the best dressed fellow in the Larimer County almshouse."

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 "I think you're givin' me a pushin' around," says Fighting Paddy. "How 'bout a little service on that number?"

"They don't answer, King Leary," I tell him.

"Keep ringing' 'em," he says. "Maybe the bell will get on their nerves. And don't think you're kiddin' me with that king business, because before long I'll be a king in my line! If you ever get five minutes to yourself to scan the papers, you might of saw where I stopped Forty-two-Round Hogan over in Jersey just a week ago. Hogan was known far and wide as a glutton for punishment, but he couldn't cope with me. That's one glutton I give indigestion!"

"There's no use of you trying to sell yourself to me, king," I says. "Honestly, I know nothing about prize fighting."

"It ain't hard to learn," says Fighting Paddy. "There's only one rule which amounts to anything—keep' your shoulder blades off the floor. That's all there is to it, but try and do it! What I commenced to say was that by knockin' Forty-two-Round Hogan for a mock orange I get a fight with Grenadier Tompkins, world's middleweight champion. Two years ago I was that egg's sparrin' partner. One day I got sick of lookin' at him and smacked him dead in a trainin' bout. They throwed me out on my ear. A year later I boxed him a fifteen-round draw. I took him too

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 serious, trained too hard and left my fight in the gym. In London it'll be different and"

"In London?" I butt in.

"In London," says Fighting Paddy. "I'm supposed to step twenty frames with the champ at the National Sportin' Club there in less than a month. Til knock him for a loop in a couple of rounds and then I'll be king of the middleweights. I only wish you could be there to see me go!"

"I'll give you a laugh," I says. "Maybe I will see you go! I'll be one of London's show places myself in a couple of weeks. I'm going over with Hazel Killian. Maybe you've heard of her? She's"

"Heard of her?" interrupts Fighting Paddy with a wide grin. "Heard of her? Say—I was dragged up with her over on Tenth Avenoo! Ask her does she remember Nosey Goldstein, whose old man run the delicatessen. Ask her about Chuck Noland and Whitey Schmidt and Guinea Calamari and Mary McCann. We all played around together when we was kids. And say—it's a funny thing, but today every one of us has made their mark. I'm going to be middleweight king, Hazel's a Broadway star, Chuck Nolan's leadin' the National League in pitchin' and Whitey Schmidt's doin' a twenty-year rap in Sing Sing. We all got somewheres!"

Wasn't he a scream?

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 "It's funny Hazel never mentioned you to me," I says, when I stopped laughing.

"It'd be much more comical if she did!" says Fighting Paddy. "I guess she wouldn't give me a tumble these days. She's out in front and I'm nowheres—yet. But believe me, I'm proud of that girl, no foolin'. I've watched her leap from the magazine covers to the footlights as tickled as if she was my own sister! I'd sure like to see her before you take that boat ride. Maybe we could frame for the three of us to go places together in London, all bein' Americans alone in that slab. I'll git you a ringside box for my quarrel with Grenadier Tompkins and after I flatten him I'll throw a party which will put a permanent wave in your hair. What d'ye say?"

"Here's your Mister Vasiloff on the wire," I says. "Step into booth number three, please."

"Tell him to cut himself a piece of cake," says Fighting Paddy. "I can talk to that bozo any time! He's the guy manages my apartment houses. D'ye think Hazel will see me?"

"You own apartment houses?" I ask him.

"Absolutely!" says Fighting Paddy carelessly. "Two on West End Avenoo and one on Lenox."

"I'm positive Hazel will see you!" I says.

A couple of nights later I staged a dinner party at one of the popular and costly cabarets so's Fighting

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 Paddy Leary could meet this ex-Tenth Avenue playmate, Hazel Killian.

The party came near being a bust, as the now upstage and milk-fed Hazel at first indignantly denied she had ever resided on Tenth Avenue. Fighting Paddy, however, supplied her with a few facts and figures till she hurriedly shut off his rather intimate reminiscences by admitting it. But she only vaguely remembered him and treated him with exceeding coolness when she learned he was merely a prize fighter. I had tipped Monsieur Leary to work in some mention of his apartment houses in all his speeches and pretty soon it got results. Fighting Paddy's real estate holdings and the possibility of his becoming a world's champion appealed to the beautiful but cold-blooded Hazel, and before she parted from Fighting Paddy that night she agreed to let him call on her in London—if he defeated Mr. Grenadier Tompkins.

Well, Hazel and me finally tripped aboard the good ship Mal de Mer and set forth to dumfound Europe. It was my first sail past the Battery and once aboard the lugger I began to get homesick. However, there were so many things happened on this voyage that the blues had no chance with me. I'll remember that journey when I've forgotten my own name, honestly!

To begin with, there was the merry ship's company

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 which furnished not a few of the guffaws. The next time you go across, check me up on the following and see how many I've missed: The fresh air fiends who briskly promenade the deck from the time they go aboard till they dock on the other side, walking around and around as if it was against the rules not to; the middle-aged ladies who sit in a row of steamer chairs and swap operations; the hardy globe-trotters who think they were on torpedoed ships during the war and retail their alleged adventures with gusto; the patronizing English stewards who cawn't understand anybody not wanting a dish of tea for breakfast and who "Very good!" you to death and "Thank you!" silly; the unhappy and unseaworthy travelers who drape themselves over the rail just as you are passing them en route to the dining salon, sending your appetite scurrying away; the reckless gamblers who enter the pool on the ship's daily run, bribe one of the crew for advance information and get a figure eighty miles away from the right one; the ain't-we-got-fun tourists who drag out all the gadgets for deck-games and play 'em with deadly seriousness, determined to enjoy themselves or die in the attempt; the rush to be placed at the captain's table; the fearful "entertainment" for the benefit of the Seamen's Union or something; the pests who drive the radio operator insane begging to be allowed to listen in; the cold-eyed, pale-faced gentlemen traveling alone

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 and earnestly endeavoring to correct that situation; the necking parties in dark nooks about the deck at night; etc., etc., and even etc.!

Personally, I got all fed up on the bounding main right after we passed Sandy Hook. For the next twenty-four hours I was a total loss and: no hospital in the wide, wide world contained an inmate any sicker than me, really! The man who first said "See America First!" was probably the same kind of a sailor that I am. I'm satisfied Mr. Columbus was a marvel and that everybody in the navy is a hero. On the other hand, Hazel took to the sea like a porpoise and kept so irritatingly well and radiant that she got me red-headed. No matter how much the boat rolled, it never rolled so much that Hazel missed a meal, and when it was stormy she had 'em served in our cabin, where merely looking at the terrific array of food drove me to the great outdoors to—eh—meditate.

The first of a succession of sixty-four carat thrills came the third day out, just when I was beginning to recover from a life on the ocean wave. Hazel flounced into our cabin while I was dolling up to go on deck and take the voyagers' attention away from the deep blue sea.

"Hold everything!" she says breathlessly. "You'll never guess who's on board this boat."

"Fighting Paddy Leary!" I guessed promptly.

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 "No," says Hazel, "but the fellow he's going to fight is here—Grenadier Tompkins!"

"Well, what do you want me to do—get hysterical?" I says. "Where did you pick up all this scandal?"

"On deck," says Hazel, sitting down and reaching for my. "Where you ought to be, getting the nice salt air instead of sitting in this stuffy two-by-four like a she-hermit. Not only is the middleweight champion in our midst, but we've also got a flock of movie actors aboard. This Grenadier Tompkins is working in a picture they're filming right on the ship. I've met the director—a swell fellow—and Delancey Gregory, the star, and some of the girls, and"

"You've been having lots of fun while I've been under cover, haven't you?" I butt in sarcastically.

"I always do," returns Hazel coolly, penciling her really lovely eyebrows. "The director, Gordon Daft—you've heard of him—thinks I'm just the type and wants me in his next big feature. He's sure I'll photograph wonderfully. He's so intelligent, Gladys! I told him you had some picture experience and he wants us both to appear in the film they're making here on the boat. Isn't that wonderful?"

"No, it isn't!" I says testily. "And if you think I'm going to work as a movie extra on my vacation, you're crazy! If I was you I'd keep away from that director. He's trying to put over a fast one!"

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 "Do you think anything is on the level?" demands Hazel.

"Yes," I says. "A billiard table."

Nevertheless, Hazel insisted on taking me out on deck and introducing me to Gordon Daft, the director, Grenadier Tompkins and Delancey Gregory, the star. We also met the girls, who grew a bit chilly towards us when Mr. Daft enthusiastically remarked that the three most beautiful things he ever saw in his life were the Yosemite Valley, Hazel and me. Delancey Gregory butted in to say that the director was unduly boosting the Yosemite. Grenadier Tompkins, high-cheek-boned, broken-nosed, sullen and swarthy, sneered at both of 'em and looked at me with ravenous eyes that never left me while I was on the deck.

Well, the combined pleadings of Hazel and her new found boy friend, Mr. Daft, swept away my objections to working on my vacation and we appeared in several scenes of the picture as atmosphere. As a matter of fact, I rather enjoyed the experience, which was very interesting as well as profitable and helped break up the monotony of the trip. The only thing I didn't like was Grenadier Tompkins, middleweight champion of the globe. He was positively impossible, honestly!

For some unknown reason this English exponent of the noble art of felonious assault considered himself irresistible, a regular Mephistopheles amongst the

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 ladies, and only in the privacy of my cabin could I turn around without bumping into him. I liked him and carbolic the same way and practically told him so, but thinly veiled insults rolled off the Grenadier like raindrops off oil. Really, the more I saw of the world's middleweight champion the more I hoped Fighting Paddy Leary would assassinate him, and I guess that was the only thing Hazel and I ever agreed on.

One day on deck when the modest Grenadier had told me for the twentieth time with reference to Fighting Paddy that he intended to "bash the blighter's fyce in!" I interrupted with a yawn. "You won't have a chance to bash anybody's fyce in, old dear, after Fighting Paddy Leary hits you—you'll be too busy!"

"Busy?" says the Grenadier. "Busy at what, may I arsk?"

"Busy picking splinters out of your shoulder blades!" I says sweetly.

He was fit to be tied and gave me a glare that sunburnt my nose—but that didn't stop his chasing me.

Delancey Gregory, the movie star, also favored me with his kind attention, and I must say that in his case I didn't seek police protection. The tall and distinguished looking Delancey was as handsome as they come in his sex, and while not exactly as brilliant a conversationalist as Will Rogers or Georgie B. Shaw, he at least knew what it was all about, was an easy

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 dancer and fond of his mother. He wasn't a bit unpalatable, really. Being wild to crash into pictures, Hazel grew plenty friendly with the director and the four of us murdered many an hour in the braw bright moonlight nights on the deck. Grenadier Tompkins watched us sullenly with narrowed eyes and threatening mutterings, all of which Hazel thought were funny. I was worried, honestly. I saw a climax rapidly approaching and I don't like climaxes in which I figure!

The name of the movie they were assembling aboard ship was "Love and Passion"—a pleasing change from the usual suggestive titles, wasn't it? Anyhow, Grenadier Tompkins and Delancey Gregory were supposed to box in it, with Delancey knocking the world's middleweight champion out. I don't have to tell you they were plying the Grenadier with very important money to get him to agree with the author of that scenario!

Well, this soul-stirring fight was rehearsed dozens of times daily on the deck and dozens is a thrifty use of the descriptive. It was real thrilling to watch, too, don't think it wasn't! The Grenadier was no actor, he was a fighter, and he had a bad habit of losing all thought of the drama at the sound of the bell. The result of the champion's being unable to forget his art was that the director had to watch him carefully lest

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 he get too enthusiastic in the big fight scene. Whenever the fun began to wax too fast and furious, the leading man would cast a panic-stricken glance at the director, who would roar "Cut!" through his megaphone—that being the signal to stop the action.

Well, that little word "Cut!" was the one thing that Grenadier Tompkins thought was wrong with the movies, he told me bitterly when he cornered me on deck one night while we're waiting for the dinner bugle. He moaned that all he heard from morning to night was that bellowed "Cut!" It was fastening on what nerves he had and driving him triple cuckoo. He eats, drinks and sleeps the word. Walking along the deck, he will halt instantly and mechanically when some practical joker bawls "Cut!" Dressing, he'll stop and stand rigid; eating, he'll drop knife and fork; and any word that would make the Grenadier drop his knife while he was eating must certainly be engraved on his brain.

May Allah be praised, as they say in Yonkers, that I remembered all that—later!

The night before our noble vessel parked at Southampton there was a formal dance in the grand salon, and that gave me and Hazel a chance to make most of the other girls aboard wish they had come over by rail, or at least kept off a boat containing two such well filled evening gowns as we displayed. The sturdy

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 menfolk flocked around us like Ethiopians flock around a crap game, and I'll bet many a married man had to exercise some ingenuity in the bedtime story he gave friend wife after the ball was over! I danced with Delancey Gregory practically all night and that seemed to work our old friend Grenadier Tompkins into one of those cold furies you read about. Really, two or three times I thought the English athlete was going to prove he was a champion right on the ballroom floor, and finally, to avoid a fox pass, I gave him one waltz. A waltz was all I'd trust him with after the way his eyes devoured me. You can't do much batting out of turn in a waltz!

Well, the Grenadier and I have scarcely started to glide over a floor that would have delighted Maurice when right from behind us comes a sharp command "Cut!" Grenadier Tompkins blinked, instantly stopped dancing and his high-salaried arms fell from around my shrinking form as if he'd been shot. Before he can recover himself I am being whirled away in the embrace of the grinning Delancey Gregory. Honestly, I had to laugh—the whole thing was much funnier than it sounds. To think that the Grenadier had actually become such a slave to that oft repeated word that he'd even stop dancing with me when someone hollered it at him! Before the jam closed in around us I got one glimpse of his rage-contorted face—it was as white

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 as Delancey's dress shirt and it made me very thoughtful.

The next morning, our last aboard the ship, Grenadier Tompkins did his stuff!

The long and carefully rehearsed fight between Delancey Gregory and the Grenadier was "shot," but you'll never see it in the picture. While it lasted it exceeded the director's wildest hopes for action, as he afterwards gasped, but the finish was exceedingly different from the one written in the scenario. With murder in his heart, behind every crushing, cruel blow, behind every panting snarl from lips drawn back over his ragged teeth, Grenadier Tompkins gave poor Delancey Gregory an unmerciful beating in an almost unbelievably short space of time. Oh, it was terrible, really! Delancey was no cake-eater and stood up to it manfully when he realized what was happening, but he was just a movie actor and Grenadier Tompkins was a professional prize fighter—a champion. Honestly, my blood boils even now when I think of it! This English brute broke Delancey's classic nose, split his ear, blacked his eyes and otherwise disfigured him before the stunned director snapped out of it and stopped the Grenadier as a bullet would stop him with a frantically roared "Cut!"

But the damage had been done and it would be many weeks before Delancey Gregory could go on with the

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 picture. Grenadier Tompkins took leave of us with a snarling: "You arsked for h'action, you blighters, h'and you got it!"

Really, I could have been given thirty years at hard labor for what I thought of Mr. Grenadier Tompkins after that exhibition of sportsmanship! Hazel was as burnt up as I was and we talked about hardly anything else all the way up to London, in those little trick trains that look like something you'd bring home to Sonny for Xmas. A couple of medicos fixed up the battered leading man and the company came up to King George's home town with us, all of us fussing over Delancey and making him as comfortable as it's possible for anyone to be with a sirloin steak over each eye. Darn it, I liked the way he took it! Not a whine out of him; he was just sorry the picture would have to be held up. Mr. Daft, the director, kept swearing he'd murder Grenadier Tompkins in cold blood, and all of a sudden while he was madly raving, a scheme to get even with the middleweight champion struck me like a flash. It was a daring plan, and, yes, a crazy one—but I was satisfied if it was successful it would mark Grenadier Tompkins "Paid!"

I took Mr. Daft away from the others and told him about it. He didn't say a word for a full minute, and then he suddenly slapped my knee, immediately apologizing—oh, he was all right.

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 "Gladys," he says, "what you are doing answering phone calls in a hotel, I don't know, but it's your own business and I won't bother you with foolish questions. Personally, I think your scheme is absolutely insane—but I also think it's just about insane enough to work!"

Be patient.

Me and Hazel had been in dear old London just about long enough to lose a fortune trying to tell a shilling from a half-crown when we came back to our hotel one day from a excursion to find a note from no less than Fighting Paddy Leary. Inside the note were two ringside tickets for his championship bout with Grenadier Tompkins at the National Sporting Club the following night. Honestly, I must show you that note. Look:

Quick work and equally fast money got Mr. Daft a ringside seat next to ours, and they were as close as

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 you could get without actually being in the ring itself. We were what you might call sitting pretty. Taking Fighting Paddy's etiquette hint, we were dolled up within an inch of our lives, as was everybody else, for that matter. There were no more people present than there are in Boston, and I question seriously if I'll ever be in such good company again as I was at that prize fight. All around us was Duke This and Lord That, and not ten feet away in a box was the Prince of Wales.

Honestly, that noted and likable young gentleman simple panicked Hazel! My charming girl friend could see nothing else. She just sat there, her eyes mucilaged on the boy like a starving collie outside a butcher shop.

"So that's the Prince of Wales?" she murmurs. "Well, he's certainly a cute kid! I wish he'd give us a tumble—they say he craves American girls."

That irritated me. "Listen, young lady," I says, "it wouldn't do him any good if he did give me a tumble, because I wouldn't go out with him any more than I would with any stranger, prince or no prince!"

"Good for you!" says Mr. Daft.

"So you wouldn't step out with the Prince of Wales, heh?" sneers Hazel. "Apple sauce!"

Further discussion along these lines was interrupted

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 by the entrance of Grenadier Tompkins and his retinue of attendants. The Grenadier received a polite reception—the customers don't go in for the vocal display at the National Sporting Club of London like they do at the Bowery A. C. It just isn't done, old bean! Then our athlete, Fighting Paddy Leary, looking pale and serious, entered the ring. There were plenty fans from the colonies present besides us and they gave Fighting Paddy a welcoming yell that must have shaken the Tower of London and certainly shook the dignity of the Londoners. I saw many a reproving frown.

Fighting Paddy's first act was to peer anxiously around until he saw us, and then a broad grin lighted up his face. Hazel gave him a brief mechanical smile, then her eyes went right back to the royal box. I fluttered my handkerchief encouragingly and Mr. Daft, all excited, called "Knock him stiff, kid!"

Fighting Paddy nodded back, very serious again.

"Doesn't he look determined?" I whispered, nudging Hazel.

"TH say he does!" she says with a sigh. "And just think—some day he'll be King of England!"

Mr. Daft laughed outright and I gave her up in disgust.

Well, the movie cameras that were to film the championship fight are set up around the ring, the scowling Grenadier Tompkins and the equally scowling Fight-

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 ing Paddy Leary are introduced, a bell rings—and the panic is on!

I'll never forget that first round, and Grenadier Tompkins will never forget the second. Honestly, for three minutes the champion did everything to poor Fighting Paddy Leary but stick a knife in him, and I sat on the edge of my seat biting my lips and seeing again through moist eyes this burly Englishman battering Delancey Gregory aboard the ship. Fighting Paddy hit the floor either eight or twenty-seven times, and according to the screaming Mr. Daft and the rest of our countrymen present most of the blows that put him there were exceedingly foul. Even some of the Englishmen sitting around us were saying in conversational tones, "I say, fight fair, Grenadier!" or "Mister Referee, that was a bit low!" Twice Fighting Paddy stopped falling long enough to file personal complaints with the referee, but he got no service at all!

When Paddy staggered to his corner at the end of the first round, really, he looked like the wreck of the Hesperus. His seconds worked over him frantically, while the Americans kept up a continual din, mostly howls at the referee, who paid not the slightest attention. In the midst of this confusion I happened to glance at the royal box in time to see the Prince whisper to one of his companions. The man nodded, bowed,

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 got up and came over to the referee. There was a short confab and then that official walked over to Grenadier Tompkins and spoke most earnestly to him. What he said I don't know, but he was evidently laying down the law and they listened very respectfully. This little incident brought some rousing cheers from the Americans for Mr. Wales.

"Did you see that?" says Mr. Daft excitedly. "The Prince has told that yegg referee to warn Tompkins about fouling. Say—the Prince is a real guy!"

"Of course he's a real guy," says Hazel, like she and the Prince were playmates. "Didn't I always say he was?"

The gong for the second round sent Fighting Paddy staggering to the middle of the ring, badly hurt but still game. There was no quit in any way connected with him, but that first round beating and those foul blows had ruined him. Grenadier Tompkins began pounding him again from where he left off before, and Fighting Paddy slowly gave ground, feebly pawing at the cruelly grinning Grenadier, until they were both up against the ropes right over where we were sitting.

That is what I had been waiting for since this carnival of assault and battery began! I nudged Mr. Daft and he nodded nervously but understandingly. Fighting Paddy missed a couple of desperate blows, and the

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 horrible crunch of the Grenadier's fists against his face and body could be heard to the farthest corner of the place. Honestly, it looked all over but the shouting, and Paddy gazed despairingly down at us above the Grenadier's shoulders. The Grenadier hit Paddy with one glove and pulled back the other for the finishing glow. I felt it was now or never!

"Do your stuff!" I hissed in Mr. Daft's ear. Mr. Daft yanked a small megaphone from under his coat and took a deep breath.

"Cut!" he roars.

As Shakespeare once remarked, that was the most unkindest cut of all! Grenadier Tompkins stopped short at the familiar command in the familiar voice. The clicking of the cameras about the ring seemed to come to his ears for the first time. Mechanically he dropped his arms. The entire crowd was now on its feet, yes, dignified English and all, howling itself hoarse. Wam! The amazed but delighted Fighting Paddy Leary swung a terrible blow at the champion's jaw. It knocked Grenadier Tompkins as cold as thirty-eight dollars' worth of frosted chocolate, and if they hadn't swept him up he'd be there yet!

On the way back to our hotel, after Hazel had witnessed the Prince of Wales shake Fighting Paddy Leary's hand and she had agreed to dine with the new king of the middleweights the following night, I asked

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 her what she thought of the fight and its sensational finish.

Hazel yawns sleepily.

"I thik," she says, "the Prince of Wales is certainly one swell looking fellow!"

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to Mr. Titus Livy, who used to say it with epigrams in dear old Padua, experience is the teacher of fools. Titus left this vale of tears some nineteen hundred years ago, but the school of experience originally founded by Eve and her apple addict confederate is still doing business at the same old stand.

Me and Hazel graduated with high honors in Paris!

Speaking of anchovies, no doubt you are wondering what a couple of such Campfire Girls as we are were doing in mischievous Paris. Well, I'll set your suspicions at rest. After Hazel pegged the Prince of Wales in a box at the prize-fight and fell heavily in love with the heir presumptive, she audibly wished he'd do some presuming in her direction, such as all the vaudeville sister acts who have been across coyly confess was their delightful experience. But by an odd coincidence, Hazel failed to become the Prince's weak-

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 ness and we fled to France to escape the well-meant pestering of Fighting Paddy Leary.

Really, I don't blame the gamesters who try to swim the English Channel, as I'm satisfied that method has it all over the trip via boat! If there's anything rougher than that dizzy body of water separating England from France, then Dempsey had better not fight it! Honest to Kansas, we led the life of a tennis ball on that voyage across—just tossed all over the place. I wanted to go by plane, but Hazel objects to them because they go up in the air. Anyhow, we finally made the perilous journey and landed in the country made famous by Sarah Bernhardt, Joan of Arc, Anna Held, Napoleon, "Couvert $1.50" and sliced potatoes dipped in boiling grease. Our next imitation was to board a train for art's home town, and of course the minute we stepped out of the Gare St.—Lazaire, Hazel pulls that ancient gag first breathed admiringly by Helen of Troy, viz., "So this is Paris!"

This was our original visit to gay Paree and in spite of the fact that we'd both invested in Baedekers and copies of "French in a Twinkling," we were as strange as a pair of deck-hands in a drawing room. Honestly, we didn't know what it was all about and couldn't tell a franc from a doubloon, oo la la from n'est-ce pas, or ros' biff from vin ordinaire. However, we fitted a taxi around us and bounded over to a hotel I picked out

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