“And was it you who just threw this thing on my desk?” demands Old Hickory, pointin’ to the red rose.

“Meanin’ no ’arm at all, Sir, no ’arm at all,” says Cubbins.

“And do I understand that you brought those other flowers in the same way?” goes on Mr. Ellins.

“Not thinkin’ you’d mind, Sir,” says Cubbins; “but if there’s henny hoffense given, I asks pardon, Sir.”

And there couldn’t be any mistakin’ the genuine tremble in that weak, pipin’ voice, or the meek look in them watery old eyes.  For Cubbins is more or less of a human wreck, when you come to size him up close,—­a thin, bent-shouldered, faded lookin’ old party, with wispy, whitish hair, a peaked red nose, and a peculiar, whimsical quirk to his mouth corners.  Old Hickory looks him over curious for a minute or so.

“Huh!” he grunts at last.  “So you’re the one, eh?  But why the blue-belted blazes did you do it?”

All Cubbins does, though, is to finger his cap bashful.

“Well, Torchy,” says Mr. Ellins, “you seem to be running this show.  Perhaps you’ll tell us.”

“That’s further’n I’ve got,” says I.  “You see, when I traced this floral tribute business down to a window washer, I——­”

“In the name of all that’s brilliant,” breaks in Old Hickory, “how did you ever do that?"’

“Why, I got to thinkin’ about it,” says I, “and it struck me that we had our glass cleaned every Wednesday, and if there was no way of anyone smugglin’ flowers in through the doors, the windows was all there was left, wa’n’t it?  Also who’s most likely to be monkeyin’ around outside, fifteen stories up, but a window washer?”

“Ha!” says Old Hickory through his teeth.  “And did you do that by the introdeductive process, may I ask?”

“No such bunk as that,” says I.  “Just used my bean, that’s all.  Then I got Mac, the assistant buildin’ super, to put me wise as to who had the windows on our floor, and by throwin’ a bluff over the ’phone I made the Consolidated people locate Mr. Cubbins for me.  Found him putterin’ round in his garden over in Astoria, and pumped more or less out of him; but when it come to gettin’ him to explain why it was he’d picked you out, Mr. Ellins, as a mark for his bouquets, I fell down complete.  Mr. Cubbins is English, as maybe you noticed by his talk, and he used to be a house painter before his health got so bad.  Now he lives with his son-in-law, who tells me that the old gent——­”

“’E’s a bit of a liar, my son-in-law is,” pipes up Cubbins; “a bally Socialist, Sir, and I’m ashymed to s’y ’as ’ow ‘e’s fond of abusin’ ’is betters.  Thet’s ‘ow it all come abaht, Sir.  Alw’ys tykin’ on over the rich, ’e is; and ‘e’s most fond of s’yin’ wrong things abaht you special, Sir; callin’ you a bloodsucking predatory person, Sir, and himpolite nimes like thet.  ‘Ah, stow thet, Jimmy!!’ says I.  ’All bloomin’ lies, they are.  There ayn’t a finer man lives than