So that throws the whole thing onto me and Mr. Robert.  I was takin’ it calm enough too; but with Mr. Robert it’s different.  He has his coat off that mornin’, and his hair mussed up, and he’s smokin’ long brunette cigars instead of his usual cigarettes.  He was pawin’ over things panicky.

“Hang it all!” he explodes.  “Some of these papers must go up to the Governor for his indorsement.  Perhaps you’d better take them, Torchy.  But you’re not likely to find him in a very agreeable mood, you know.”

“Oh, I can dodge,” says I, gatherin’ up the stuff.  “And what’s the dope?  Do I dump these on the bed and make a slide for life, or so I take out accident insurance and then stick around for orders?”

“You may—­er—­stick around,” says Mr. Robert.  “In fact, my chief reason for sending you up to the house is the fact that at times you are apt to have a cheering effect on the Governor.  So stay as long as you find any excuse.

“Gee!” says I.  “I don’t know whether this is a special holiday, or a sentence to sudden death.  But I’ll take a chance, and if the worst happens, Mr. Robert, see that Piddie wears a black armband for me.”

He indulges in the first grin he’s had on for a week, and I makes my exit on that.  The science of bein’ fresh is to know where to quit.

But, say, that wa’n’t all guff we was exchangin’ about Old Hickory.  I don’t find him tucked away under the down comf’tables, like he ought to be.  Marston, the butler, whispers the boss is in the lib’ry, and sort of shunts me in without appearin’ himself.  A wise guy, Marston.

For here’s Mr. Ellins, wearin’ a padded silk dressin’ gown and old slippers, pacin’ back and forth limpy and lettin’ out grunts and growls at every turn.  Talk about your double-distilled grouches!  He looks like he’d been on a diet of mixed pickles and scrap iron for a month, and hated the whole human race.

“Well?” he snaps as he sees me edgin’ in cautious.

“Papers for your O. K,” says I, holdin’ the bunch out at arm’s length.

“My O. K.?” he snarls.  “Bah!  Now what the zebra-striped Zacharias do they send those things to me for?  What good am I, anyway, except as a common carrier for all the blinkety blinked aches and pains that ever existed?  A shivery, shaky old lump of clay streaked with cussedness, that’s all I am!”

“Yes, Sir,” says I, from force of habit.

“Eh?” says he, whirlin’ and snappin’ his jaws.

“N-n-no, Sir,” says I, sidesteppin’ behind a chair.

“That’s right,” says he.  “Dodge and squirm as if I was a wild animal.  That’s what they all do.  What are you afraid of, Boy?”

“Me?” says I.  “Why, I’m havin’ the time of my life.  I don’t mind.  It only sounds natural and homelike.  And it’s mostly bluff, ain’t it, Mr. Ellins?”

“Discovered!” says he.  “Ah, the merciless perspicacity of youth!  But don’t tell the others.  And put those papers on my desk.”