Ham Adams gulps twice, like he was tryin’ to swallow an egg, and then asks: 

“Just how do—­do you want to—­to begin?”

“Why,” says Nivens, “you might get my shaving things and lay them out in the bathroom.  I think I ought to start by—­er—­dispensing with these”; and he runs a white hand over the butler siders that frames his ears.

Almost like he was walkin’ in his sleep, Ham gets up.  He was headed for the back of the suite, all right, starin’ straight ahead of him, when of a sudden he turns and catches me watchin’.  He stops, and a pink flush spreads from his neck up to his ears.

“As you was just sayin’,” says I, “don’t mind me.  Anyway, I guess this is my exit cue.”

I tries to swap a grin with Nivens as I slips through the door.  But there’s nothing doing.  He’s standin’ in front of the mirror decidin’ just where he shall amputate those whiskers.

First off Mr. Robert wouldn’t believe it at all.  Insists I’m feedin’ him some fairy tale.  But when I gives him all the details, closin’ with a sketch of Ham startin’ dazed for the back bathroom, he just rocks in his chair and ’most chokes over it.

“By George!” says he.  “Ham Adams turning valet to his own man!  Oh, that is rich!  But far be it from me to interfere with the ways of a mysterious Providence.  Besides, in six months or so his income will probably be coming in again.  Meanwhile—­ Well, we will see how it works out.”

That was five or six weeks ago, and not until Tuesday last does either of us hear another word.  Mr. Robert he’d been too busy; and as for me, I’d had no call.  Still, being within a couple of blocks of the place, I thought I might stroll past.  I even hangs up outside the entrance a few minutes, on the chance that one or the other of ’em might be goin’ in or out, I’d about given up though, and was startin’ off, when I almost bumps into someone dodgin’ down the basement steps.

It’s Ham Adams, with a bottle of gasoline in one hand and a bundle of laundry under his arm.  Looks sprucer and snappier than I’d ever seen him before, too.  And that sour, surly look is all gone.  Why, he’s almost smilin’.

“Well, well!” says I.  “How’s valetin’ these days?”

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” says he.  “Why, I’m getting along fine.  Of course, I never could be quite so good at it as—­as Mr. Nivens was, but he is kind enough to say that I am doing very well.  Really, though, it is quite simple.  I just think of the things I should like to have done for me, and—­well, I do them for him.  It’s rather interesting, you know.”

I expect I gawped some myself, hearing that from him.  From Ham Adams, mind you!

“Ye-e-e-es; must be,” says I, sort of draggy.  Then I shifts the subject.  “How’s Mr. Nivens gettin’ along?” says I.  “Ain’t married yet, eh?”

For a second Ham Adams lapses back into his old glum look.