Andy tucks away the half and grins.

“Very well, sir,” says he.  “It’ll be quite a lark, sir.”

Next I fixed it up with Mike, the doorman.  He’d had a little run-in with Myra about not gettin’ a taxi quite quick enough for her, so I had to double the ante and explain how this was a scheme Vee was workin’.

“Sure!” says he.  “Anything Miss Verona says goes with me.  I’ll do my best.”

The hard part came, though, when I has to invite Myra to this little dinner-party I’m supposed to be givin’.  Course, it’s Auntie’s blow, but she’s been primed by Vee to insist that I do the honors.  First off, I was goin’ to run up durin’ lunch hour and pass it to Cousin Myra in person; but about eleven o’clock I decides it would be safer to use the ’phone.

“Oh!” says she.  “I am to be utilized as a chaperon, am I?”

“Couldn’t think of anybody who’d do it better,” says I; “but, as a matter of fact, that ain’t the idea.  Auntie’s going, you see, and I thought maybe I could induce you to come along, too.”

“But I detest hotel dinners,” says she.

“Ah, come on!  Be a sport!” says I.  “Lemme show you what I can pick from the menu.  For one item, there’ll be tripe a la mode de Caen.”

“Then I’ll come,” says Myra.  “But how on earth, young man, did you know that—­”

“Just wait!” says I.  “You got a lot of guessin’ besides that.  I’ll call for you at seven sharp.”

So I spent most of my noon hour rustlin’ through florist shops to get the particular kind of red roses I’d been tipped off to find.  I located ’em, though, and bought up the whole stock, sendin’ part to the house and luggin’ the rest to the head waiter.  While I was at the hotel, too, I got next to the orchestra leader and gave him the names of some pieces he was to spring durin’ dinner.

After all, though, it was Auntie who turned the cleverest trick.  She’d got real enthusiastic by Wednesday mornin’, and what does she do but dash down to the Maison Felice, pick out a two-hundred-dollar evenin’ gown, and have it sent up with a fitter.  Vee says Myra simply wouldn’t open the box for half an hour; but then she softened up, and after she’d been buckled into this pink creation with the rosebud shoulder straps she consents to take one squint at the glass.  Then it develops that Myra is still human.  From that to allowin’ a hairdresser to be called in was only a step, which explains the whole miracle of how Myra blossomed out.

And say, for a late bloomin’ it was a wonder.  Honest, when I gets my first glimpse of her standin’ under the hall light with Hilda holdin’ her opera wrap, I lets out a gurgle.  Had I wandered into the wrong apartment?  Was I disturbin’ some leadin’ lady just goin’ on for the first act?  No, there was Cousin Myra’s thin nose and pointed chin.  But, with her hair loosened up and her cheeks tinted a bit from excitement, she looks like a different party.  Almost stunnin’, you know.