"Well!" says he, the minute I gets in. "Let me know the worst at once." "I will," says I. "He's married." It was all I could do, too, to make him believe the yarn. "By Jove!" says he. "Think of a chap like Spotty Cahill tumbling into a romance like that! And on Fourth-ave!" "It ain't so well advertised as some other lanes in this town," says I; "but it's a great street. Say, what puzzled me most about the whole business, though, was the new name they had for Spotty. Sareef! What in blazes does that mean?" "Probably a title of some sort," says Pinckney. "Like sheik, I suppose." "But what does a Sareef have to do?" says I. "Do!" says Pinckney. "Why, he's boss of the caravan. He--he sits around in the sun and looks picturesque." "Then that settles it," says I. "Spotty's qualified. I never thought there was any place where he'd fit in; but, if your description's correct, he's found the job he was born for." CHAPTER IV A GRANDMOTHER WHO GOT GOING Ever go on a grandmother hunt through the Red Ink District? Well, it ain't a reg'lar amusement of mine, but it has its good points. Maybe I wouldn't have tackled it at all if I hadn't begun by lettin' myself get int'rested in Vincent's domestic affairs. Now what I knew about this Vincent chap before we starts out on the grandmother trail wouldn't take long to tell. He wa'n't any special friend of mine. For one thing, he wears his hair cut plush. Course, it's his hair, and if he wants to train it to stand up on top like a clothes brush or a blacking dauber, who am I that should curl the lip of scorn? Just the same, I never could feel real chummy towards anyone that sported one of them self raisin' crests. Vincent wa'n't one of the chummy kind, though. He's one of these stiff backed, black haired, brown eyed, quick motioned, sharp spoken ducks, that wants what he wants when he wants it. You know. He comes to the studio reg'lar, does his forty-five minutes' work, and gets out without swappin' any more conversation than is strictly necessary. All the information I had picked up about him was that he hailed from up the State somewhere, and that soon after he struck New York he married one of the Chetwood girls. And that takes more or less capital to start with. Guess Vincent had it; for I hear his old man left him quite a wad and that now he's the main guy of a threshin' machine trust, or something like that. Anyway, Vincent belongs in the four-cylinder plute class, and he's beginnin' to be heard of among the alimony aristocracy. But this ain't got anything to do with the way he happened to get confidential all so sudden. He'd been havin' a kid pillow mix-up with Swifty Joe, just as lively as if the thermometer was down to thirty instead of up to ninety, and he's just had his rub down and got into his featherweight serge, when in drifts this Rodney Kipp that's figurin' so strong on the defense side of them pipe line cases. "Ah, Vincent!" says he.