"Well, mounting margins!" says he, as I swings him round by the arm. "Torchy! Whither away? Come down to buy publicity space for the Corrugated, have you?" "Not in a rag like yours, Whity," says I, "when we own stock in two real papers. I'm out on a little private gumshoe work for the boss." "Sounds thrilling," says he. "Any copy in it?" "I'd be chatterin' it to you, wouldn't I?" says I. "Nix! Just plain fam'ly scrap over whether Cousin Inez shall marry again or not. My job is to get something on the guy. Don't happen to have any special dope on T. Virgil Bunn, the sculptor poet, do you?" Whity stares at me. "Do I?" says he. "Say!" Then he leads me over between the 'phone booth and the cigar stand, flashes an assignment pad, and remarks, "Gaze on that second item, my boy." "Woof! That's him, all right," says I. "But what's a bouillabaisse tea?" "Heaven and Virgil Bunn only know," says Whity. "But that doesn't matter. Think of the subtle irony of Fate that sends me up to make a column story out of Virgie Bunn! Me, of all persons!" "Well, why not you?" says I. "Why?" says Whity. "Because I made the fellow. He--why, he is my joke, the biggest scream I ever put over--my joke, understand? And now this adumbrated ass of a Quigley, who's been sent on here from St. Louis to take the city desk, he falls for Virgie as a genuine personage. Not only that, but picks me out to cover this phony tea of his. And the stinging part is, if I don't I get canned, that's all." "Ain't he the goods, then?" says I. "What about this sculptor poet business?" "Bunk," says Whity, "nothing but bunk. Of course, he does putter around with modeling clay a bit, and writes the sort of club-footed verse they put in high school monthlies." "Gets it printed in a book, though," says I. "I've seen one." "Why not?" says Whity. "Anyone can who has the three hundred to pay for plates and binding. 'Sonnets of the City,' wasn't it? Didn't I get my commission from the Easy Mark Press for steering him in? Why, I even scratched off some of those things to help him pad out the book with. But, say, Torchy, you ought to remember him. You were on the door then,--tall, wide-shouldered freak, with aureole hair, and a close cropped Vandyke?" "Not the one who wore the Wild West lid and talked like he had a mouthful of hot oatmeal?" says I. "Your description of Virgie's English accent is perfect," says Whity. "Well, well!" says I. "The mushbag, we used to call him." "Charmingly accurate again!" says Whity. "Verily beside him the quivering jellyfish of the salt sea was as the armored armadillo of the desert. Soft? You could poke a finger through him anywhere." "But what was his game?" says I.