"I'm busy. So are you. Tell me to-night. What will the servants say if we stay in here with the door closed? Run along!" And she fairly shooed him out of the house. Jack hastened down to Evers' shop, washed his face, changed his clothes, and returned to the Madagascar. Evers provided him with everything necessary to re-assume the personality of Mr. Pitman when the time came. Bobo was out. Jack applied to Ralph for information as to his movements. That preturnaturally knowing youth was bursting with it. "Sure, I seen him go out. 'Bout an hour ago. Young lady come for him." In spite of himself Jack was betrayed into a startled exclamation. Thus encouraged, Ralph went on with gusto. "She called him up this morning--that is I guess it was the same one. I was in the room brushin' his clo'es, and I answered the 'phone. I hears a voice like butter creams: 'Is this Mr. Norman?' Umm! But when she found it was me the cream froze." "Mr. Norman goes to the 'phone, and say, you could see by the smile that tickled his ears that she was feedin' him the Martha Washingtons then. 'Aw'fly good of you to call me up,' says he. 'No, I don't think it was improper at all.' Then she must have ast him to lunch, for he said 'Sure!' in a voice that near cracked the transmitter, and bounced up and down like a kid when it sees its bottle. "But then he remembered somepin and his joy was turned to grief. 'Oh, I forgot, I can't come,' he says. I heard her voice squeakin' over the wire: 'Why?' He says: 'I got a date with my secretary: very important business.' After that she did most of the talkin'. He only said: 'I can't! I can't! Say, I'm sorry!' And so on. Say, he stuck to it, too, and at last she hung up. Say, he was almost cryin' when he come away. He throws himself down on the bed and never says a word to me." "Well, what then?" asked Jack. "About half an hour after I was down in the office when I hear a young lady in a Kolinsky cape ask at the desk for Mr. Norman. A looker?--say, boss, some scenery! I was sent up with her card. On the back she had written: "I have come for you." "Did he go?" asked Jack. "Did he go? Does a chicken run when it hears the corn fall in the yard!" "Hm! What name was on the card?" "Miss Miriam Culbreth." 15 In the end Jack had to give up the idea of separating Bobo from the lovely Miriam. For one thing Jack needed Miriam and Mrs. Cleaver in his present business, and Bobo supplied his only excuse for going there. The ladies were not interested in the humble secretary for himself. So he warned Bobo afresh, and prayed that the infatuated youth might not be led into any irrevocable step before he was able to tell him the whole truth about his inamorata.