Then I wets my finger and shows him how it'll go "S-z-z!" when I touch it off. That gets a laugh out of little Hemmingway, and in a minute we're all good friends. She's Mrs. Piddie, of course, and she's a brick. Say, how is it these two-by-fours can pull out such good ones so often? Why, if she'd been got up accordin' to this year's models, and could have thrown the front she ought to, she'd have been fit for a first-tier box at the grand op'ra. "Chee!" thinks I. "Did she pick Piddie in the dark?" She'd come in to drag him out shoppin' and hypnotize him into loosenin' up. It was a case of gettin' things for little Hemmingway. "Me, I go have new s'oes, an' new coat wif pockets too," says he. Say, they wins me, kids like that do. There's some I ain't got any use for, the kind brought up in hotels and boardin' houses that learn to play to the gallery before they can feed themselves, and others I could name; but clean, grinnin' youngsters, with big eyes that take in everything, they're good to have around. And, little Hemmy was a star. I got so int'rested showin' him things in the office that I clean forgot about Piddie and what he was up to. "He will be back soon, won't he?" says Mrs. Piddie. Now if you give me time I can slick up an answer so it'll sound like the truth and mean something else; but as an offhand liar I'm a frost. Somehow I always has to swaller somethin' before I can push out a cold dope. Course, I knew he'd got to be back before long; but I see right off that this wa'n't any day for a fam'ly reunion. Piddle wa'n't goin' to be any too sociable by dinner time that night, 'less'n he'd hit up the bucketshop, which the chances was against. So it was my turn to make a foxy play. "He's due here before long, that's a fact," says I, "but there's no tellin'. You see, there's a big deal on, and Mr. Piddie's gone downtown, and----" "Oh!" says Mrs. Piddle, her eyes shinin'. "Then he has some important business engagement?" You couldn't help seein' how she had it framed up,--the whole Corrugated Trust and half of Wall Street holdin' its breath while hubby, J. Hemmingway Piddie, Esq., worked his giant intellect for the good of the country. "That's it," says I. "I couldn't say pos'tive that he'd be as late as four o'clock; but----" "Oh! then we'll not wait," says she, "Come, Hemmingway, we must go home." "Don't I det my new s'oes?" says Hemmy. There was a proposition for you! The kid was runnin' true to form and stickin' to the main line. No side issues for him! Pop might be a big man, and all that; but his size didn't cut much ice alongside of the new-shoes prospect. Things was beginnin' to look squally, and Mrs. Piddie's mouth corners was saggin' some, when I has a thought. "Hold on," says I. "Maybe he's left a note or something for you."