Did he give Piddie the fire on the spot? Nah! Mr. Robert carries around a frigid portico; but he's got a warm spot inside. He says he's mighty sorry to hear how near Piddie'd come to goin' wrong; but he's glad it turned out the way it did, and if Piddie'll say how much they rung him in for on Blitzen he'll be happy to make good right there. And how much do you guess? A pair of double X's! He'd worried himself near sick, worked himself up desp'rate, and had finished by doin' something that stood to get him put away for ten or fifteen years--all for forty bucks! "Piddie," says I, "for a tinhorn, you're a wonder! But, say, when you get home to-night tell that kid of yours I want to see them new shoes of his before he gets the toes all stubbed out." CHAPTER VIII A WHIRL WITH KAZEDKY Chee! W'atcher think? I ain't read an "Old Sleut'" for more'n a week, and there's two murder myst'ries runnin' in the sportin' extras that I'm way behind on. You wouldn't guess it in a month, but I'm takin' a fall out of the knowledge game. Mr. Mallory says I'm part in the sixt' grade and part in the eight'. "I believe it," says I; "my nut feels that way." Honest, I'm stowin' away so much that I never knew before that I'm thinkin' of wearin' a leather strap around my head, same's these strong boys wears 'em on their wrists. "Ah! w'at's the use?" says I. "Nobody's ever goin' to ask me what's four per cent of thoity thousand plunks, an' if I had that much I wouldn't farm it out for less'n six, anyway. And I don't see where this De Soto comes in. Sounds like he might have played first base for the Beanies; but he's been dead too long for that. What odds does it make if I don't know the capital of Nevada? I ain't lookin' for no divorce, am I?" But there's no shakin' Mallory off. He's dug up a lot of kid school books for me, and I got 'em stowed away in the desk here, like this was P. S. 46, 'stead of the front office of the Corrugated Trust. And when I ain't takin' cards into the main squeezes, or answerin' fool questions over the 'phone, or chasin' out on errands for Piddie, I'm swallowin' chunks of information about the times when G. Wash. was buildin' forts in Harlem and makin' good for a continuous in front of the Subtreasury. Course, it's a clean waste of time. Suppose I gets the run next week, could I win another head office boy job by spielin' off a mess of guff about a lot of dead ones? Nit, never! But Mallory's got the bug that it'll all come in handy to me sometime, and I'm doin' it just to keep him satisfied. We get together most every night in his room, and I has to cough up what I've got next to durin' the day. And say, when I've been soldierin', and try to run in a stiff bluff instead of the real goods, he looks as disappointed as if I'd done something real low down. So gen'rally I hits up the books when there's nothin' else doin'.