Next thing I know I'm tellin' Mrs. Preble about my fallin' out with Mother Sykes, and how I guess I'd better be pikin' up to engage a thirty-cent room until I can draw on my reserve and locate a new boardin' place. And, say, what do you guess that conversation leads up to? Well, it struck me all in a heap at the time, though I didn't let on; but I couldn't figure out the answer until I'd had a talk with Mr. Robert next day. "Say, Mr. Robert," says I. "You don't happen to know an old party by the name of Zenobia Preble, do you?" "I do," says he. "It isn't exactly an accident, either. She is a cousin of my father." "Gee!" says I. "Cousin to the old--to the boss! Wh-e-ew!" "Rather an original old lady, Zenobia," says Mr. Robert. "And I understand, from a talk I had with her over the 'phone early last evening, that she was arbitrating the case of a young man who was in some danger of arrest in her home. How did it come out, Torchy?" "Ah, say, you're on, ain't you?" says I. "Well, it was a verdict for the defense, because I promised to do it again if I ever got the chance." Mr. Robert grins. "That grandson of hers is certainly a holy terror," says he. "You and Zenobia parted friends, then?" "Not yet," says I. "We ain't parted at all. I'm stayin' as a trial boarder." "What!" says he, sittin' up. "Oh, I see. An experiment in practical sociology, eh?" "Maybe that's it," says I. "Anyway, it depends on whether or not I can stand Aunt Martha." And when I leaves Mr. Robert he still has his mouth open. CHAPTER XIII FIRST AID FOR THE MAIN STEM Well, I ain't been adopted yet; but it's the next thing to it. Me and Zenobia are gettin' to understand each other better every day. And, say, for a ripe old party, she's younger in her mind than lots of folks I know who ain't lived half so long. Maybe she did do her first travelin' up and down Broadway in a horse stage; but that ain't the way she wants to cover the ground now. What do you think she springs at the dinner table the other night? Says she's goin' to the next aviation meet and hire some one to take her up for an aeroplane ride. "Why, Zenobia!" says Sister Martha, so shocked her white frizzes almost stand up and wiggle. That's Martha's cue, all right. She don't seem to get used to Zenobia's ways, although they've been livin' together all these years. A genuine, consistent antique, Sister Martha is, who still likes to talk about the time when Horace Greeley ran for President. Accordin' to her conversation the last real sensation that came her way was when she went over to Brooklyn and heard Henry Ward Beecher preach.