That brings the pink to his ears and he stiffens indignant. But in a minute or so he gets over it enough to explain that he's noticed Vincent fussin' with his necktie and slickin' his hair back careful before quittin' time. Also that Vincent has taken to gettin' shaved once a week reg'lar now, instead of every month. "And he seemed very nervous when he took away his savings," adds Piddie. "Of course, in my position I could ask for no confidences of a personal nature; but if someone else could have a talk with him.--Well, you, for example, Torchy." "What a cute little idea!" says I. "What would be the openin' lines for that scene? Something like, 'Come, my erring lad, rest your fair, sin-soaked head on my knee and tell your Uncle Torchy how you are secretly scheming to kidnap the rich gum profiteer's lovely daughter and carry her off to Muckhurst-on-the-Marsh.' Piddie, you're a wonder." I was still chucklin' over the notion as I breezed out to lunch, but as I pushes out of the express elevator and starts across the arcade toward the Broadway exit I lamps something over by the candy booth that leaves me with my mouth open. There is Vincent hung up against the counter gazin' mushy into the dark dangerous orbs of Mirabelle, the box-trade queen. Course, we all know Mirabelle in the Corrugated buildin', for she's been presidin' over the candy counter almost as long as the arcade shops have been open. She's what you might call an institution; like Apollo Mike, the elevator starter; or old Walrus Smith, the night watchman. And I expect there ain't a young hick or a middle-aged bookkeeper on all them twenty-odd floors but what has had his little thrill from gettin' in line, some time or another, with a cut-up look from them high voltage eyes. She's just one of the many perils, Mirabelle is, that line the path of the poor working man in the great city. That is, she looks the part. As a matter of fact, I've always had Mirabelle sized up as a near-vamp who had worked up the act to boost sales and cinch her job. Anyway, I never knew of her lurin' her victims into anything more desperate than a red-ink table d'hote dinner or a six-dollar orgie at a cabaret. And somehow they all seem to wriggle out of the net within a week or so with no worse casualties than a feverish yearnin' for next pay day and a wise look in the eyes. I've watched some of them young sports from the bond room have their little fling with Mirabelle and not one of 'em has come out a human wreck.