And, say, that's my last stab at givin' off the wise stuff about the nose powderin' sex. Pos-itively. For I've seen Louise turn the clock back. Uh-huh! I can't tell how it was done, or go into details of the results, but when she sails into that front pew on the big day, with Dick Harrington trailin' behind, I takes one glance at her and goes bug-eyed. Was she a stunner? I'll gurgle so. What had become of that extra 20 pounds I wouldn't even try to guess. But she's right there with the svelte figure, the school girly flush, and the sparklin' eyes. Maybe it was the way the gown was built. Fits like the peel on a banana. Or the pert way she holds her head, or the general excitement of the occasion. Anyway, mighty few 20-year-old screen favorites would have had anything on her. As for Dick Harry--Well, he's spruced up quite a bit himself, but you'd never mistake him for anything but an old rounder who's had a clean shave and a face massage. And he just can't seem to see anything but Louise. Even when he has to leave and join the bridal procession his eyes wander back to that front pew where she was waitin'. And after it's all over I sees him watchin' her fascinated while she chatters along lively. I wasn't lookin' to get his verdict at all, but later on, as I'm makin' myself useful at the reception, I runs across him just as he's slippin' away. "I say, young man," says he, grabbin' me by the elbow. "Wasn't I right about Louise?" "You had the dope," says I. "Some queen, even if she is near the forty mark." "And only imagine," he adds, "within a year or so she may be a grandmother!" "That don't count these days," says I. "It's gettin' so you can hardly tell the grandmothers from the vamps." And when I said that I expect I unloaded my whole stock of wisdom about women. CHAPTER XII WHEN THE CURB GOT GYPPED It was what you might call a session of the big four. Anyway, that's the way I'd put it; for besides Old Hickory, planted solid in his mahogany swing chair with his face lookin' more'n ever like a two-tone cut of the Rock of Gibraltar, there was Mr. Robert, and Piddie and me. Some aggregation, I'll say. And it didn't need any jiggly message from the ouija board to tell that something important in the affairs of the Corrugated Trust might happen within the next few minutes. You could almost feel it in the air. Piddie did. You could see that by the nervous way he was twitchin' his lips. Course it was natural the big boss should turn first to me. "Torchy," he growls, "shut that door." And as I steps around to close the only exit from the private office I could watch Piddie's face turn the color of a piece of cheese. Mr. Robert looks kind of serious, too. "Gentlemen," goes on Old Hickory, tossin' the last three inches of a double Corona reckless into a copper bowl, "there's a leak somewhere in this office."