Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net By SEWELL FORD TORCHY TRYING OUT TORCHY ON WITH TORCHY TORCHY, PRIVATE SEC. ODD NUMBERS "Shorty McCabe" SHORTY McCABE ON THE JOB ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [Illustration: "Why didn't you tell me before that you had such a grand name?" Frontispiece] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- TORCHY, PRIVATE SEC. BY SEWELL FORD AUTHOR OF TORCHY, TRYING OUT TORCHY, ON WITH TORCHY, ETC. ILLUSTRATIONS BY F. FOSTER LINCOLN NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS ----------------------------------------------------------------------- COPYRIGHT, 1914, 1915, BY SEWELL FORD COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY EDWARD J. CLODE ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Up Call for Torchy 1 II. Torchy Makes the Sir Class 19 III. Torchy Takes a Chance 37 IV. Breaking It to the Boss 56 V. Showing Gilkey the Way 75 VI. When Skeet Had His Day 95 VII. Getting a Jolt from Westy 113 VIII. Some Guesses on Ruby 129 IX. Torchy Gets an Inside Tip 148 X. Then Along Came Sukey 170 XI. Teamwork with Aunty 188 XII. Zenobia Digs Up a Late One 206 XIII. Sifting Out Uncle Bill 223 XIV. How Aunty Got the News 243 XV. Mr. Robert and a Certain Party 259 XVI. Torchy Tackles a Short Circuit 275 XVII. Mr. Robert Gets a Slant 290 XVIII. When Ella May Came By 306 XIX. Some Hoop-la for the Boss 323 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- TORCHY, PRIVATE SEC. CHAPTER I THE UP CALL FOR TORCHY Well, it's come! Uh-huh! And sudden, too, like I knew it would, if it came at all. No climbin' the ladder for me, not while they run express elevators. And, believe me, when the gate opened, I was right there with my foot out. It was like this: One mornin' I'm in my old place behind the brass rail, at the jump-end of the buzzer. I'm everybody's slave in general, and Piddie's football in particular. You know--head office boy of the Corrugated Trust. That's description enough, ain't it? And I'd been there so long---- Honest, when I first went on the job I used to sneak the city directory under the chair so my toes could touch. Now my knees rub the under-side of the desk. Familiar with the place? Say, there are just seventeen floor cracks between me and the opposite wall; it's fifty-eight steps through into Old Hickory's roll-top and back; and the ink I've poured into all them desk-wells would be enough to float a ferry-boat.