I must say it wa'n't such a swell time for Mr. Robert to be indulgin' in any complicated love affair. You know how business has been, specially our line. And our directors was about as calm as a bunch of high school girls havin' hysterics. Jumpy? Say, some of them double-chinned old plutes couldn't reach for a glass of ice water without goin' through motions like they was shakin' dice. It's this sporty market that had got on their nerves. You know, all these combine rumors--this bunk about Germany buyin' up plants wholesale, and the grand scrabble to fill all them whackin' big foreign orders, with steamer charters about as numerous as twin baby carriages along Riverside Drive. Why, say, at one time there you could have sold us ferryboats or garbage-scows, we was so hungry for anything that would carry ocean freights. And, of course, with Old Hickory Ellins at the helm, the Corrugated Trust was right in the thick of it. About twice a week some fool yarn was floated about us. We'd sold out to Krupps and was goin' to close; we'd tied up with Bethlehem; we'd underbid on a flock of submarines and was due for a receivership--oh, a choice lot of piffle! But a few of them nervous old boys, who was placid enough at annual meetin's watchin' a melon bein' cut, just couldn't stand the strain. Every time they got fed up on some new dope from the Wall Street panic peddlers, they'd come around howlin' for a safe and sane policy. I stood it until here the other mornin' when a bunch of soreheads showed up before nine o'clock and proceeds to hold an indignation meetin' in front of my desk. "Gwan!" says I. "Nobody's rockin' the boat but you. Go sit on your checkbooks." They just glares at me. "Where is Old Hickory?" one of 'em wants to know. "About now," says I, "Mr. Ellins would be finishin' the last of three soft-boiled eggs. He'll show up here at nine-forty-five." "Mr. Robert Ellins, then?" demands another. "Say, I'm no puzzle editor," says I. "Maybe he'll be here to-day and maybe he won't." "But we couldn't find him yesterday, either," comes back an old goat with tufts in his ears. "That's a way he has these days," says I. No use tryin' to smooth things over. It's Mr. Robert they'd been sore on all along, suspectin' him of startin' all the wild schemes just because he's young. I'd heard 'em, after they'd moved into the directors' room, insistin' that he ought to be asked to resign. And what they was beefin' specially about to-day was because of a tale that a Chicago syndicate had jumped in and bought the _Balboa_, a 10,000-ton Norwegian freighter that we was supposed to have an option on. It was the final blow. That satisfied 'em they was being sold out, and their best guess was that Mr. Robert was turnin' the trick.