"If you think that's a merry jest," says I, "call up Aunty. Why, say, before we get through with this tea stunt of hers that Djickyns party will be runnin' his studio works day and night shifts and rebuildin' Belgium! We're a great team, me and dear old Aunty. We've just found it out." CHAPTER XII ZENOBIA DIGS UP A LATE ONE And first off I had him listed in the joke column. Think of that! But when I caught my first glimpse of him, there in the Corrugated gen'ral offices that mornin', there was more or less comedy idea to his get-up; the high-sided, flat-topped derby, for instance. Once in a while you run across an old sport who still sticks to that type of hard-boiled lid. Gen'rally they're short-stemmed old ginks who seem to think the high crown makes 'em loom up taller. Maybe so; but where they find back-number hats like that is beyond me. Then there was the buff-cochin spats and the wide ribbon to his eyeglasses. Beyond that I don't know as there was anything real freaky about him. A rich-colored old gent he is, the pink in his cheeks shadin' off into a deep mahogany tint back of his ears, makin' his frosted hair and mustache stand out some prominent. He'd been shown into the private office on a call for Mr. Robert; but as I was well heeled with work of my own I didn't even glance up from the desk until I hears this scrappy openin' of his. "Bob Ellins, you young scoundrel, what the blighted beatitudes does this mean!" he demands. Naturally that gets me stretchin' my neck, and I turns just in time to watch the gaspy expression on Mr. Robert's face fade out and turn into a chuckle. "Why, Mr. Ballard!" says he, extendin' the cordial palm. "I had no idea you were on this side. Really! I understood, you know, that you were settled over there for good, and that----" "So you take advantage of the fact, do you, to make me president of one of your fool companies?" says Ballard. "My imbecile attorney just let it leak out. What do you mean, eh?" Mr. Robert pushes him into a chair and shrugs his shoulders. "It was rather a liberty, I admit," says he; "one of the exigencies of business, however. When a meddlesome administration insists on dissolving into its component parts such an extensive organization as ours--well, we had to have a lot of presidents in a hurry. Really, we didn't think you'd mind, Mr. Ballard, and we had no intention of bothering you with the details." "Huh!" snorts Mr. Ballard. "And what is this precious corporation of which I'm supposed to be the head?" "Why, Mutual Funding," says Mr. Robert. "Funding, eh?" comes back Ballard snappy. "What tommyrot! Bob Ellins, you ought to know that I haven't the vaguest notion as to what funding is,--never did,--and at my time of life, Sir, I don't propose to learn!"