“Yes, Sir,” says I.  “Chandler.  Rush ’em right in, shall I?”

“No!” snorts Old Hickory.  “What I want you to do is to use a little sense, if you have any.  Now, here!  I have a committee meeting at ten; those K. & T. people will be here at ten-forty-five; and after that I can’t say whether I’ll be free or not.  Of course I must see the young nuisances; but meantime I want to forget ’em.  I am trusting to you to work ’em in when they’ll be the least bother.”

“Got you,” says I.  “Chink in with Chandlers.  Yes, Sir.  Anything more?”

“No.  Get out!” he snaps.

Fair imitation of a grouch, eh?  But you got to get used to Old Hickory.  Besides, there was some excuse for his bein’ peeved, havin’ a pair of kids camp down on him this way.  Course I was wise to the other details.  Didn’t I take their ’phone message to Mr. Robert only the day before, and send back the answer for ’em to come on?

Seems this was a case of a second cousin, or something like that, a nutty college professor, who’d gone and left a will makin’ Mr. Ellins a guardian without so much as askin’ by your leave.  There was a Mrs. Chandler; but she don’t figure in the guardianship.  The youngsters had been in school somewhere near Boston; but, this bein’ the holidays, what do they do but turn up in New York and express a wild desire to see dear old Guardy.

“Gee!” thinks I.  “They don’t know when they’re well off.”

For Old Hickory ain’t got a lot of use for the average young person.  I’ve heard him express his sentiments on that point.  “Impudent, ill-mannered, selfish, spoiled young barbarians, the boys,” says he, “and the girls aren’t much better,—­silly, giggling young chatterboxes!”

And the way I has it framed up, this was rather a foxy move of the young Chandlers, discoverin’ their swell New York relations just as the holiday season was openin’.  So I don’t figure that the situation calls for any open-arm motions on my part.  No, nothin’ like that.  I’m here to give ’em their first touch of frost.

So about eleven-fifteen, as I glances across the brass rail and sees this pair advancin’ sort of uncertain, I’m all prepared to cause a drop in the mercury.  They wa’n’t exactly the type I had in mind, though.  What I’d expected was a brace of high school cutups.  But these two are older than that.

The young fellow was one of these big-boned, wide-shouldered chaps, with a heavy, serious look to his face, almost dull.  I couldn’t tell at first look whether he was a live wire or not.  No such suspicions about the girl.  She ain’t what you’d call a queen, exactly.  She’s too tall and her face is too long for that.  Kind of a cute sort of face, though, with rather a wide mouth that she can twist into a weird, one-sided smile.  But after one look at them lively blue eyes you knew she wasn’t walkin’ in her sleep.  It’s my cue, though, to let ’em guess what nuisances they were.