“Torchy,” says Mr. Robert, “ask Barney to call a cab.”

“And, by the way,” Bunny is sayin’ as I come back, “you might chuck in a business suit and a few white flannels into a grip, Bob.  You wouldn’t want me to arrive in South America dressed like this, would you?”

“Very well,” says Mr. Robert.  “But what I’m most concerned about is that you do arrive there.”

“But how do you know, Mr. Robert,” says I next mornin’, “that he will?”

“Because I locked him in his stateroom myself,” says he, “and bribed a steward not to let him out until he could see Barnegat light over the stern.”

“Gee!” says I.  “That’s one way of losin’ a better days’ proposition.  And in case any others like him turns up, Mr. Robert, have you got any more old dress suits?”

“If I have,” says he, “I shall burn them.”

CHAPTER XII

THE GLAD HAIL FOR TORCHY

I’ll say this for Aunty:  She’s doin’ her best.  About all she’s omitted is lockin’ Vee in a safety deposit vault and forgettin’ the combination.

Say, you’d most think I was as catchin’ as a case of measles.  I wish it was so; for once in awhile, in spite of Aunty, Vee gets exposed.  That’s all the good it does, though.  What’s a few minutes’ chat with the only girl that ever was?  It’s a wonder we don’t have to be introduced all over again.  That would be the case with some girls.  But Vee!  Say, lemme put you wise—­Vee’s different!  Uh-huh!  I found that out all by myself.  I don’t know just where it comes in, or how, but she is.

All of which makes it just so much worse when she and Aunty does the summer flit.  Course, I saw it comin’ ’way back early in June, and then the first thing I know they’re gone.  I gets a bulletin now and then,—­Lenox, the Pier, Newport, and so on,—­sometimes from Vee, sometimes by readin’ the society notes.  Must be great to have the papers keep track of you, the way they do of Aunty.  And it’s so comfortin’ to me, strayin’ lonesome into a Broadway movie show of a hot evening to know that “among the debutantes at a tea dance given in the Casino by Mrs. Percy Bonehead yesterday afternoon was Miss Verona Hemmingway.”  Oh, sure!  Say, how many moves am I from a tea dance—­me here behind the brass rail at the Corrugated, with Piddie gettin’ fussy, and Old Hickory jabbin’ the buzzer?

And then, just when I’m peevish enough to be canned and served with lamb chops, here comes this glad word out of the State of Maine.  “It’s nice up here,” says she; “but awfully stupid.  Vee.”  That’s all—­just a picture postcard.  But, say, I’d have put it in a solid gold frame if there’d been one handy.

As it is, I sticks the card up on the desk in front of me and gazes longin’.  Some shack, I should judge by the picture,—­one of these low, wide affairs, all built of cobblestones, with a red tile roof and yellow awnin’s.  Right on the water too.  You can see the waves frothin’ almost up to the front steps.  Roarin’ Rocks, Maine, is the name of the place printed underneath.