Torchy, Private Sec.
9781465500366
pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
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 ferryboat. At 8.30 on this special mornin’ there I am, as I said; and at 2.21 P. M. the same day I’m——Well, of course, there was a few preliminaries, though I didn’t tag ‘em as such when they come along. I expect the new spring costume helped some. And the shave—oh, I was goin’ it strong! No cut-price, closing-out, House-of-Smartheimer bargain, altered free to fit—not so, Lobelia! Why, I pawed over whole bales of stuff in a sure-enough Fifth-ave. tailor works; had blueprint plans of the front and side elevations drawn, even to the number of buttons on the cuffs, and spent three diff’rent noon hours havin’ it modeled on me before they could pull a single bastin’ thread
