Things happen to you quick, don't they, when the happenin' is good? Take this affair of Zenobia's. One day I'm settled down all comfy and solid with two old near-aunts who'd been livin' in the same place and doin' the same things for the last thirty years or so, and the next—well, off one of 'em goes, elopes with an old-time beau of hers that happens to show up here just because Europe is bein' shot up.

And then, before I've recovered from that jolt, comes this human surprise package labeled Dorsett, who blows breezy into the Corrugated. Fair-haired Vincent, who still holds my old place on the brass gate, brings in his card.

"William H. Dorsett?" says I. "Never heard of the party. Did he ask for Mutual Funding?"

"No, Sir," says Vincent. "He asked for you, Sir."

"How?" says I.

At which Vincent tints up embarrassed. "He said he wished to talk to a young fellow known as Torchy, Sir," says he.

"Almost a description of me, ain't it?" says I. "Well, tow him in, Vincent, until I see if his map's any more familiar than his name."

It wa'n't. He's a middle-aged gent, kind of tall and stoop-shouldered, with curly hair that's started to frost up above the ears. The raincoat he's wearin' is a little seedy, specially about the collar and cuffs; but he's sportin' a silver-mounted walkin'-stick, and has a new pair of yellow gloves stickin' from his breast pocket.

With a free and easy stride he follows Vincent's directions, sails over to my corner of the private office, pulls up a chair, and camps down by the desk without any urgin'. Also he favors me with a friendly smile that he produces from one corner of his mouth. Sort of a catchy smile it is too, and before we've swapped a word I finds myself smilin' back.

"Well!" says I. "You 're introducin' what?"

"Just William H. Dorsett," says he.

"You do it well," says I.

He allows the off corner of his mouth to loosen up again, and for a second his deep-set brown eyes steady down as he gives me the once-over. Kind of an amused, quizzin' look it is, but more or less foxy. He crosses his legs and hitches up his chair confidential.

"I imagine you're rather used to handling big propositions here," says he, takin' in the office mahogany, the expensive floor rugs, and everything else in a quick glance: "so I hope you won't mind if I present a small one."

"In funding?" says I.

"It might very well come under that head," says he. "Ever do much with municipal franchises,—trolleys, lighting, that sort of thing?"

"Nope," says I; "nor racin' tips, church fair chances, or Danish lottery tickets. We don't even back new movie concerns."

That gets a twinkle out of his restless eyes. "I don't blame you in the least," says he. "I suppose there are more worthless franchises hawked around New York than you could stuff into a moving van. That's what makes it so difficult to get action on any real, gilt-edged propositions."

"Such as you've got in your inside pocket eh?" says I.

"Precisely," says he. "Mine are the worthwhile kind. Of course franchises are common enough. It's no trick at all to go into the average Rube village, 'steen miles from a railroad, and get 'em thrilled with the notion of being connected by trolley with Jaytown, umpteen miles south. Why, they'll hand you anything in sight! A deaf-mute could go out and get that sort of franchise. But to prospect through the whole cotton belt, locate opportunities where the dividends will follow the rails, pick out the cream of them all, get in right with the board of trade, fix things up with a suspicious town council, stall off the local capitalist who would like to hog all the profits himself, and set the real estate operators working for you tooth and nail—well, that is legitimate promoting; my brand, if you will permit me."

"Maybe," says I. "But the Corrugated don't——"

"I understand," breaks in Mr. Dorsett. "Quite right too. But here I produce the personal equation. For five weary weeks I've skittered about this city, carrying around with me half a dozen of the ripest, richest franchise propositions ever matured. Bona-fide prospects, mind you, communities just yearning for transportation facilities, with tentative stock subscriptions running as high as two hundred thousand in some cases. They're schemes I've nursed from the seed up, as you might say. I've laid all the underground wires, seen all the officials that need seeing, planned for every right of way. Six splendid opportunities that may be coined into cash simply by pressing the button! And the nearest I can get to any man with real money to invest is a two-minute interview in a reception room with some clerk. All because I lack someone to take me into a private office and remark casually: 'Mr. So-and-So, here's my friend Dorsett, who's bringing us something good from the South.' That's all. Why, only last week I actually offered to deliver a fifty-thousand-dollar franchise on a ten per cent. commission basis, provided I was given a beggarly two hundred advance for expenses—and had it turned down!"

"Ye-e-es," says I. "The way some of them Wall Street plutes shrink from bein' made richer is painful, ain't it? But I don't see where I fit in."

Mr. Dorsett pats me chummy on the shoulder and proceeds to show me exactly where. "You know the right people," says he. "You're in with them. Very well. All I ask of you is the 'Here's Mr. Dorsett' part. I'll do the rest."

"How simple!" says I. "And us old friends of about five minutes' standin'! Say, throw in your reverse or you'll be off the bridge. Who's been tellin' you I was such a simp?"

Mr. Dorsett smiles indulgent. "My error," says he. "But I was hoping that perhaps you might—— Come, Torchy, hasn't it occurred to you that I would hardly come as an utter stranger? Who do you suppose now gave me your address?"

"The chairman of the Stock Exchange?" says I.

"Mother Leary," says he.

"Eh?" says I, gawpin'.

"A flip of fate," says he. "At my hotel I got to talking with the room clerk, and discovered that his name was Leary. It turned out that he was Aloysius, the eldest boy. Remember him, don't you?"

Seein' how I'd almost been brought up in the fam'ly when I was a kid, I couldn't deny it. Course I'd run more with Hunch than any of the other boys. We'd sold papers together, and gone into the A. D. T. at the same time. But there wasn't a Leary I didn't know all about.

"You must have boarded there too," says I. "But if I ever heard your name, it didn't stick."

"It may have been," says he, "that I was not using the Dorsett part of it just at that time. Business reasons, you understand. But the H in my name stands for Hines. What about William Hines, now?"

"Hm-m-m!" says I, starin' at him. Sure enough, that did have a familiar sound to it.

"Let's try it this way," says he: "Uncle Bill Hines."

And, say, that got me! I expect I made some gaspy motions before I managed to get out my next remark. "You—you ain't the one that left me with Mother Leary, are you?" I asks.

Dorsett nods. "I'm a trifle late in explaining that carelessness," says he, "and I can only plead guilty to all your reproaches. But consider the circumstances. There I was, a free lance of fortune, down to my last dollar, and rich only in the companionship of a bright-eyed, four-year-old youngster who had been trusted to my care. You remember very little of that period, I suppose; but it is all vivid enough to me, even now,—how we tramped up and down Broadway, you chattering away, excited and happy, while I was wondering what I should do when that last dollar was gone.

"Then, just when things seem blackest, arrived opportunity,—the Birmingham boom. I ran across one of the boomers, who was struck with the brilliant idea that he could make use of my peculiar talents in making known the coming glories of the new South. But I must join him at once, that very day. And he waved yellow-backed bills at me. I simply had to drop you and go. Mother Leary promised to take care of you for three months, or until your—well, until someone else claimed you. I sent word to them both, at least I tried to, and rushed gayly down into Dixie. Perhaps you never heard of the bursting of that first Birmingham boom? It was an abrupt but very-complete smash. I came out of it owning two gorgeous suits of clothes, one silk hat, and an opulent-looking pocketbook, bulging with thirty-day options on corner lots. One of the clerks in our office staked me with carfare to Atlanta, where I got a job collecting tenement house rents.

"Since then I've been up and down. Half a dozen times I've almost had my fingers on the tail feathers of fortune: only to stumble into some hidden pit of poverty. And in time—well, time mends all things. Besides, I hardly relished facing Mother Leary. There was the chance too that you no longer needed rescuing. I'm not trying to excuse my breach of faith: I am merely telling you how it came about. You realize that, I trust?"

Did I? I don't know. I expect I was just sittin' there gazing stary at him. Only one thing was shapin' itself clear in my head, and fin'lly I states it flat.

"Say," says I, "you—you ain't my reg'lar uncle, are you?"

Maybe I wa'n't as enthusiastic as the case called for. He springs that smile of his. "Hardly a flattering way to put it," says he. "Would you be disappointed if I was?"

"Well," says I, eyin' him up and down, "you don't strike me as such a swell uncle, you know."

Don't faze him a bit, either. "Our near relatives are seldom quite satisfactory," says he. "Of course, though, if I fail to suit——" He hunches his shoulders and reaches for his hat.

So he had it on me, you see. Suppose you was as shy on relations as I am, would you turn down the only one that ever showed up?

"Excuse me if I don't get the cues right," says I; "but—but this has been put over a little sudden. Course I'll take Mrs. Leary's word. If she says you're my Uncle Bill, that goes. Anyway, you can give me a line on—on my folks, I suppose?"

Yes, he admits that he can; but he don't. And I will say for him that he states his case smooth enough, smilin' that catchy smile of his, and tappin' me friendly on the knee. But when he's all through it amounts to this: He needs the loan of a couple of hundred cash the worst way, and he wants to be put next to a few plutes that are in the market for new trolley franchises. If I can boost him along that way, it'll relieve his mind so much that he'll be in just the right mood to go into my personal hist'ry as deep as I care to dip.

"Gee!" says I. "But this raisin' a fam'ly tree comes high, don't it? Besides, I'd have to get Mother Leary's O. K. on you first, you know."

"Naturally," says he. "And any time within the next day or so will answer. Suppose I drop around again, or look you up at your quarters?"

"Better make it at the house," says I. "Here's the street number. Some evenin' after seven-thirty. I—I'll be thinkin' things over."

And as I watches him swing jaunty through the door I remarks under my breath to nobody in partic'lar: "Uncle Bill, eh? My Uncle Bill! Well, well!"

You can be sure too that my first move is to sound Mother Leary. She says he's the one, all right, and I gathers that she gave him the tongue-lashin' she'd been savin' up all these years. But I don't stop for details. If I've really had an uncle wished on me, it's up to me to make the best of it, or find out the worst. But somehow I ain't so chesty about havin' dug up a relation. I don't brag about it to Martha when I go home. In fact, Martha has fam'ly troubles of her own about now, you remember. I finds her weepy-eyed and solemn.

"They've been gone more than a week," says she, "Zenobia and that reckless Kyrle Ballard. Pretty soon they will be coming back, and then——"

"Well, what then?" says I.

"I've been packing up to-day," says she, swabbin' off a stray tear from the side of her nose. "I have engaged rooms at the Lady Louise. I suppose you will be leaving too."

"Me?" says I.

It hadn't struck me that Aunt Zenobia's getting married was goin' to throw us all out on the street. But Aunt Martha had it doped diff'rent.

"Stay in the same house with that man?" says she. "Not I! And I am quite sure he will not want either of us around when he comes back here as Zenobia's husband."

"If that's the case," says I, "it won't take me long to clear out; but I guess I'll wait until I get the hint direct. You'd better wait too."

Martha'd made up her mind, though. She says she'd go right then if it wa'n't for leavin' the servants alone in the house; but the very minute Sister Zenobia arrives she means to beat it. And sure enough next day she has her trunk brought down into the front hall and begins wearin' her bonnet around the house. It's a little weird to see her pokin' about dressed that way, and her wraps and rubbers laid out handy, as if she belonged to a volunteer hose comp'ny.

It was after the second day of this watchful waitin', and we're sittin' down to a six-forty-five dinner, when a big racket breaks loose out front. The bell rings four times rapid, Lizzie the maid almost breaks her neck gettin' to the door, and in breezes the runaway pair with all their baggage, chucklin' and chatterin' like a couple of kids. Some stunnin' Aunt Zenobia looks, for all her gray hair; and Mr. Ballard, in his Scotch tweed suit and with his ruddy cheeks, don't look a day over fifty. They're giggling merry over some remark of Lizzie's, and Zenobia calls in through the draperies.

"Hello, Martha—Torchy—everybody!" she sings out. "Well, here we are, back from that absurd boardwalk resort, back to—well, for the love of ladies! Martha Hadley, why in the name of nonsense are you eating dinner with your hat on?"

"Because," says Martha, beginnin' to sniffle, "I—I'm going away."

"But where? Why?" demands Zenobia.

And between sobs Martha explains. She includes me in it too.

"Then why aren't you wearing your hat also, Torchy?" asks Zenobia.

"Well," says I, "I ain't so sure about quittin' as she is. I thought I'd stick around until I got the word to move."

"Which you're not at all likely to get, young man," says Zenobia. "And as for you, Martha, you should have better sense. Trapsing off to a hotel, at your time of life! Rubbish! And why, please?"

Aunt Martha nods towards Ballard.

"Well, you're just going to get over that nonsense," says Zenobia. "Kyrle, you know what you promised when you told me you'd make up with Martha? Now is the appointed time. Do it!"

And Mr. Ballard, chuckin' his hat and overcoat on a chair, sails right in. I expect it was the last thing in the world Martha was lookin' for; for she sits there gazin' at him sort of stupid until he's done the trick. Uh-huh! No halfway business about it, either. He just naturally takes her chubby old face between his two hands, tilts up her chin, and plants a reg'lar final curtain smack where I'll bet it's been forty years since the lips of man had trod before.

First off Martha flops her arms and squeals. Then, when she finds it's all over and ain't goin' to be any continuous performance, she quiets down and stares at the two of 'em, who are chucklin' away merry.

"Please, Sister Martha," says Ballard, "try to overlook that old affair of mine when I tried to cut out the Rev. Preble. I was rather irresponsible then, I'll own; but I have steadied down a lot, although for the last week or so—well, you know how giddy Zenobia is. But you will help us. We can't either of us spare you, you see."

Maybe it was the jollyin' speech, or maybe it was the unexpected smack, but inside of five minutes Martha has shed her bonnet and we're all sittin' around the table as friendly and jolly as you please.

I suppose it was by way of makin' Martha feel comf'table and as if she was really part of the game that they got to reminiscin' about old times and the folks they used to know. I wa'n't followin' it very close until Martha gets to askin' Ballard about some of his people, and he starts in on this story about his nephew.

"Poor Dick!" says he, pushin' back his demitasse and lightin' up a big perfecto. "Now if he'd been my boy, things might have turned out differently. But my respected brother—well, you knew Richard, Martha. Not at all like me,—eminently respectable, a bit solemn, and tremendously stiff-necked on occasion. The way he took on about that red-headed Irish girl, for instance. Irene, you know. Why, you might have thought, to have heard him storm around, that she was a veritable sorceress, or something of the kind; when, as a matter of fact, she was just a nice, wholesome, keen-witted young woman. Pretty as a picture, she was, and as true as gold too,—a lot too good for young Dick Ballard, even if she was merely a girl in his father's office. You couldn't blame her for liking Dick, though. Everyone did—the scatter-brained scamp! And when my brother went through all that melodramatic folly of cutting him off with a thousand a year—well, we had our big row over that. That was when I took my money out of the firm. Lucky I did too. When the panic came I was safe."

"Let's see," says Zenobia, "Dick and the girl ran off and were married, weren't they?"

"Yes," says Ballard. "It's in the blood, you see. They went to Paris, to carry out one of Dick's great schemes. He had persuaded some of his friends, big real estate dealers, to make him their foreign agent. His idea was, I believe, to catch Western millionaires abroad and sell 'em Fifth-ave. mansions. Actually did land one or two customers, I think. But it was his wife's notion that turned out to be really practical,—leasing French and Italian villas to rich Americans. Something in that, you know, and if Dick had only stuck to it—but Dick never could. He got in with some mine promoters, and after that nothing would answer but that he must rush right back to Goldfield and look over some properties that were for sale dirt cheap. As though Dick would have been any wiser after he'd seen 'em! But his biggest piece of folly was in taking the little boy along with him."

"What! Away from his mother?" says Martha.

"Just like Dick," says Ballard. "They couldn't both leave the leasing business, and as she knew more about it than he did—well, that's the way they settled it. He persuaded her it would be a fine thing for the youngster. Huh! I came over on the same boat with them, and I want to tell you that little chap simply owned the steamer! Bright? Why, he was the cutest kid you ever saw,—red-headed, like his mother, and with his father's laugh. Spent most of his time on the bridge with the first officer, or down in the engine room with the chief. Dick never knew where he was half the time.

"He was for taking the boy out into the mining country with him too. I supposed he had until I got this frantic cable from Irene. They'd sent her word about Dick's sudden end,—he always did have a weak heart, you know,—and something about the high altitude got him. Went off like that. But Irene was demanding of me to tell her where the boy was. Of course I didn't know. I did my best to find him, hunted high and low. I traced Dick to Goldfield. No use. The boy was not with him when he went West. Where he had left him was a mystery that——"

Buz-z-z-z! goes the front doorbell, right in the middle of Mr. Ballard's story, and in comes Lizzie sayin' it's someone to see me. For a second I couldn't think who'd be huntin' me up here at this time of the evenin'. And then I remembered,—Dorsett.

"It—it's an uncle of mine," says I to Zenobia, "a reg'lar uncle."

"Why," says she, "I didn't know you had one."

"Me either," says I, "until the other day. He just turned up. Could I take him into the libr'y?"

"Of course," says Zenobia.

I was kind of sorry he'd come. I hadn't been so chesty over Uncle Bill at the office; but here, where things are sort of quiet and classy—well, I could see where he wouldn't show up so strong. Besides, I hadn't made up my mind just how I was goin' to turn down his proposition.

I towed him in, though. He was glancin' around the room approvin', and makin' a few openin' remarks, when the folks come strollin' out from the dinin'-room. I glances up, and sees Mr. Ballard just as he's about to pass the door. So does Dorsett. And, say, the minute them two spots each other things sort of hung fire and stopped. Dorsett he breaks short off what he's sayin', and Mr. Ballard comes to a halt and stands starin' in the room. Next I know he's pushed in, and they're facin' each other.

"Pardon me, Sir," says Ballard, "but didn't you cross with me on the Lucania once? And weren't you thick with Dick Ballard?"

Course I could see something coming right then; but I didn't know what it was. Mr. Dorsett's shifty eyes take another look at Ballard, and then he hitches uneasy in his chair.

"Rather an odd coincidence, isn't it?" says he. "Yes, I was on board that trip."

"Then you're one of the men I've been looking for a good many years," says Ballard. "You knew Dick very well, didn't you? Then perhaps you can tell me who he left that boy of his with when he went West?"

"Why, yes," says Dorsett, smilin' fidgety. "He—er—the fact is, he left him with me."

"With you, eh?" says Ballard. "I might have guessed as much. Well, Sir, where's the boy now?"

"Wha-a-at?" gasps Dorsett, lookin' from me to Mr. Ballard. "Where, did you say?"

"Yes, Sir," comes back Ballard snappy. "Where?"

More gasps from Dorsett. But he's good at duckin' trouble. With a wink at me and a chuckle he remarks: "Torchy, suppose you tell the gentleman where you are?"

Well, say, it was some complicated unravelin' we did durin' the next few minutes, believe me; but after Zenobia and Martha had been called in, and Dorsett has done some more of his smooth explainin', we all begun to see where we were at.

"Torchy," says Zenobia at last, "bring down from your room that little gold locket you've always had."

And when Mr. Ballard has opened it and held the picture under the readin' light, he winds up the whole debate as to who's who.

"It's Irene, of course," says he. "Poor girl! But she had her day, after all. Married a French army officer, you know, and for a while they were happy together. Then the war. He was dropped somewhere around Rheims, I believe. Then I heard of her doing volunteer work at a field hospital. She lasted a month or so at that—typhus, or a German shell, I don't know which. But she's gone too."

And me, I stands there, listenin' gawpy, with my eyes beginnin' to blur. It's Zenobia, you might know, who notices first. She steps over and gathers me in motherly. Not that I needs it, as I know of, but—well, it was kind of good to feel her arm around me just then.

"We'll find out all about it later; won't we, Torchy?" she whispers.

Meanwhile Mr. Ballard has swung on Dorsett. "So you were trying to pose as Uncle Bill, were you?" he demands. "Well, Sir, you're just about the caliber of man Dick would choose to put his trust in! But I'll bet a thousand you were not finding it so easy to fool his boy here! Going, are you? This way, Sir."

"At that, though," says I, as the door shuts after Dorsett, "he had me guessin'."

"Yes," says Mr. Ballard, "he would, any of us."

"And I don't see," I goes on, "as I got any fam'ly left, after all."

"You—you don't, eh, you young scamp?" says Mr. Ballard. "Well, as there's no doubt about your being my nephew's boy, I'd like to know why I don't qualify as a perfectly good great-uncle to you!"

"Why, that's so!" says I, grinnin' at him. "I—I guess you do. And, say, if you don't mind my sayin' so, you'll do fine!"

So what if Uncle Bill did turn out a ringer! He was more or less useful, even if he did gum up the plot there for a while. Uh-huh! Mighty useful! For there's nothin' phony about my new Uncle Kyrle, take it from me!