Torchy As A Pa

I got to admit that there's some drawbacks to being a 100 per cent perfect private see. Not that I mind making myself useful around the general offices. I'm always willin' to ro...

The best alibi I can think up is that I did it offhand and casual. Somehow, at the time it didn't seem like what people would call an important step in my career. No. Didn't str...

It ain't often Mr. Robert starts something he can't finish. When he does, though, he's shifty at passin' it on. Yes, I'll say he is. For in such cases I'm apt to be the one that...

And all the time I had Wadley Fiske slated as a dead one! Course, he was one of Mr. Robert's clubby friends. But that don't always count. He may be choosey enough picking live w...

This news about how the Gummidges had come back is 'phoned in by Vee here the other afternoon. She's some excited over it, as she always is when she sees another chance of exten...

Course, Vee gives me all the credit. Perfectly right, too. That's the way we have 'em trained. But, as a matter of fact, stated confidential and on the side, it was the little l...

It began with Stella Flynn, but it ended with the Hon. Sour Milk and Madam Zenobia. Which is one reason why my job as private sec. to Mr. Robert Ellins is one I wouldn't swap fo...

I forget just what it was Vee was rummagin' for in the drawer of her writin' desk. Might have been last month's milk bill, or a stray hair net, or the plans and specifications f...

It was one of Mr. Robert's cute little ideas, you might know. He's an easy boss in a good many ways and I have still to run across a job that I'd swap mine for, the pay envelope...

Well, I expect I've gone and done it again. Queered myself with Auntie. Vee's, of course. You'd most think I'd know how to handle the old girl by this time, for we've been rubbi...

I'd hardly noticed when Mr. Robert blew in late from lunch until I hears him chuckle. Then I glances over my shoulder and sees that he's lookin' my way. Course, that gets me cur...

Honest, the first line I got on this party with the steady gray eyes and the poker face was that he must be dead from the neck up. Or else he'd gone into a trance and couldn't g...

It was what you might call a session of the big four. Anyway, that's the way I'd put it; for besides Old Hickory, planted solid in his mahogany swing chair with his face lookin'...

"He's waiting to see Mr. Ellins," says Vincent. "This is his third try. Looks to me like some up-state stockholder who wants to know when Corrugated common will strike 110."

Course, I only got my suspicions, and I ain't in position to call for the real facts in the case, but I'll bet if it came to a show down I could name the master mind that wished...

I remember how thrilled Vee gets when she first discovers that these new people in Honeysuckle Lodge are old friends of hers. I expect some poetical real estater wished that nam...

Mostly it was a case of Old Hickory runnin' wild on the main track and Brink Hollis being in the way. What we really ought to have in the Corrugated general offices is one of th...

If I knew how, you ought to be worked up to the proper pitch for this scene. You know--lights dimmed, throbby music from the bull fiddle and kettle drums, and the ushers seatin'...

He's kind of a rough old boy, Z. K. Tyler, one of the bottom-rungers who likes to tell how he made his start as fry cook on an owl lunch wagon. Course, now he has his Broad Stre...

Being a parent grows on you, don't it? Course, at first, when it's sprung on you so kind of sudden, you hardly know how to act. That is, if you're makin' your debut in the part....

Looked like kind of a simple guy, this Hartley Tyler. I expect it was the wide-set, sort of starey eyes, or maybe the stiff way he had of holdin' his neck. If you'd asked me I'd...