"Wha-a-a-at!" says I.

"Only I"m not going to call it that," she goes on. "It isn"t to be a "parlor," either, nor a "shine shop." It"s to be just a "Boots." Right here in the building. I"ve leased part of the bas.e.m.e.nt. See?" And she waves a paper at me.

"Quit your kiddin"," says I.

But she insists that it"s so. Sure enough, that"s the way the lease reads.

And that"s when, as I was tellin" you, I rises up majestic and announces flat that she simply can"t do a thing like that. Also she comes back at me just as prompt by sayin" that she can and will. It"s the first time we"ve met head-on goin" different ways, and I had just sense enough to throw in my emergency before the crash came.

"Now let"s get this straight," says I. "I don"t suppose you"re plannin"

to do shoe-shinin" yourself?"

Vee smiles and shakes her head.

"Or "tend the cash register and sell shoelaces and gum to gentlemen customers?"

"Oh, it"s not to be that sort of place," says she. "It"s to be an English "boots," on a large scale. You know what I mean."

"No," says I.

So she sketches out the enterprise for me. Instead of a reg"lar Tony joint with a row of chairs and a squad of blue-shirted Greeks jabberin"

about the war, this is to be a chairless, spittoonless shine factory, where the customer only steps in to sign a monthly contract or register a kick. All the work is to be collected and delivered, same as laundry.

"I would never have thought of it," explains Vee, "if it hadn"t been for Tarkins. He"s that pasty-faced, sharp-nosed young fellow who"s been helping the janitor recently. A cousin, I believe. He"s a war wreck, too. Just think, Torchy: he was in the trenches for more than a year, and has only been out of a base hospital two months. They wouldn"t let him enlist again; so he came over here to his relatives.

"It was while he was up trying to stop that radiator leak the other day that I asked him if he would take out a pair of my boots and find some place where they could be cleaned. He brought them back inside of half an hour, beautifully done. And when I insisted on being told where he"d taken them, so that I might send them to the same place again, he admitted that he had done the work himself. "My old job, ma"am," says he. "I was boots at the Argyle Club, ma"am, before I went out to strafe the "Uns. Seven years, ma"am. But they got a girl doin" it now, a flapper. Wouldn"t take me back." Just fancy! And Tarkins a trench hero!

So I got to thinking."

"I see," says I. "You"re going to set Tarkins up, eh?"

"I"m going to make him my manager," says Vee. "He will have charge of the shop and solicit orders. We are going to start with only two polishers; one for day work, the other for the night shift. And Tarkins will always be on the job. They"re installing a "phone now, and he will sleep on a cot in the back office. We will work this block first, something like four hundred apartments. Later on--well, we"ll see."

"I don"t want to croak," says I, "but do you think folks will send out their footwear that way? You know, New Yorkers ain"t used to gettin"

their shines except on the hoof."

"I mean to educate them to my "boots" system," says Vee. "I"m getting up a circular now. I shall show them how much time they can save, how many tips they can avoid. You see, each customer will have a delivery box, with his name and address on it. No chance for mistakes. The boxes can be set outside the apartment doors. We will have four collections, perhaps; two in the daytime, two at night. And when they see the kind of work we do---- Well, you wait."

"I"ll admit it don"t listen so worse," says I. "The scheme has its good points. But when you come to teachin" New York people new tricks, like sendin" out their shoes, you"re goin" to be up against it."

"Then you think I can"t make "boots" pay a profit?" asks Vee.

"That would be my guess," says I. "If it was a question of underwritin"

a stock issue for the scheme I"d have to turn it down."

"Good!" says Vee. "Now I shall work all the harder. Tarkins will be around early in the morning to get you as our first customer."

Say, for the next few days she certainly was a busy party--plannin" out her block campaign, lookin" over supply bills, and checkin" up Tarkins"s reports.

I don"t know when I"d ever seen her so interested in anything, or so chirky. Her cheeks were pink all the time and her eyes dancin". And somehow we had such a lot to talk about.

Course, though, I didn"t expect it to last. You wouldn"t look for a girl like Vee, who"d never had any trainin" for that sort of thing, to start a new line and make a go of it right off the bat. But, so long as she wasn"t investin" very heavy, it didn"t matter.

And then, here last night, after she"d been workin" over her account-books for an hour or so, she comes at me with a whoop, and waves a sheet of paper under my nose excited.

"Now, Mister Business Man," says she, "what do you think of that?"

"Eh?" says I, starin" at the figures.

"One hundred and seventeen regular customers the first week," says she, "and a net profit of $23.45. Now how about underwriting that stock issue?"

Well, it was a case of backin" up. She had it all figured out plain.

She"d made good from the start. And, just to prove that it"s real money that she"s made all by herself, she insists on invitin" me out to a celebration dinner. It"s a swell one, too, take it from me.

And afterwards we sits up until long past midnight while Vee plans a chain of "boots" all over the city.

"Gee!" says I. "Maybe you"ll be gettin" yourself written up as "The Shine Queen of New York" or something like that. Lucky Auntie"s in Jamaica. Think what a jolt it would give her."

"I don"t care," says Vee. "I"ve found a job."

"Guess you have," says I. "And, as I"ve remarked once or twice before, you"re some girl."

CHAPTER III

A QUALIFYING TURN FOR TORCHY

And here all along I"d been kiddin" myself that I was a perfectly good private sec. Also I had an idea the Corrugated Trust was one of the main piers that kept New York from slumpin" into the North River, and that the boss, Old Hickory Ellins, was sort of a human skysc.r.a.per who loomed up as imposin" in the financial foreground as the Metropolitan Tower does on the picture post-cards that ten-day trippers mail to the folks back home.

Not that I"d been workin" up any extra chest measure since I"ve had an inside desk and had connected with a few shares of our preferred stock; I always did feel more or less that way about our concern. And the closer I got to things, seein" how wide our investments was scattered and how many big deals we stood behind, the surer I was that we was important people.

And then, in trickles this smooth-haired young gent with the broad _a_"s and the full set of _the dansant_ manners, to show me where I"m wrong on all counts. He"d succeeded in convincin" Vincent-on-the-gate that n.o.body around the shop would do but Mr. Ellins himself, so here was Old Hickory standin" in the door of his private office with the card in his hand and starin" puzzled at this immaculate symphony in browns.

"Eh?" says he. "You"re from Runyon, are you? Well, I wired him to stop off on his way through and have luncheon with me at the Union League.

Know anything about that, do you?"

"Mr. Runyon regrets very much," says the young gent, "that he will be unable to accept your kind invitation. He is on his way to Newport, you know, and----"

"Yes, I understand all that," breaks in Old Hickory. "Daughter"s wedding. But that isn"t until next week, and while he was in town I thought we might have a little chat and settle a few things."

"Quite so," says the symphony. "Precisely why he sent me up, sir--to talk over anything you might care to discuss."

"With you!" snorts Old Hickory. "Who the brocaded buckboards are you?"

"Mr. Runyon"s secretary, sir," says the young gent. "Bixby"s the name, sir, as you will see by the card, and----"

"Ha!" growls old Hickory. "So that"s Marc Runyon"s answer to me, is it?