I blubbered all the way back in the car, until everyone stared, but I didn’t care. When I reached the office I made straight for Blackie’s smoke-filled sanctum. When my tale was ended he let me cry all over his desk, with my head buried in a heap of galley-proofs and my tears watering his paste-pot. He sat calmly by, smoking. Finally he began gently to philosophize. “Now girl, he’s prob’ly better off there than he ever was at home with his mother soused all the time. Maybe he give that warty matron friend of yours all kinds of trouble, yellin’ for his ma.”
I raised my head from the desk. “Oh, you can talk! You didn’t see him. What do you care! But if you could have seen him, crouched there—alone—like a little animal! He was so sweet—and lovable—and—and—he hadn’t been decently washed for weeks—and his arms clung to me—I can feel his hands about my neck!—”
I buried my head in the papers again. Blackie went on smoking. There was no sound in the little room except the purr-purring of Blackie’s pipe. Then:
“I done a favor for Wheeling once,” mused he.
I glanced up, quickly. “Oh, Blackie, do you think—”
“No, I don’t. But then again, you can’t never tell. That was four or five years ago, and the mem’ry of past favors grows dim fast. Still, if you’re through waterin’ the top of my desk, why I’d like t’ set down and do a little real brisk talkin’ over the phone. You’re excused.”
Quite humbly I crept away, with hope in my heart.
To this day I do not know what secret string the resourceful Blackie pulled. But the next afternoon I found a hastily scrawled note tucked into the roll of my typewriter. It sent me scuttling across the hall to the sporting editor’s smoke-filled room. And there on a chair beside the desk, surrounded by scrap-books, lead pencils, paste-pot and odds and ends of newspaper office paraphernalia, sat Bennie. His hair was parted very smoothly on one side, and under his dimpled chin bristled a very new and extremely lively green-and-red plaid silk tie.
The next instant I had swept aside papers, brushes, pencils, books, and Bennie was gathered close in my arms. Blackie, with a strange glow in his deep-set black eyes regarded us with an assumed disgust.
“Wimmin is all alike. Ain’t it th’ truth? I used t’ think you was different. But shucks! It ain’t so. Got t’ turn on the weeps the minute you’re tickled or mad. Why say, I ain’t goin’ t’ have you comin’ in here an’ dampenin’ up the whole place every little while! It’s unhealthy for me, sittin’ here in the wet.”