“Just Marmaduke,” says I, “and if you don’t want to get your thinker tied in a double bowknot you’ll let it go at that. He’s harmless. First off I thought his gears didn’t mesh; but accordin’ to Pinckney he’s some kind of a philosopher.”
“Gridley has a streak of that nonsense in him too,” says Pyramid. “I only hope he gets it all out of his system by to-morrow night.”
Well, from all I could hear he did; for there wa’n’t any scarehead financial story in the papers, and I guess the bank snarl must have been straightened out all right. What puzzled me for a few days, though, was to think what had become of Marmaduke. He hadn’t been around to the studio once; and Pinckney hadn’t heard a word from him, either. Pinckney had it all framed up how Marmaduke was off starvin’ somewhere.
It was only yesterday, too, that I looks up from the desk to see Marmaduke, all got up in an entire new outfit, standin’ there smilin’ and chipper.
“Well, well!” says I. “So you didn’t hit the breadline, after all!”
“Perchance I deserved it,” says he; “but there came one from the forest who willed otherwise.”
“Ah, cut the josh for a minute,” says I, “and tell us what you landed!”
“Gladly,” says he. “I have been made the salaried secretary of the S. O. S. G. W. H.”
“Is it a new benefit order,” says I, “or what?”
“The mystic letters,” says he, “stand for the Society for Oiling Squeaky Gulls’ Wing Hinges. Mr. Gridley is one member; I am the other.”