Maybe the same thought struck him as had come to me, which is that helpin' Miss Jane give a blowout to near seven hundred soldiers wouldn't be any rest-cure stunt. She's rated at about ninety horse-power herself, when she's speeded up, and anybody that happens to be on her staff has got to keep movin' in high. They'd have to be ready to tackle anything that turned up, too.
But, to hear Mr. Robert explain it to Forsythe, you'd think it was just that his fame as an arranger of floral center-pieces had spread until Miss Gorman has decided nobody else would do.
"Although, heaven knows, I never suspected you could be really useful, Forsythe, " says Mr. Robert. "But if Miss Jane thinks you'd be a help——"
"Oh, I am sure Mr. Hurd would be the very one," puts in Miss Gorman.
"At last!" says Forsythe, strikin' a pose. "My virtues are about to be discovered. I shall be delighted to assist you, Miss Gorman, in any way."
"Tut, tut, Forsythe!" says Mr. Robert. "Don't be too reckless. Miss Jane might take you at your word."
"Go on. Slander me," says Forsythe. "Say that, when enlisted in a noble cause, I am a miserable shirker."
"Indeed, I shouldn't believe a word of it, even if I had time to listen to him," declares Miss Jane. "And I must be at the camp within an hour. I shall need one of you young men now. Let me see. Suppose I take this one—Torchy, isn't it? Get your coat. I'll not promise to have you back for dinner, but I'll try. Thank you so much, Robert."
And then it was a case of goin' on from there. Whew! I've sort of had the notion now and then, when I've been operatin' with Old Hickory Ellins at the Corrugated Trust on busy days, that I was some rapid private sec. But say, havin' followed Miss Jane Gorman through them dinner preliminaries, I know better.
While that French chauffeur of hers is rollin' us down Long Island at from forty to fifty miles per hour, she has her note-book out and is pumpin' me full of things I'm expected to remember—what train the chef's gang is comin' on, how the supplies are to be carted over, who to see about knockin' up a stage for the cabaret talent, and where the buntin' has been ordered. I borrows a pad and pencil, and wishes I knew shorthand.