Now some folks I know of works it just opposite, and they may be right, too. Mr. Piddie, our office manager, for instance. He's always afraid something will happen to him. I've heard him talk about it enough. Not just accidents that might leave him an ambulance case, or worse, but anything that don't come in his reg'lar routine; little things, like forgettin' his commutation ticket, or gettin' lost in Brooklyn, or havin' his new straw lid blow under a truck and walkin' bareheaded a few blocks. Say, I'll bet he won't like it in Heaven if he can't punch a time card every mornin', or if they shift him around much to different harp sections.
While me, I ain't worryin' what tomorrow will be like if it's only some different from yesterday. And generally it is. Take this last little whirl of mine. I'll admit it leaves me a bit dizzy in the head, like I'd been side-swiped by a passing event. Also my pride had had a bump when I didn't know I had such a thing. Maybe that's why I look so dazed.
What led up to it all was a little squint into the past that me and Old Hickory indulged in here a week or so back. I'd been openin' the mornin' mail, speedy and casual as a first-class private sec. ought to do, and sortin' it into the baskets, when I runs across this note which should have been marked "Personal." I'd only glanced at the "Dear old pal" start and the "Yours to a finish, Bonnie," endin' when I lugs it into the private office.
"I expect this must have been meant for Mr. Robert; eh, Mr. Ellins?" says I, handin' it over.
It's written sort of scrawly and foreign on swell stationery and Old Hickory don't get many of that kind, as you can guess. He reads it clear through, though, without even a grunt. Then he waves me into a chair.
"As it happens, Torchy," says he, "this was meant for no one but me."
"My error," says I. "I didn't read it, though."
He don't seem to take much notice of that statement, just sits there gazin' vacant at the wall and fingerin' his cigar. After a minute or so of this he remarks, sort of to himself: "Bonnie, eh? Well, well!"
I might have smiled. Probably I did, for the last person in the world you'd look for anything like mushy sentiments from would be Old Hickory Ellins. Couldn't have been much more than a flicker of a smile at that. But them keen old eyes of his don't miss much that's going on, even when he seems to be in a trance. He turns quick and gives me one of them quizzin' stares.
"Funny, isn't it, son," says he, "that I should still be called Dear Old Pal by the most fascinating woman in the world?"