"Eh?" says I. "You don't mean you've gone and——"
"Nearly a month ago," says Hartley. "Nicest little girl in the world, too. You must have noticed her. She was on the candy counter in the arcade for a month or so."
"What!" says I. "The one with the honey-colored hair and the bashful behavin' eyes?"
Hartley nods and blushes.
"Say, you are a fast worker when you get going, ain't you?" says I. "Picked a Cutie-Sweet right away from all that opposition. But I judge she's no heiress."
"Edith is just as poor as I am," admits Hartley.
"How about your old man?" I goes on. "What did Z. K. have to say when he heard!"
"Suppose'we don't go into that," says Hartley. "As a matter of fact, I hung up the 'phone just as he was getting his second wind."
"Then he didn't pull the 'bless you, my children,' stuff, eh?" I suggests.
"No," says Hartley, grinnin'. "Quite the contrary. Anyway, I knew what to expect from him. But say, Torchy, I did have a pretty vague notion of what it costs to run a family these days."