"Part of it then," insists Riggs. "I'd been meanin' to write you about it. I generally do write 'em while—while they're on the front."
"No," says Hallam, and edges toward the door.
He seemed to get the idea. Before he starts back for town that night he asks Mr. Robert if he could say a word for him at the advertisin' agency, as he thought it might be just as well if he hung onto the job. It wasn't such a poor thought, for Hallam fades out of public view a good deal quicker than he came in.
"Maybe it wasn't Fame that rung him up, after all," I suggests to Mr. Robert.
He nods. "It might have been her step-sister, Notoriety," says he.
"Just what's the difference?" says I.
Mr. Robert rubs his chin. "Some old boy whose name I've forgotten, put it very well once," says he. "Let's see, he said that Fame was the perfume distilled from the perfect flowering of a wise and good life; while Notoriety was—er——"
"Check!" says I. "It's what you get when you fry onions, eh?"
Mr. Robert grins. "Some day, Torchy," says he, "I think I shall ask you to translate Emerson's Essays for me."
It's all josh, all right. But that's what you get when you're a private sec. de luxe.