"I'll see," says he, openin' a little closet and producin' a 'phone. He was havin' some trouble too, tellin' someone just who we was, when I cuts in.
"Ah, just describe the birds," says I. "Silver-slashed blue Orpingtons, you know."
Does it work? Say, in less than two minutes we was being towed through a windin' passage that fin'lly ends in front of a circular shaft with a cute little elevator waitin' at the bottom.
Another minute and we're bein' shot up I don't know how many stories, and are steppin' out into the swellest set of office rooms I was ever in. A mahogany door opens, and in comes a wispy, yellow-skinned, dried-up little old party with eyes like a rat. Didn't look much like the pictures they print of him, but I guessed it was Gedney.
"Some prize Orpingtons, did I understand?" says he, in a soft, purry voice. "I don't recall having——" Then he gets a good look at Old Hickory, and his tone changes sudden. "What!" he snaps. "You, Ellins? How did you get in here?"
"With those fool chickens," says the boss.
"But—but I didn't know," goes on Mr. Nash, "that you were interested in that sort of thing."
"Glad to say I'm not," comes back Old Hickory. "Just a scheme of my brilliant-haired young friend here to smuggle me into the sacred presence. Great Zacharias, Nash! why don't you shut yourself in a steel vault, and have done with it?"
Gedney bites his upper lip, annoyed. "I find it necessary," says he, "to avoid interruptions. I presume, however, that you came on some errand of importance?"