CHAPTER XVI
THROWING THE LINE TO SKID
Say, this is twice I've been let in wrong on Skid Mallory. Remember him, don't you? Well, he's our young college hick that I helped steer up against Baron Kazedky when he landed that big armor plate order. Did they make Skid a junior partner for that, or paint his name on a private office door? Not so you'd notice it. Maybe they was afraid a sudden boost like that would make him dizzy. But they promotes him to the sales department and adds ten to his pay envelope. I was most as tickled over it as Mallory was, too.
"Didn't I tell you?" says I. "You're a comer, you are! Why, I expect in ten or a dozen years more you'll be sharin' in the semi-annuals and ridin' down to the office in a taxi."
"Perhaps I may, Torchy—in ten or a dozen years," says he, kind of slow and sober.
I could guess what he was thinking of then. It was the girl, that sweet young thing that Brother Dick towed in here along last winter, some Senator's daughter that Skid had got chummy with when he was doin' his great quarterback act and havin' his picture printed in the sportin' extras.
"How's that affair comin' on?" says I; for I ain't heard him mention her in quite some time.
"It's all off," says he, shruggin' them wide shoulders of his. "That is, there never was anything in it, you know, to begin with."
"Oh, there wa'n't, eh?" says I. "Forgot all about that picture you used to carry around in the little leather case, have you?"