"Second the motion," says I, springin' the joyous grin.
"That will do," says Old Hickory, catchin' himself up. "Just you forget Mr. Piddie and listen to me. Know this Tuttle person by sight, don't you?"
"Couldn't forget him," says I. "Want him on the carpet?"
"I do," says he. "Have him here at ten-thirty to-morrow morning. But find him to-night, and see that you don't open your head about this business to anyone else."
"I get you," says I, doin' the West Point salute. "It's me to trail and shut up Tuttle. He'll be here, if I have to bring him in an ambulance."
That's why I jumps out before closin' time and mingles with the Jersey commuters in a lovely hot ride across the meadows. It's a scrubby station where I gets off, too; one of these fact'ry settlements where the whole population answers the seven o'clock whistle every mornin'. There's a brick barracks half a mile long, where they make sewin' machines or something, and snuggled close up around it is hundreds of these four-fam'ly wooden tenements, gettin' the full benefit of the soft coal smoke and makin' it easy for the hands to pike home for a noon dinner. Say, you talk about the East Side double deckers; but they're brownstone fronts compared to some of these corporation shacks across the meadows!
Seventeen dirty kids led me to the number Tuttle gave me, and in the right hand first floor kitchen I finds a red faced woman in a faded blue wrapper fryin' salt pork and cabbage.
"Mrs. Tinkham Tuttle?" says I, holdin' my breath.
"No," says she, glancin' suspicious over her shoulder. "I'm his sister."
"Oh!" says I. "Is Tink around?"