"That's nice of you," says I. "It ain't any cinch you'll connect,
though."

But as I dashes into a hotel where there's a blue sign out he leans up
against a window gratin', sort of limp and exhausted, and it looks like
he means to take a sportin' chance.

How you goin' to tell, anyway? Most of 'em say they've been thrown out
of work by the trusts, but that they've heard of a job in Newark, or
Bridgeport, or somewhere, which they could get if they could only
rustle enough coin to pay the fare. And they'll add interestin'
details about havin' a sick wife, or maybe four hungry kids, and so on.

But this rusty bunch of works has a new variation. He's an old friend
of the boss. Maybe it was partly so too. If it was--well, I got to
thinkin' that over while the operator was countin' the words, and so
the next thing I does is to walk over to the telephone queen and have
her call up Mr. Robert.

"Well?" says he, impatient.

"It's Torchy again," says I. "I've filed the message, all right. But,
say, there's a piece of human junk that I collected from in front of
the club who's tryin' to panhandle me for a half on the strength of
bein' an old chum of yours. He says his name's Melville Slater."

"Wha-a-at!" gasps Mr. Robert. "Melly Slater, trying to borrow half a
dollar from you?"