You're
excused."
Quite humbly I crept away, with hope in my heart.
To this day I do not know what secret string the
resourceful Blackie pulled. But the next afternoon I
found a hastily scrawled note tucked into the roll of my
typewriter. It sent me scuttling across the hall to the
sporting editor's smoke-filled room. And there on a
chair beside the desk, surrounded by scrap-books, lead
pencils, paste-pot and odds and ends of newspaper office
paraphernalia, sat Bennie. His hair
was parted very smoothly on one side, and under his
dimpled chin bristled a very new and extremely lively
green-and-red plaid silk tie.
The next instant I had swept aside papers, brushes,
pencils, books, and Bennie was gathered close in my arms.
Blackie, with a strange glow in his deep-set black eyes
regarded us with an assumed disgust.
"Wimmin is all alike. Ain't it th' truth? I used t'
think you was different. But shucks! It ain't so. Got
t' turn on the weeps the minute you're tickled or mad.
Why say, I ain't goin' t' have you comin' in here an'
dampenin' up the whole place every little while! It's
unhealthy for me, sittin' here in the wet."
"Oh, shut up, Blackie," I said, happily.
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