Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/190

 breaks off, with a short, nervous laugh—"why, even I have managed to get a job!"

Ain't it horrible that a girl like that has got to work?

"You did, eh?" I says, nothing but ears. "Where?"

Judy gets as red as red itself. She kind of turns her face away from me and I got a sudden premonition that they's a highly unpleasant surprise coming. I am 100 per cent right!

"I'm—I'm going to work in the office of Dempster & Co.," she says, trying to appear careless about it and flopping hard.

Well, you could of knocked me down with a wagon tongue! Going to work for Rags Dempster's old man and Rags himself is now working in the same office, learning the business. Honest, for a minute I'm fit to be tied!

Judy busts up the painful pause. "What's the matter, Gale, are you ill?" she says. But she well knows what's the matter!

"No," I says, "I'm sick. Why, Judy, you can't go to work for Rags Dempster's father!"

Up goes Judy's maddening eyebrows and you should of felt the chill in the air: "Oh!" she says. "I can't? Why not?"

"Because—because I—Judy, you know Rags is overboard over you, and him getting you that job is just a scheme of his to—to keep you near him!" I bust out. "As the matter and fact, I must give that dizzy stiff credit for a nifty play, but I ain't going to let him get away with it! Why he'll pester you to death, Judy, and"