Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/223

 "As I live!" he exclaims with a pleased smile. "The beautiful Goddess of the Switchboard in her native lair! I've been trying to find you everywhere since we made that boxer Leary a champion in London. Fate must have directed my footsteps this morning! How are you?"

"Perfect!" I smiled back, shaking his eager hand. "How's the magic lantern business?"

The other girls, following our tête-à-tête with ears as open as Lake Erie and giving out flocks of wrong numbers as a result, gasped with the shock of hearing the great Gordon Daft spoken to in this frivolous manner. But that swiftly changed to envy when he didn't seem the least bit steamed and continued to make a large fuss over me. However, I was merely wondering how long it would be before he tried to get me to give him Hazel's phone number. I figured I had read his approach correctly, but it seemed I was wrong!

"I never expected to see you at a switchboard again after your exhibition of ingenuity in London," he says, "I've told the story of how you crowned King Leary a score of times!"

"I've told it a few times myself," I says. "What's the name of the twenty-reel insult to the adult intelligence you're assembling now?"

Gasp number two came from the other girls and Mr. Daft grins.