Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/32

 pers which tries to make you, the wise cracks you pull day in and day out—well, all that sells me the idea that if anybody can help me, you're the baby. I'm just a big dumbbell which don't know nothin' at all except how to keep 'em from gettin' up off the canvas, but you pack more brains than they ever seen at Yale, get me? Won't you please be a pal and help me knock them yokels up in East Silo for a trip?"

Honest, I have to smile, he's so earnest. He seems to be hanging on my answer like it means life and liberty to him. There's something pathetic about this big kid sitting opposite me, who has money and fame and merely—wants his home town to admit it. I'm no Miss Fix-it, but the idea of helping another member of the male sex solve a puzzle fascinates me. But Hurricane's getting restless.

"Are you goin' to throw me down?" he asks anxiously, for all the world like an eight-year-old kid asking mamma for marble money.

"No," I says suddenly. "I'm not! I'll think this over and you drop into the St. Moe in a couple of days. I feel sure I'll have cooked up a scheme by that time which will make East Silo act like you're Napoleon the next time you enter the portals of the town!"

"You're immense!" says Hurricane. "Put me acrost in that slab and you can write your own ticket on what I'll do for you!"