Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/340

 to do this, as the fellow remarked before slapping the lion in the face, but then you want to remember I am also in love!

At eight o'clock Pete Kift sidles up to the switchboard as mysterious as a Cuckoo Klan meeting. He looks to the right and left and then he bends over to me.

"All set, Cutey!" he says, in a hoarse whisper.

"You're sure he's locked tight—he can't get out?" I whispered back, and gee, I'm nervous!

"Say," says my noble Pete, at bozo couldn't get out of 'at room if his name was Houdini!"

So that was all settled.

Well, I'll never forget the night I put in at that board if I live to the ripe old age of a million. Phew! I got nothing to do but think of what will happen to me when Charlemagne Rutledge gets out of that room and realizes he has missed his show. I think and think and think and then every time I get about froze stiff with pure fright, why, the thought comes to me that Julius is out on that stage singing and acting his way to a roaring success. That thought kind of evens matters, for it fills me with a warm glow of pride and satisfaction. Anybody which got a right number from me that night got it by dumb luck and nothing else!

As the witching hour of midnight approaches and I