“Well, it seemed the only job that was going at the moment. I’ve always done a goodish bit of boxing and I was very fit and so on, and it looked to me rather an opening. Gave me something to get along with. You get paid quite fairly decently, you know, and it’s rather a jolly life …”
“Jolly? Being hammered about like that?”
“Oh, you don’t notice it much. I’ve always enjoyed scrapping rather. And, you see, when your brother gave me the push …”
Sally uttered an exclamation.
“What an extraordinary thing it is—I went all the way out to White Plains that afternoon to find Fillmore and tackle him about that and I didn’t say a word about it. And I haven’t seen or been able to get hold of him since.”
“No? Busy sort of cove, your brother.”
“Why did Fillmore let you go?”
“Let me go? Oh, you mean … well, there was a sort of mix-up. A kind of misunderstanding.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, it was nothing. Just a …”
“What happened?”
Ginger’s disfigured countenance betrayed embarrassment. He looked awkwardly about the room.
“It’s not worth talking about.”
“It is worth talking about. I’ve a right to know. It was I who sent you to Fillmore …”
“Now that,” said Ginger, “was jolly decent of you.”
“Don’t interrupt! I sent you to Fillmore, and he had no business to let you go without saying a word to me. What happened?”
Ginger twiddled his fingers unhappily.
“Well, it was rather unfortunate. You see, his wife—I don’t know if you know her? …”
“Of course I know her.”
“Why, yes, you would, wouldn’t you? Your brother’s wife, I mean,” said Ginger acutely. “Though, as a matter of fact, you often find sisters-in-law who won’t have anything to do with one another. I know a fellow …”
“Ginger,” said Sally, “it’s no good your thinking you can get out of telling me by rambling off on other subjects. I’m grim and resolute and relentless, and I mean to get this story out of you if I have to use a corkscrew. Fillmore’s wife, you were saying …”
Ginger came back reluctantly to the main theme.
“Well, she came into the office one morning, and we started fooling about …”
“Fooling about?”
“Well, kind of chivvying each other.”
“Chivvying?”
“At least I was.”
“You were what?”
“Sort of chasing her a bit, you know.”
Sally regarded this apostle of frivolity with amazement.
“What do you mean?”
Ginger’s embarrassment increased.
“The thing was, you see, she happened to trickle in rather quietly when I happened to be looking at something, and I didn’t know she was there till she suddenly grabbed it …”
“Grabbed what?”
“The thing. The thing I happened to be looking at. She bagged it … collared it … took it away from me, you know, and wouldn’t give it back and generally started to rot about a bit, so I rather began to chivvy her to some extent, and I’d just caught her when your brother happened to roll in. I suppose,” said Ginger, putting two and two together, “he had really come with her to the office and had happened to hang back for a minute or two, to talk to somebody or something … well, of course, he was considerably fed to see me apparently doing jiujitsu with his wife. Enough to rattle any man, if you come to think of it,” said Ginger, ever fair-minded. “Well, he didn’t say anything at the time, but a bit later in the day he called me in and administered the push.”
Sally shook her head.
“It sounds the craziest story to me. What was it that Mrs. Fillmore took from you?”
“Oh, just something.”
Sally rapped the table imperiously.
“Ginger!”
“Well, as a matter of fact,” said her goaded visitor, “it was a photograph.”
“Who of? Or, if you’re particular, of whom?”
“Well … you, to be absolutely accurate.”
“Me?” Sally stared. “But I’ve never given you a photograph of myself.”
Ginger’s face was a study in scarlet and purple.
“You didn’t exactly give it to me,” he mumbled. “When I say give, I mean …”
“Good gracious!” Sudden enlightenment came upon Sally. “That photograph we were hunting for when I first came here! Had you stolen it all the time?”
“Why, yes, I did sort of pinch it …”
“You fraud! You humbug! And you pretended to help me look for it.” She gazed at him almost with respect. “I never knew you were so deep and snaky. I’m discovering all sorts of new things about you.”
There was a brief silence. Ginger, confession over, seemed a trifle happier.
“I hope you’re not frightfully sick about it?” he said at length. “It was lying about, you know, and I rather felt I must have it. Hadn’t the cheek to ask you for it, so …”
“Don’t apologize,” said Sally cordially. “Great compliment. So I have caused your downfall again, have I? I’m certainly your evil genius, Ginger. I’m beginning to feel like a regular rag and a bone and a hank of hair. First I egged you on to insult your family—oh, by the way, I want to thank you about that. Now that I’ve met your Uncle Donald I can see how public-spirited you were. I ruined your prospects there, and now my fatal beauty—cabinet size—has led to your destruction once more. It’s certainly up to me to find you another job, I can see that.”
“No, really, I say, you mustn’t bother. I shall be all right.”
“It’s my duty. Now what is there that you really can do? Burglary, of course, but it’s not respectable. You’ve tried being a waiter and a prizefighter and a right-hand man, and none of those seems to be just right. Can’t you suggest anything?”
Ginger shook his head.
“I shall wangle something, I expect.”
“Yes, but what? It must be something good this time. I don’t want to be walking along Broadway and come on you suddenly as a street-cleaner. I don’t want to send for an express-man and find you popping up. My idea would be to go to my bank to arrange an overdraft and be told the president could give me two minutes and crawl in humbly and find you prezzing
