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TheLadder/tools/story-to-pack/probe/torchy/claude/REFERENCE.html
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JesseMarkowitzandClaude Opus 5.5 3a4758172d story-to-pack: add the corpora and the catalogue v2/v3
Fourteen corpora split and classified: aesop, bierce, chekhov, holmes,
keefe, lawson, lorimer, maupassant, nobody, plaintales, poe, torchy,
wallingford and winesburg, each with its splitter and the hand-written
groups and pages; catalogue v2 and v3; and the shared splitters
gutenberg_chunks.py, se_split.py and se_build.py.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_019rwKTmug58sEsJ72AuWsEi
2026-10-07 06:05:51 -04:00

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<h1>The Torchy Stories: reference groups</h1>
<p class="meta">Sewell Ford, 1911-1917 (three Gutenberg volumes). 55 stories, 738 scenes cut by the same rule as <code>chunk.py</code>.
Summaries, predicaments, groups and options written by Claude by reading every scene: no local inference.
A comparison baseline, not a pack. Option moves give a direction only, never a number.</p>
<section><h2>G01 · Deciding who gets past the door</h2>
<p class="pred">You keep the door to someone important, and a caller is pushing to get past, or somebody is pushing you to let them through.</p>
<p class="meta">A gatekeeper wants to let the right people through from callers at the door. · 14 scenes from 9 stories
(Shunting Brother Bill, Throwing the Line to Skid, When Ira Showed Some Pep, Breezing By With Peggy, Being Sicced On Percey, The Up Call for Torchy, Then Along Came Sukey, Zenobia Digs Up a Late One, Some Hoop-la for the Boss) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Hold the line: nobody gets past but the one you were told to admit. <span class='src'>from scene 440</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>relationships.visitor -</code></li><li>Give them nothing until they say what they want. <span class='src'>from scene 196</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.visitor risk</code></li><li>Hear them out yourself, courteously, and promise an answer. <span class='src'>from scene 488</span><br><code>relationships.visitor +</code> <code>standing +</code> <code>savvy +</code></li><li>Tell them bluntly to stop rocking the boat. <span class='src'>from scene 721</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.visitor -</code> <code>standing risk</code></li><li>Send them straight in and let the boss sort it out. <span class='src'>filled gap</span><br><code>relationships.boss -</code> <code>relationships.visitor +</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>74</b> · <i>Shunting Brother Bill</i> — Someone junior in borrowed finery is set to keep uninvited people out of a private occasion.</summary><p class="sum">Put on the church door to check tickets, Torchy changes into his embarrassing formal clothes in the gallery and turns away gatecrashers.</p></details><details><summary><b>75</b> · <i>Shunting Brother Bill</i> — Someone keeping the door finds the one guest everyone feared has a valid invitation and is walking in.</summary><p class="sum">A tall, oddly dressed stranger presents a valid ticket, and Torchy sees it is the bride&#x27;s supposedly jailbird brother.</p></details><details><summary><b>195</b> · <i>Throwing the Line to Skid</i> — Someone at the front desk is confronted by a powerful visitor tracking down a colleague who just married his daughter.</summary><p class="sum">As Torchy is leaving for the dinner, an important visitor arrives asking for the friend and announces he is the new father-in-law, the senator.</p></details><details><summary><b>196</b> · <i>Throwing the Line to Skid</i> — Someone junior refuses to betray a friend&#x27;s whereabouts to a powerful man until assured he means no harm.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy refuses to reveal his friend&#x27;s address until the senator promises peaceful intentions, then escorts him and his wife to the couple&#x27;s cheap walk-up flat.</p></details><details><summary><b>273</b> · <i>When Ira Showed Some Pep</i> — Someone minding the door greets an expected visitor from out of town who answers every friendly question with a single word.</summary><p class="sum">Tipped off by Mr. Robert, Torchy recognises a lanky country visitor who has been waiting since the building opened, and draws out one-word answers from him about his arrival.</p></details><details><summary><b>301</b> · <i>Breezing By With Peggy</i> — Someone minding the door is told to fit unwanted young visitors into the boss&#x27;s crowded day at the least inconvenient moment.</summary><p class="sum">The boss gruffly tells Torchy that two young wards of his are calling, and orders him to fit them in whenever they will be the least bother among his meetings.</p></details><details><summary><b>303</b> · <i>Breezing By With Peggy</i> — Visitors offer to leave when told the boss is busy, and someone junior must keep them or be blamed for disobeying orders.</summary><p class="sum">The wards turn out older than expected: a serious young man and a quick, teasing young woman; told the boss is busy, they offer to leave, and Torchy insists they wait so he is not blamed.</p></details><details><summary><b>440</b> · <i>Being Sicced On Percey</i> — Someone minding the door is told to admit one important visitor and block everyone else, without being told why.</summary><p class="sum">Sensing a big battle brewing, Torchy is told by the boss to show in a certain Mr. Jones at once and then block all other callers; Torchy cheekily asks which Jones.</p></details><details><summary><b>442</b> · <i>Being Sicced On Percey</i> — Someone junior tries to linger at a high-level meeting, is waved out, and can only speculate with the other staff.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy guesses the firm&#x27;s interests are under threat; he opens the door slowly to watch, but the boss waves him out, and he teases the curious typists.</p></details><details><summary><b>487</b> · <i>The Up Call for Torchy</i> — A junior who knows the business better than his title suggests is handed a visitor the stuffy senior colleague would snub.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy shows he knows the firm&#x27;s files better than anyone as he answers the harried boss&#x27;s son&#x27;s questions; asked what to do with a waiting inventor, he says the fussy senior clerk would snub him, and is told to hear the man out himself, courteously.</p></details><details><summary><b>488</b> · <i>The Up Call for Torchy</i> — Someone junior trusted with an insistent visitor handles him with polished tact, not knowing the boss is watching the whole performance.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy politely draws out the man&#x27;s by-product scheme, takes notes, promises a board decision in ten days and sees him off pleased, while the boss&#x27;s son listens unnoticed and grins.</p></details><details><summary><b>606</b> · <i>Then Along Came Sukey</i> — Someone newly in charge of the boss&#x27;s callers must entertain two ill-matched visitors at once while the family member they want is absent.</summary><p class="sum">While Torchy is entertaining the boss&#x27;s son&#x27;s hearty sporting friend in the private office, a finicky, sharp-tongued young man arrives to meet the boss&#x27;s son-in-law, who has forgotten the appointment.</p></details><details><summary><b>633</b> · <i>Zenobia Digs Up a Late One</i> — A wealthy old acquaintance storms in to protest that the boss put his name at the head of a venture without asking.</summary><p class="sum">An old-fashioned, ruddy gentleman storms into the private office and demands to know why the boss&#x27;s son made him president of one of the firm&#x27;s companies without asking.</p></details><details><summary><b>721</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — Someone newly promoted, guarding the boss&#x27;s door, is besieged by panicky senior backers demanding answers he cannot give.</summary><p class="sum">In a jittery wartime market full of rumours about the firm, a group of nervous directors crowds Torchy&#x27;s desk before nine demanding to see the old boss, and Torchy tells them bluntly to stop rocking the boat.</p></details></section><section><h2>G02 · Judging a caller on sight</h2>
<p class="pred">You have to judge a caller at the door by how they look, and what you see tells you to send them away.</p>
<p class="meta">A gatekeeper wants to be rid of a nuisance from a caller who looks like nobody who matters. · 11 scenes from 5 stories
(A Jolt for Piddie, Down the Bumps with Cliffy, Touching on Tink Tuttle, Breezing By With Peggy, Late Returns On Popover) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Mock them and send them off. <span class='src'>from scene 106</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.visitor -</code> <code>standing risk</code></li><li>Block them outright. <span class='src'>from scene 18</span><br><code>relationships.visitor -</code> <code>relationships.boss risk</code></li><li>Plan a chilly welcome and keep them waiting. <span class='src'>from scene 302</span><br><code>relationships.boss_family -</code></li><li>Ask their business before you judge. <span class='src'>filled gap</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.visitor +</code></li><li>Hear them out and take their case up yourself. <span class='src'>from scene 204 <span class="warn">(outside this group)</span></span><br><code>relationships.visitor +</code> <code>relationships.supervisor -</code> <code>standing risk</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>18</b> · <i>A Jolt for Piddie</i> — Someone told to let nobody past blocks a confident stranger who walks in as if he owns the place.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy sees the secretary is currying favour with the heir to protect his own job; ordered to let no one through the gate, he trips up a confident young man who tries to walk straight in.</p></details><details><summary><b>105</b> · <i>Down the Bumps with Cliffy</i> — An odd-looking stranger from far away wanders into the front office, plainly lost and out of place.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy introduces an odd, gawky country visitor in earmuffs and an umbrella, who wanders in fumbling for the gate, and warns that trouble follows him everywhere.</p></details><details><summary><b>106</b> · <i>Down the Bumps with Cliffy</i> — Someone at the door mocks a bumbling visitor, then learns the visitor is claiming kinship with the boss.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy mocks the confused visitor and nearly sends him away, before learning he has come a long way to see the boss&#x27;s son, whom he calls his cousin.</p></details><details><summary><b>107</b> · <i>Down the Bumps with Cliffy</i> — Someone junior who was rude to a visitor fears he misjudged him when the boss welcomes the visitor warmly.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s son welcomes the cousin warmly and takes him to lunch, making Torchy fear he has been too cheeky; that evening the son gets a worrying telephone call.</p></details><details><summary><b>202</b> · <i>Touching on Tink Tuttle</i> — A shabby stranger at the front desk calmly asks to see the head of the whole organisation.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy takes a shabby man in work clothes for a window cleaner and tries to send him off; the man calmly insists he wants to see a high official, even the president.</p></details><details><summary><b>203</b> · <i>Touching on Tink Tuttle</i> — A shabby visitor with a real proposal is turned away by a superior who judges him only by his clothes.</summary><p class="sum">The man, gaunt and sickly-looking, wants the company to bid on his option on some mineral lands; Torchy calls the private secretary, who dismisses him rudely on sight of his clothes.</p></details><details><summary><b>302</b> · <i>Breezing By With Peggy</i> — Someone junior decides to give the boss&#x27;s unwelcome relatives a chilly reception, guessing they are after favours.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy knows the boss was made their guardian by a distant relative&#x27;s will without being asked, and that he despises young people; suspecting the pair of angling for holiday treats, he plans to freeze them out.</p></details><details><summary><b>306</b> · <i>Breezing By With Peggy</i> — Once the boss takes a liking to visitors he meant to be rid of, someone junior hastily switches from chilly to attentive.</summary><p class="sum">The boss insists they spend the rest of the holidays at his house and orders the car; Torchy switches to treating them royally and admits the girl has won him over.</p></details><details><summary><b>354</b> · <i>Late Returns On Popover</i> — Someone minding the door sneers at a humble stranger asking for the boss&#x27;s relative and tries to send him away.</summary><p class="sum">A humble, slow-spoken foreigner asks to see Mr. Robert; Torchy, feet on the desk, mocks him, assumes he is a peddler, and tells him to leave, but the man stubbornly keeps repeating his request.</p></details><details><summary><b>355</b> · <i>Late Returns On Popover</i> — A supervisor orders a humble visitor turned away, then flinches at his distress and dumps the problem on someone junior.</summary><p class="sum">The head clerk orders the man thrown out; the man silently weeps, so the clerk hands him to Torchy, who learns his unpronounceable name and that he was Mr. Robert&#x27;s waiter at his club.</p></details><details><summary><b>364</b> · <i>Late Returns On Popover</i> — A humble visitor stubbornly blocks the way of important men, and one of them recognises him as someone remarkable.</summary><p class="sum">The waiter stubbornly blocks Mr. Robert&#x27;s path despite Torchy&#x27;s warnings; the friend stares at him and recognises him as the lone machine-gunner on the hill.</p></details></section><section><h2>G03 · Called in, and expecting the sack</h2>
<p class="pred">You have been summoned over something you really did, you expect to be fired, and all that is left to choose is how you answer.</p>
<p class="meta">A junior in trouble wants to keep the job, or at least their pride from the boss sitting in judgement. · 15 scenes from 8 stories
(Getting in with the Glory Be, A Jolt for Piddie, Where Mildred Got Next, Landing on a Side Street, First Aid for the Main Stem, When Miss Vee Threw the Dare, Pulling A Sleuth Stunt, Breezing By With Peggy) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Own up frankly, and offer to go. <span class='src'>from scene 155</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>standing risk</code></li><li>Joke your way through the questions. <span class='src'>from scene 20</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.boss risk</code></li><li>Confess before you are even asked. <span class='src'>from scene 65</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>flags.owned_up set</code></li><li>Deny everything. <span class='src'>filled gap</span><br><code>relationships.boss -</code> <code>standing risk</code></li><li>Apologise and promise it will never happen again. <span class='src'>filled gap</span><br><code>standing -</code> <code>relationships.boss +</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>3</b> · <i>Getting in with the Glory Be</i> — Someone who has claimed a position before being offered it must brazen it out while the boss decides whether to allow it.</summary><p class="sum">Called out by the noise, the boss asks what makes Torchy think he has the job; Torchy says he is in and they are out, hangs up his cap, and waits to see if the gamble lands.</p></details><details><summary><b>4</b> · <i>Getting in with the Glory Be</i> — A candidate who thinks the job is already lost answers every interview question with blunt, cheeky honesty.</summary><p class="sum">In the interview Torchy admits he has no references, was fired for being fresh, dislikes hard work and only wants to run errands, answering every question with cheek.</p></details><details><summary><b>20</b> · <i>A Jolt for Piddie</i> — Someone junior called in to be fired meets the offended boss&#x27;s heir with jokes instead of apologies.</summary><p class="sum">Summoned to the heir&#x27;s office for judgement, Torchy offers to resign, jokes his way through the questions, and says he is ambitious enough to wait for a bank president to adopt him.</p></details><details><summary><b>21</b> · <i>A Jolt for Piddie</i> — The boss&#x27;s heir forgives a cheeky junior&#x27;s blunder and instead trusts him with a delicate private errand.</summary><p class="sum">The heir decides to keep him, saying his cheek is useful, and after long thought picks him for an important personal errand: fetch a package from an express office across the river without being arrested.</p></details><details><summary><b>64</b> · <i>Where Mildred Got Next</i> — Someone junior who has played a prank on the boss&#x27;s friend waits for a reprimand that does not come.</summary><p class="sum">Expecting to be fired, Torchy waits for a reprimand that never comes; when the shy friend next appears Torchy hides behind the water cooler.</p></details><details><summary><b>65</b> · <i>Where Mildred Got Next</i> — Called in about a mystery, someone junior confesses a prank before he learns whether it went well or badly.</summary><p class="sum">Weeks later the typist quits without explanation, and the boss&#x27;s son asks Torchy to help solve a mystery: his friend met a charming woman in his car and will say no more; Torchy owns up.</p></details><details><summary><b>66</b> · <i>Where Mildred Got Next</i> — Someone junior braced for punishment learns his prank has led a shy friend of the boss to an engagement.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy offers to be fired, but the boss&#x27;s son wants to know all about her, then reveals she and his friend are to be married next month.</p></details><details><summary><b>146</b> · <i>Landing on a Side Street</i> — Someone questioned by a sharp elder refuses to apologise and admits his earlier bluff outright.</summary><p class="sum">The grandmother gets the tied-up aunt&#x27;s account of the boy&#x27;s mischief, then asks Torchy for his side; he says he would do the same again and admits the police uncle was a bluff.</p></details><details><summary><b>154</b> · <i>First Aid for the Main Stem</i> — Someone junior who gossiped about the boss is summoned, stone cold, to the boss&#x27;s private office the next day.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy tells her the boss has been swearing daily, leaving her gasping; next day the secretary solemnly summons him to the top boss, who greets him coldly.</p></details><details><summary><b>155</b> · <i>First Aid for the Main Stem</i> — Someone junior caught gossiping about the boss owns up with blunt honesty instead of lying his way out.</summary><p class="sum">The boss demands to know why Torchy reported his swearing to his relatives; Torchy admits it frankly, says he enjoyed shocking her, and asks to be fired, and the boss almost laughs.</p></details><details><summary><b>156</b> · <i>First Aid for the Main Stem</i> — A boss who cannot decide if a cheeky junior is too fresh to keep or too sharp to lose decides to keep him.</summary><p class="sum">Unable to decide whether Torchy is too fresh to keep or too sharp to lose, the boss keeps him, to the secretary&#x27;s disappointment; the pious cousin then talks the overworked boss into going to a rest home run by a friend of hers.</p></details><details><summary><b>244</b> · <i>When Miss Vee Threw the Dare</i> — Someone junior, treated kindly by the boss, feels bound to confess a small deception, and finds it did no harm.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s son winks knowingly; feeling mean, Torchy confesses the forged telegram, only to learn the businessman actually came as the fake message said.</p></details><details><summary><b>259</b> · <i>Pulling A Sleuth Stunt</i> — Someone junior is summoned before the boss and a suspicious supervisor to answer for a small mystery he knows nothing about.</summary><p class="sum">Called into the boss&#x27;s office with the fussy head clerk, Torchy is quizzed about a bunch of wilted wildflowers found on Mr. Ellins&#x27;s desk; he wisecracks, denies knowing anything, and the boss accepts that it is not his kind of prank.</p></details><details><summary><b>312</b> · <i>Breezing By With Peggy</i> — When a scrape has been hushed up to spare the boss, a young culprit confesses it to him outright anyway.</summary><p class="sum">The victim was drunk and unhurt; with witnesses and Torchy&#x27;s news the sergeant takes bail and drops the sister&#x27;s name, Mr. Robert says the boss need not be told, but the sister confesses everything to him on the doorstep.</p></details><details><summary><b>313</b> · <i>Breezing By With Peggy</i> — A young dependent owns up to the boss about her mischief, and her honesty wins her more favour than her good manners did.</summary><p class="sum">She tells the boss she insisted on driving and it was all her fault; the case is dismissed and the boss thinks more of the pair than ever and will take them abroad.</p></details></section><section><h2>G04 · A petty supervisor who resents you</h2>
<p class="pred">The official between you and the top wanted someone meeker, resents you, and is waiting for you to slip.</p>
<p class="meta">A junior wants to be left alone, or to get the better of him from a petty supervisor. · 15 scenes from 9 stories
(A Jolt for Piddie, Meeting up with the Great Skid, Keeping Tabs on Piddie, Backing out of a Fluff Riot, Rung in with the Gold Spooners, Batting it up to Torchy, When Miss Vee Threw the Dare, Pulling A Sleuth Stunt, Gloom Shunting For The Boss) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Needle him for sport. <span class='src'>from scene 16</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.supervisor -</code></li><li>Answer his lectures with cheek. <span class='src'>from scene 119</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.supervisor -</code> <code>standing risk</code></li><li>Dare him to fire you, knowing he cannot. <span class='src'>from scene 32 <span class="warn">(outside this group)</span></span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.supervisor -</code> <code>relationships.colleague +</code></li><li>Work with him on the boss&#x27;s errand, just this once. <span class='src'>from scene 262</span><br><code>relationships.supervisor +</code></li><li>Keep your head down and give him nothing to report. <span class='src'>archetype</span><br><code>relationships.supervisor +</code> <code>cheek -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>16</b> · <i>A Jolt for Piddie</i> — A newcomer imposed on a supervisor by the top boss is resented at once, and decides to needle him for sport.</summary><p class="sum">The secretary had wanted a meek, polite boy and resents Torchy from the start; Torchy sizes him up as a small-minded snob and decides to needle him for fun.</p></details><details><summary><b>17</b> · <i>A Jolt for Piddie</i> — A fussy supervisor tries to remake a cheeky newcomer&#x27;s manners and coaches him to impress the boss&#x27;s heir.</summary><p class="sum">The secretary tries to make him drop his nickname and lectures him on how to behave when the boss&#x27;s son returns; Torchy mocks him and at first mistakes the son for someone important to the business.</p></details><details><summary><b>19</b> · <i>A Jolt for Piddie</i> — Someone junior turns away the boss&#x27;s own heir by mistake, and a gloating supervisor promises he will be fired for it.</summary><p class="sum">The stranger says he is the boss&#x27;s son; Torchy refuses to believe it until the horrified secretary confirms it, then spends an hour telling Torchy he is as good as fired, which Torchy shrugs off.</p></details><details><summary><b>31</b> · <i>Meeting up with the Great Skid</i> — Someone junior is blamed at length for a mess a superior made, and takes the scolding in silence.</summary><p class="sum">After a senior manager scatters the clerk&#x27;s files, the fussy secretary blames the clerk and berates him for forty minutes, threatening his job; the clerk takes it politely without a word of excuse.</p></details><details><summary><b>82</b> · <i>Keeping Tabs on Piddie</i> — Someone junior teases a stiff superior about his daydreams of getting rich, assuming he would never risk real money.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy assumes the secretary is only a make-believe speculator who never risks real money, and teases him with invented tips.</p></details><details><summary><b>118</b> · <i>Backing out of a Fluff Riot</i> — Someone who has moved up a little stops to chat with a rough-looking friend from the bottom rung, in full view of everyone.</summary><p class="sum">At lunchtime Torchy runs into a rough-looking old messenger-boy friend he trusts completely, and stops in the building&#x27;s corridor to catch up on news of his old crowd.</p></details><details><summary><b>119</b> · <i>Backing out of a Fluff Riot</i> — A stiff superior warns someone junior about the low company he keeps, and the junior answers with cheek.</summary><p class="sum">The fussy secretary lectures Torchy that one is known by the company one keeps; Torchy mocks him and defends his friend, calling himself a mixer.</p></details><details><summary><b>128</b> · <i>Backing out of a Fluff Riot</i> — A disgraced former boss thanks the junior who stood by him, while the junior&#x27;s present supervisor demands to know where he was.</summary><p class="sum">Outside, the old boss thanks him and, reddening, says there is a mine and he is quitting the investment trade to go and see it; back at the office Torchy dodges the secretary&#x27;s question about his long absence.</p></details><details><summary><b>129</b> · <i>Rung in with the Gold Spooners</i> — Someone junior comforts a newcomer who has just been scolded by a petty supervisor, and tells her how little power he has.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy finds a new filing girl in tears after the fussy secretary scolded her, cheers her up with jokes, and tells her the secretary cannot fire her without higher approval.</p></details><details><summary><b>189</b> · <i>Batting it up to Torchy</i> — Someone junior guesses which eager-to-please superior quietly did the dirty job the honest old hand refused.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy guesses from the secretary&#x27;s nerves next morning that he was the one who altered the entries, and teases him about it.</p></details><details><summary><b>236</b> · <i>When Miss Vee Threw the Dare</i> — Someone junior blocked by a spiteful supervisor sees the boss torn between family duty and an expected business visit.</summary><p class="sum">The secretary gleefully refuses to let him out; the boss&#x27;s son storms in needing the ship&#x27;s arrival time for his sister, and fumes that it clashes with an expected call from business partners.</p></details><details><summary><b>261</b> · <i>Pulling A Sleuth Stunt</i> — A fussy supervisor seizes the boss&#x27;s unease to push in an acquaintance of his own as the expert who can solve it.</summary><p class="sum">The boss rejects questioning the typists or calling detectives but admits the mystery is getting on his nerves; the head clerk proposes his neighbour, a former dentist turned amateur investigator of mysteries.</p></details><details><summary><b>262</b> · <i>Pulling A Sleuth Stunt</i> — Two old workplace enemies cooperate briefly on a secret errand for the boss, and the junior one lingers to watch.</summary><p class="sum">The boss agrees on condition that the staff are kept in the dark; Torchy and the clerk briefly conspire together, and the stout, self-important investigator is smuggled into the boss&#x27;s office with Torchy tagging along.</p></details><details><summary><b>272</b> · <i>Pulling A Sleuth Stunt</i> — After someone junior outshines a supervisor&#x27;s boasted expert, the boss rewards the humble culprit and the supervisor is left humiliated.</summary><p class="sum">Touched, the boss hires the old man to supply flowers daily and puts him on the payroll, and jeers at the head clerk, whose investigator has slipped away; Torchy now has a way to squash the clerk whenever he gets officious.</p></details><details><summary><b>322</b> · <i>Gloom Shunting For The Boss</i> — A supervisor arrives with urgent business while the boss is at play, and someone junior shoos him out on the boss&#x27;s behalf.</summary><p class="sum">The head clerk arrives with urgent office business, is brushed off by the boss, and Torchy shoos him out with a rude &#x27;boom-boom, outside&#x27; chant; then two worried directors are announced.</p></details></section><section><h2>G05 · Pulled off your job for a family chore</h2>
<p class="pred">Someone in the boss&#x27;s family wants a private favour done, nothing to do with your job, and the boss has already said you can go.</p>
<p class="meta">A junior wants to stay in favour without becoming a servant from the boss&#x27;s family. · 17 scenes from 9 stories
(A Jolt for Piddie, Frosting the Profess, First Aid for the Main Stem, In on the Oolong, Getting Hermes on the Bounce, Torchy In On The Draw, Gladys In A Double Bill, The Passing By Of Bunny, When Ella May Came By) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Take the expense money and get it done, whatever it takes. <span class='src'>from scene 27</span><br><code>relationships.boss_family +</code> <code>standing +</code> <code>flags.family_errand set</code></li><li>Try to excuse yourself as there on company business. <span class='src'>from scene 216</span><br><code>relationships.boss_family -</code></li><li>Do it, then bill them to the penny. <span class='src'>from scene 353</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>money +</code> <code>relationships.boss_family risk</code></li><li>Stay late for it, and ask nothing. <span class='src'>from scene 382</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code></li><li>Ask what is in it for you before you agree. <span class='src'>filled gap</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>money +</code> <code>relationships.boss_family -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>24</b> · <i>A Jolt for Piddie</i> — Someone junior is handed an impossible private errand by the boss&#x27;s heir with a deadline only hours away.</summary><p class="sum">The deer is under a warden&#x27;s guard, and unless it reaches the club by six the heir loses the bet and faces months of jokes; Torchy takes expense money, and teases the secretary on his way out.</p></details><details><summary><b>25</b> · <i>A Jolt for Piddie</i> — Someone sent to recover something finds it guarded by an official who cannot be talked round or bought.</summary><p class="sum">At the express office Torchy finds the warden is an unbribable, watchful officer sitting right beside the parcel, and nearly gives up.</p></details><details><summary><b>27</b> · <i>A Jolt for Piddie</i> — Someone junior pulls off a risky private favour for the boss&#x27;s heir and is praised in front of the supervisor who wanted him out.</summary><p class="sum">While the warden is away Torchy claims the parcel, catches the ferry just ahead of him, and delivers the deer to the club; next day the heir praises him openly in front of the secretary.</p></details><details><summary><b>41</b> · <i>Frosting the Profess</i> — Someone junior sent on errands to the boss&#x27;s home is suddenly noticed by a member of the family.</summary><p class="sum">Made the ailing top boss&#x27;s special messenger, Torchy carries papers to the family mansion, where the boss&#x27;s very large, cheerful teenage daughter finds him waiting in the hall.</p></details><details><summary><b>43</b> · <i>Frosting the Profess</i> — A relative of the boss wants someone junior as an escort for the afternoon and simply gets the boss to release him from work.</summary><p class="sum">Her brother has forgotten his promise to take her to a matinee; she asks Torchy instead and gets her father to excuse him from the office for the afternoon.</p></details><details><summary><b>157</b> · <i>First Aid for the Main Stem</i> — A boss sent away against his will asks for the junior who caused it, rather than his usual trusted aide.</summary><p class="sum">The boss telephones asking specifically for Torchy, not his secretary, to bring the mail, saying Torchy is responsible for his being there; Torchy travels to the remote hilltop rest home.</p></details><details><summary><b>158</b> · <i>First Aid for the Main Stem</i> — Someone junior visits the boss at a place of enforced rest and finds him chafing under rules he never agreed to.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy finds the boss sulking on the veranda of a bleak institution among dyspeptic patients; the boss works through his mail and orders away an attendant inviting him to chapel.</p></details><details><summary><b>167</b> · <i>In on the Oolong</i> — Someone junior digs through a superior&#x27;s rubbish for a lead, and races off with a message that cannot wait.</summary><p class="sum">In the waste basket Torchy finds an invitation to a musical afternoon at a grand house far uptown; he gets expense money and the message about contracts that must be filed that afternoon, and rushes off by train and taxi.</p></details><details><summary><b>215</b> · <i>Getting Hermes on the Bounce</i> — Someone junior waiting at the boss&#x27;s home overhears the family&#x27;s young people whispering about a secret romance.</summary><p class="sum">While waiting in the top boss&#x27;s library for answers to papers he brought, Torchy overhears the boss&#x27;s daughter and a flirtatious southern school friend giggling over a secret romance.</p></details><details><summary><b>216</b> · <i>Getting Hermes on the Bounce</i> — Someone junior tries to excuse himself as there only on business, and the boss&#x27;s daughter physically blocks his exit to enlist him.</summary><p class="sum">The friend says the handsomest man she ever saw is secretly arriving tonight; Torchy announces himself, and both girls coax him to help, blocking the door when he tries to leave on the grounds that he is there on company business.</p></details><details><summary><b>217</b> · <i>Getting Hermes on the Bounce</i> — Someone junior is flattered by the boss&#x27;s family into a private scheme, with a promise to square it at the office.</summary><p class="sum">Flattered and promised protection from the secretary, Torchy listens as they explain: the friend was bored on a society yachting trip that broke down off a remote island.</p></details><details><summary><b>221</b> · <i>Getting Hermes on the Bounce</i> — Someone junior sent to collect a much-praised guest finds him nothing like the glowing description.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy is sent to the station with expense money, finds the weathered uncle, and is shown the nephew, a gawky, open-mouthed country youth.</p></details><details><summary><b>326</b> · <i>Torchy In On The Draw</i> — Someone junior is caught between the boss&#x27;s relative, who is stuck in a meeting, and a family member demanding he keep a promise.</summary><p class="sum">Mr. Robert&#x27;s married sister Marjorie arrives angry that he has stood her up to go to an artist friend&#x27;s exhibition, and demands Torchy fetch him out of a sales meeting; Mr. Robert tells Torchy to make his excuses.</p></details><details><summary><b>341</b> · <i>Gladys In A Double Bill</i> — The boss&#x27;s relative dodges a family social duty by handing someone junior an escort errand, with a pleasant catch attached.</summary><p class="sum">Mr. Robert, skipping his sister&#x27;s country tea to go sailing, asks Torchy to escort &#x27;little Gladys&#x27;, a school friend of his sister&#x27;s, up in the car; the car will bring Vee back, which delights Torchy.</p></details><details><summary><b>353</b> · <i>Gladys In A Double Bill</i> — Someone junior sent out on a misleading brief pointedly bills the boss&#x27;s relative for it and plans to have his joke later.</summary><p class="sum">Vee teases him but they have a happy ride back without the aunt knowing; next day Torchy dryly bills Mr. Robert a quarter for gumdrops for &#x27;little Gladys&#x27; and plans to get even for the misleading brief.</p></details><details><summary><b>382</b> · <i>The Passing By Of Bunny</i> — The boss&#x27;s relative would rather keep a social engagement than wait for urgent business, so he has someone junior stay late.</summary><p class="sum">An urgent message on a big contract may come in after hours just as Mr. Robert has a billiards match at his club; he asks Torchy to stay late, wait for the coded message, and bring it over.</p></details><details><summary><b>712</b> · <i>When Ella May Came By</i> — Just as a delicate courtship is going well, an uninvited guest announces she is arriving, and the junior is sent to collect her.</summary><p class="sum">Things go well until a flirtatious boarding-school friend of the daughter&#x27;s phones from the station inviting herself to stay; Torchy is sent to fetch her.</p></details></section><section><h2>G06 · Sent to stand in for the boss</h2>
<p class="pred">The boss, or someone in his family, has sent you in his place to judge, host or negotiate with people far above your rank.</p>
<p class="meta">A junior stand-in wants to bring back what was wanted from people who expected the boss. · 22 scenes from 5 stories
(When Ira Showed Some Pep, Torchy In On The Draw, Being Sicced On Percey, Teamwork with Aunty, Some Hoop-la for the Boss) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Recite the brief you were given, word for word. <span class='src'>from scene 331</span><br><code>standing risk</code> <code>savvy -</code></li><li>Admit plainly how junior you are. <span class='src'>from scene 447</span><br><code>relationships.visitor +</code> <code>standing -</code></li><li>Drop the brief and use your own common sense. <span class='src'>from scene 278</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.boss risk</code></li><li>Roll up your sleeves and do the work yourself. <span class='src'>from scene 622</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>standing -</code></li><li>Report back that the one to win over is not the one you were sent to beat. <span class='src'>from scene 452</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.boss +</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>274</b> · <i>When Ira Showed Some Pep</i> — A meeting the boss&#x27;s relative expected to finish quickly drags all day, and he comes out looking for help from someone junior.</summary><p class="sum">The silent visitor sits motionless watching the typists until Mr. Robert takes him in; the planned half-hour meeting stretches through lunch into late afternoon, and Mr. Robert comes out frowning to ask about Torchy&#x27;s diplomacy.</p></details><details><summary><b>275</b> · <i>When Ira Showed Some Pep</i> — The boss&#x27;s relative asks someone junior to use his tact on a visitor who will barely speak to anyone.</summary><p class="sum">Mr. Robert says he wants Torchy&#x27;s finesse used on the visitor; Torchy says the man is nearly impossible to talk to, and asks where he is from.</p></details><details><summary><b>276</b> · <i>When Ira Showed Some Pep</i> — A superior cannot get a crucial supplier to commit, and hands someone junior the job of finding out what is holding him back.</summary><p class="sum">Mr. Robert explains he lost a yacht race and summoned the rival boat&#x27;s designer to build him a better one; the man says he can but will not commit, apparently because something is on his mind, and Mr. Robert wants Torchy to find out what.</p></details><details><summary><b>277</b> · <i>When Ira Showed Some Pep</i> — Someone junior stands in for the boss&#x27;s relative to entertain an important visitor, who shows no interest in anything offered.</summary><p class="sum">Sent out as Mr. Robert&#x27;s substitute host with expense money, Torchy tows the silent visitor around town showing him the sights and gets no reaction; the man asks only for fish chowder.</p></details><details><summary><b>278</b> · <i>When Ira Showed Some Pep</i> — After an evening of stiff hospitality on the boss&#x27;s money, the guarded visitor finally lets slip what he really came to town for.</summary><p class="sum">At a fancy French restaurant the visitor refuses wine but gamely eats the strange dishes, and over coffee and a cigar he finally asks where a certain actress is performing.</p></details><details><summary><b>286</b> · <i>When Ira Showed Some Pep</i> — Freed of a hopeless infatuation, a visitor agrees to the deal, and someone junior brings the boss&#x27;s relative the result he wanted.</summary><p class="sum">She drives off; the visitor promptly decides to give the ring to her friend back home, goes home, and agrees to build the boat, and Torchy reports success to Mr. Robert.</p></details><details><summary><b>327</b> · <i>Torchy In On The Draw</i> — The boss&#x27;s relative dodges a social obligation by sending someone junior in his place with authority far beyond his experience.</summary><p class="sum">Mr. Robert has to come out; to escape, he offers to buy a painting sight unseen, and when his sister says the artist needs appreciation, he appoints Torchy his &#x27;commissioner&#x27; with full power to choose one.</p></details><details><summary><b>328</b> · <i>Torchy In On The Draw</i> — Someone junior sent to judge something he knows nothing about is coached in a few stock phrases to bluff his way through.</summary><p class="sum">In the car the sister coaches Torchy in a few stock art-critic phrases to use when nudged, and describes the artist as a gifted young man from a family that lost its money.</p></details><details><summary><b>331</b> · <i>Torchy In On The Draw</i> — Someone junior bluffing as an expert blurts out his canned praise at the wrong moment and closes the deal far too abruptly.</summary><p class="sum">Nobody pays Torchy much attention; he genuinely likes a river scene with a bus in it and talks about it naturally, then, nudged, rattles off his coached phrases and abruptly orders it sent to Mr. Robert.</p></details><details><summary><b>340</b> · <i>Torchy In On The Draw</i> — Someone junior sent on an errand by the boss&#x27;s relative returns with a far better result than anyone expected.</summary><p class="sum">Next day Mr. Robert receives the painting marked as a five-hundred-dollar gift from the artist, and Torchy boasts of the family reunion he started.</p></details><details><summary><b>444</b> · <i>Being Sicced On Percey</i> — To make a point to a rival, the boss suddenly names someone junior as his representative in a high-stakes negotiation.</summary><p class="sum">The rival says the line is his agent&#x27;s pet project and the agent won&#x27;t come; the boss, told to send a representative, calms suddenly and announces he will send Torchy, stunning everyone.</p></details><details><summary><b>445</b> · <i>Being Sicced On Percey</i> — Someone junior is sent to negotiate with a powerful stranger under instructions to announce plainly how junior he is.</summary><p class="sum">The boss tells Torchy to demand the agent drop the line, or else buy his charter for up to a hundred thousand, and to say he is the office boy; Torchy brushes past the agent&#x27;s secretary, who says the agent is leaving town.</p></details><details><summary><b>446</b> · <i>Being Sicced On Percey</i> — Someone junior sent to intimidate a formidable opponent is calmly refused, and asks to tag along instead of leaving.</summary><p class="sum">The agent turns out to be a big, steady-eyed, formidable man; Torchy delivers his message nervously and is told flatly he will not quit or talk price, so asks to ride along.</p></details><details><summary><b>447</b> · <i>Being Sicced On Percey</i> — A formidable opponent frankly tells someone junior his real difficulty, while making clear he will never sell out.</summary><p class="sum">In the car the agent asks Torchy&#x27;s position, and Torchy sheepishly admits office boy; the agent explains his real obstacle is a stubborn farmer whose land he must cross before his charter lapses, and that he will never sell to the boss.</p></details><details><summary><b>452</b> · <i>Being Sicced On Percey</i> — Someone junior sent to deal with an opponent reports back that the opponent is the real power worth winning over.</summary><p class="sum">Moved that the stranger was kind to his only remaining child, the farmer gives him the land at his own price; Torchy reports the agent is the real power behind the rival company, and the boss resolves to win him over.</p></details><details><summary><b>620</b> · <i>Teamwork with Aunty</i> — A busy boss hands his right hand a social favour he rashly promised, which turns out to involve the sweetheart&#x27;s guardian.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s son, too busy to follow up a dinner-party promise, sends Torchy to help promote and sell the work of a penniless young Belgian sculptor, a cause taken up by the sweetheart&#x27;s aunt.</p></details><details><summary><b>622</b> · <i>Teamwork with Aunty</i> — Someone sent as a stand-in catches a collapsing helper and ends up doing all the heavy work himself.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy catches the fainting sculptor, then spends an hour doing all the decorating, turning the bare loft into a showy studio with the aunt&#x27;s borrowed finery.</p></details><details><summary><b>728</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — Someone junior is suddenly handed full charge of the boss&#x27;s own wedding, with only the order to make it merry.</summary><p class="sum">The couple make Torchy best man and put him in full charge of a merry wedding anywhere he likes, with his sweetheart as sole bridesmaid and a clergyman friend to officiate.</p></details><details><summary><b>729</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — Someone handed a daunting private task by the boss turns to his quick-thinking sweetheart for a plan.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy consults his sweetheart, who suggests a friend&#x27;s empty estate with an open-air theatre and a nearby country club for lunch.</p></details><details><summary><b>730</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — Someone in charge of a big occasion sets off with only half a plan, trusting to luck to make it work.</summary><p class="sum">The only idea Torchy can come up with is to hire a dance-hall band; the party sets off, the boss&#x27;s sister in tow, and the solemn clergyman hopes the affair will not be too unconventional.</p></details><details><summary><b>733</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — A doubtful groom is talked into his junior&#x27;s wild plan by a bride who trusts the junior&#x27;s flair.</summary><p class="sum">The bride backs Torchy, and the whole party is dressed in theatrical costumes, the groom in tights and cape, the clergyman in a friar&#x27;s robe.</p></details><details><summary><b>735</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — Someone junior gives the boss exactly the joyful day he asked for, without mentioning it was recorded for the public.</summary><p class="sum">The clergyman marries the breathless couple amid cheers and roses, and everyone lunches at the club in costume at the groom&#x27;s expense; the film director thanks Torchy, who says the boss does not yet know he was filmed. The rest of the chunk is the publisher&#x27;s advertising.</p></details></section><section><h2>G07 · The boss&#x27;s family troubles land on you</h2>
<p class="pred">Someone in the boss&#x27;s family is in a scrape, a quarrel or an unhappy marriage, and you are the one on the spot.</p>
<p class="meta">A junior wants to fix it quietly from the boss&#x27;s family. · 24 scenes from 7 stories
(Down the Bumps with Cliffy, Breezing By With Peggy, The Passing By Of Bunny, Cutting In On The Bliss, Torchy Gets A Through Wire, Showing Gilkey the Way, When Skeet Had His Day) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Slip away so someone is free to help from outside. <span class='src'>from scene 310</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.boss_family +</code></li><li>Hurry them away before the police arrive. <span class='src'>from scene 110</span><br><code>relationships.boss_family +</code> <code>flags.hushed_up set</code></li><li>Suggest a secret dodge that spares everyone a scene. <span class='src'>from scene 471</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.boss_family +</code> <code>flags.hushed_up set</code></li><li>Stay as a witness, in case it turns ugly. <span class='src'>from scene 388</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code></li><li>Tell the boss everything. <span class='src'>filled gap</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>relationships.boss_family -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>108</b> · <i>Down the Bumps with Cliffy</i> — The boss has to bail a visiting relative out of trouble on the relative&#x27;s very first day in town.</summary><p class="sum">The cousin has been arrested for sketching a mansion from the curb and drawing a crowd; the boss&#x27;s son bails him out, and the cousin explains he is touring cities to study architecture.</p></details><details><summary><b>110</b> · <i>Down the Bumps with Cliffy</i> — Someone junior finds the boss&#x27;s visiting relative in a street brawl and drags him off before the authorities arrive.</summary><p class="sum">The cousin gets lost and roughed up by a janitor, and on his next outing Torchy finds him brawling with a cab driver in a crowd and hurries him away before the police arrive.</p></details><details><summary><b>113</b> · <i>Down the Bumps with Cliffy</i> — An older relative scolds the boss for neglecting a guest just as that guest brings fresh trouble to the door.</summary><p class="sum">A grand aunt arrives and scolds the boss&#x27;s son for neglecting his only cousin, vowing to wait for him; just then a commotion breaks out at the elevator.</p></details><details><summary><b>114</b> · <i>Down the Bumps with Cliffy</i> — A bewildered visitor bursts into the office trailed by a crowd of strangers he cannot get rid of.</summary><p class="sum">The cousin backs in pursued by some twenty newly arrived immigrants who have followed him for an hour, while the elevator man refuses to carry them again.</p></details><details><summary><b>309</b> · <i>Breezing By With Peggy</i> — A headstrong young guest talks her guardian&#x27;s hired help round and takes charge of something valuable she was told not to touch.</summary><p class="sum">Heading out on errands, the sister sits in front and persuades the chauffeur to let her drive; she handles the expensive car boldly through heavy city traffic.</p></details><details><summary><b>310</b> · <i>Breezing By With Peggy</i> — When the boss&#x27;s young relatives cause an accident and are arrested, someone junior slips away to be useful from outside.</summary><p class="sum">The car hits a fruit-seller&#x27;s wagon, the driver lies still, and police arrest them all; Torchy slips away from the group so someone is free on the outside, then follows to the station.</p></details><details><summary><b>311</b> · <i>Breezing By With Peggy</i> — While a young man takes the blame for his sister, someone junior summons help and privately checks how badly the victim is hurt.</summary><p class="sum">The brother claims he was driving to shield his sister, she insists it was her; Torchy phones Mr. Robert for money and lawyers, then bluffs his way into the hospital as the injured man&#x27;s nephew and finds him in the drunk ward.</p></details><details><summary><b>386</b> · <i>The Passing By Of Bunny</i> — The boss&#x27;s relative hurries to help an old friend in trouble and finds instead an old enemy using the friend&#x27;s name.</summary><p class="sum">The man is slumped half-dead against a railing; Mr. Robert inspects him and recognises not his friend but a hated former acquaintance who had been passing himself off under the friend&#x27;s name.</p></details><details><summary><b>388</b> · <i>The Passing By Of Bunny</i> — Someone junior insists on staying beside the boss&#x27;s relative through an ugly personal affair in case a witness is needed.</summary><p class="sum">The man says drink, a bad heart and starvation are killing him; they feed him hot milk and take him to a Turkish bath, and Torchy insists on staying as a witness in case he dies.</p></details><details><summary><b>389</b> · <i>The Passing By Of Bunny</i> — Someone junior is trusted with money and an awkward personal errand, then kept in the room as a witness.</summary><p class="sum">Mr. Robert gives Torchy money to get the man shaved and dressed in an old evening suit; cleaned up and deciding not to die after all, the man asks to talk, and Mr. Robert has Torchy sit in as witness.</p></details><details><summary><b>429</b> · <i>Cutting In On The Bliss</i> — The boss&#x27;s relative calls someone junior in about an embarrassing family matter, clearly unsure how much to reveal.</summary><p class="sum">Two weeks later the mother comes in tearful; Mr. Robert tells Torchy the couple changed plans on the bride&#x27;s whim and are alone at a remote mountain lodge.</p></details><details><summary><b>430</b> · <i>Cutting In On The Bliss</i> — The boss&#x27;s relative, afraid of his own temper, sends someone junior to investigate a family member&#x27;s troubled marriage.</summary><p class="sum">The bride has written home that she is wretched and her husband unbearable; Mr. Robert fears she is being abused, does not trust his own temper, and asks Torchy to go and find out.</p></details><details><summary><b>431</b> · <i>Cutting In On The Bliss</i> — Someone junior is sent under a pretext to spy on a household, already sure who the villain will turn out to be.</summary><p class="sum">They settle on Torchy delivering a box of orchids as his excuse; Torchy sets off full of sympathy for the bride and eager to see the husband punished.</p></details><details><summary><b>432</b> · <i>Cutting In On The Bliss</i> — Someone junior arrives to rescue a supposedly suffering young wife and finds her bored, vain and demanding compliments.</summary><p class="sum">At the luxurious lodge the bride runs out hoping for a visitor, is disappointed it is only Torchy, then crams the costly orchids into her sash and demands he admire her.</p></details><details><summary><b>433</b> · <i>Cutting In On The Bliss</i> — A young wife wants her old admirers invited to the honeymoon, and complains that her husband sulks about it.</summary><p class="sum">She wants her husband to invite her old suitors up for company; Torchy finds no sign of injury, and she complains her husband has been sulking and drags Torchy off to play.</p></details><details><summary><b>434</b> · <i>Cutting In On The Bliss</i> — A spoiled young wife recites her husband&#x27;s grievances as if they were nothing, and makes a visitor her playmate instead.</summary><p class="sum">She lists her husband&#x27;s complaints as petty: her letters to a suitor, the servants threatening to leave, a tennis court he had built that she won&#x27;t use; then she makes Torchy play golf and dance with her.</p></details><details><summary><b>435</b> · <i>Cutting In On The Bliss</i> — A husband finds his bride dancing with a visitor and asks for one dance, and she coldly turns him down.</summary><p class="sum">She teaches Torchy new dances intimately; the husband comes in and asks to cut in, and she refuses, throws the orchids away, and rebuffs his invitation to watch the sunset.</p></details><details><summary><b>436</b> · <i>Cutting In On The Bliss</i> — Someone sent to catch a villain finds instead a patient, miserable husband at his wits&#x27; end with a spoiled wife.</summary><p class="sum">Instead of raging, the husband slumps unhappily; he tells Torchy he cannot satisfy her whims, she has changed her mind on every plan, and things cannot go on like this.</p></details><details><summary><b>437</b> · <i>Cutting In On The Bliss</i> — A household runs badly under a careless young mistress, while her husband watches helplessly and even the hired help sneer.</summary><p class="sum">At dinner the bride flirts with Torchy and ignores her husband; the food is badly cooked, she sends back the dessert, a maid smirks, and she flounces off, leaving him desperate.</p></details><details><summary><b>470</b> · <i>Torchy Gets A Through Wire</i> — The boss&#x27;s timid relative is embarrassed by the loud clothes his spouse makes him wear, and hides from his friends.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s timid son-in-law arrives in a loud hat and coat, embarrassed, and won&#x27;t go to his club for fear of ridicule; he reveals a garish plush tie his wife chose for him.</p></details><details><summary><b>471</b> · <i>Torchy Gets A Through Wire</i> — Someone junior suggests a secret dodge to a timid relative of the boss who dares not stand up to his spouse.</summary><p class="sum">He cannot bear the tie and hat but won&#x27;t hurt his wife&#x27;s feelings; Torchy suggests he keep a quiet outfit in the car and change on the way to and from town, and he rushes off delighted.</p></details><details><summary><b>480</b> · <i>Torchy Gets A Through Wire</i> — When a secret dodge he suggested backfires, someone junior offers another trick to smooth things over.</summary><p class="sum">The son-in-law forgot to change back into the garish tie, and his wife is furious and won&#x27;t listen; Torchy advises him to &#x27;confide&#x27; his defence to the gossipy nieces so it reaches her.</p></details><details><summary><b>537</b> · <i>Showing Gilkey the Way</i> — Someone junior finds the boss&#x27;s helpless relative dithering in public and takes charge of a small decision for him.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy finds the boss&#x27;s helpless son-in-law lost in the building&#x27;s arcade, steers him to the telegraph window, and offers to decide for him what his telegram should say.</p></details><details><summary><b>559</b> · <i>When Skeet Had His Day</i> — A husband who refused to dance grows uneasy watching his wife partnered all night by a stranger no one knows.</summary><p class="sum">As she dances every number with the stranger, the son-in-law grows uneasy and insists on finding out who he is; the boss&#x27;s son teases him about his substitute.</p></details></section><section><h2>G08 · Someone in the boss&#x27;s family is being taken in</h2>
<p class="pred">Someone in the boss&#x27;s family is being flattered by a person you know is after their money, and they will not thank you for saying so.</p>
<p class="meta">A junior wants to protect them without telling tales from the boss&#x27;s relative and the flatterer. · 16 scenes from 3 stories
(Frosting the Profess, How Whity Gunked The Plot, When Skeet Had His Day) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Warn them to their face. <span class='src'>from scene 50</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.boss_family -</code></li><li>Let them hear the truth from the flatterer&#x27;s own mouth. <span class='src'>from scene 51 <span class="warn">(outside this group)</span></span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.boss_family +</code></li><li>Dig up everything on the flatterer first. <span class='src'>from scene 457 <span class="warn">(outside this group)</span></span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>money -</code></li><li>Take it to the boss and let him deal with it. <span class='src'>from scene 456</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>relationships.boss_family -</code></li><li>Say nothing; it is not your business. <span class='src'>archetype</span><br><code>relationships.boss_family risk</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>46</b> · <i>Frosting the Profess</i> — Someone junior sees the boss&#x27;s young relative slip into a doubtful place and must decide whether it is his business to follow.</summary><p class="sum">A week later Torchy sees her go into a shabby building housing a drama school; though it is none of his business he follows her up and hears her declaiming.</p></details><details><summary><b>47</b> · <i>Frosting the Profess</i> — Someone overhears a smooth talker flattering a wealthy young innocent toward a costly scheme, and recognises him as a known fraud.</summary><p class="sum">The teacher is flattering her extravagantly and promising a Broadway production for a price; Torchy recognises his voice as a small-time vaudeville ham and publicity-seeker he knew from his newspaper days.</p></details><details><summary><b>48</b> · <i>Frosting the Profess</i> — Someone junior confronts the boss&#x27;s young relative about a secret she thought no one knew.</summary><p class="sum">Seeing she believes the man, Torchy catches her at her carriage and tells her he overheard the lesson; she blushes and is shaken.</p></details><details><summary><b>49</b> · <i>Frosting the Profess</i> — Someone junior who will not tell tales to the family still cannot let a swindler take advantage of the boss&#x27;s relative.</summary><p class="sum">She begs him not to tell, and explains her family always calls her too big for everything, while the teacher alone said she was not; Torchy will not run to the family but will not let the fraud fleece her either.</p></details><details><summary><b>50</b> · <i>Frosting the Profess</i> — Someone junior warns the boss&#x27;s relative about a swindler, is told off for his cheek, and has to threaten telling the family.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy tells her the teacher is a has-been after her money; she calls him impudent and refuses to hear more, until he bluffs that he will tell her brother.</p></details><details><summary><b>53</b> · <i>Frosting the Profess</i> — A deceived young relative of the boss confronts the flatterer who mocked her, while her helper returns to work pretending nothing happened.</summary><p class="sum">The daughter bursts in, and the teacher, thinking her purse a pistol, dives under a desk; she throws him his fee and storms out, and back at the office Torchy is teased for his long absence.</p></details><details><summary><b>454</b> · <i>How Whity Gunked The Plot</i> — Someone junior notices the boss&#x27;s temper is being soured by an embarrassing relative who has come to stay.</summary><p class="sum">The boss has been irritable over a visiting cousin: a short, gaudily dressed, much-married widow with a head for business and a taste for fads.</p></details><details><summary><b>455</b> · <i>How Whity Gunked The Plot</i> — After a stormy private talk with a relative, the boss suddenly quizzes someone junior about a stranger he has never met.</summary><p class="sum">The boss summons the cousin, who leaves flushed and tearful but defiant; he then quizzes Torchy about a self-styled &#x27;sculptor poet&#x27; whose book he waves in disgust.</p></details><details><summary><b>456</b> · <i>How Whity Gunked The Plot</i> — The boss hands someone junior expense money to dig up everything on a man he suspects of preying on a rich relative.</summary><p class="sum">The boss reads out the poet&#x27;s bad verse and a gushing inscription to the cousin, gives Torchy twenty dollars, and orders a full investigation, being sure the poet is after her money.</p></details><details><summary><b>465</b> · <i>How Whity Gunked The Plot</i> — Someone junior watches the boss&#x27;s relative make a public fool of herself chasing an admirer, confirming the boss&#x27;s fears.</summary><p class="sum">The poet cheerfully feeds them publicity material and cigars; the reporter vows a sarcastic write-up, while the cousin trails the poet everywhere, drawing sniggers from the guests.</p></details><details><summary><b>466</b> · <i>How Whity Gunked The Plot</i> — A resentful man seizes a quiet moment to feed a smitten woman damaging truths about the man she admires.</summary><p class="sum">After readings and a fine fish soup, the cousin sits by the reporter, who tells her the poet is a fake who makes his money in cheese.</p></details><details><summary><b>467</b> · <i>How Whity Gunked The Plot</i> — A malicious lie told to break up a romance causes a public scene that humiliates the smitten relative and her admirer.</summary><p class="sum">The reporter invents a wife and six children, whom the poet beats; the cousin shrieks, denounces the bewildered poet as a monster before everyone, faints, and storms out, breaking up the party.</p></details><details><summary><b>469</b> · <i>How Whity Gunked The Plot</i> — Someone junior reports that the boss&#x27;s embarrassing family problem is solved, and the boss prefers not to ask how.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy gives the reporter the boss&#x27;s twenty dollars; the next day&#x27;s paper runs a glowing story on the party, and the boss, told the romance is over, asks no further questions and jokes about Torchy&#x27;s methods.</p></details><details><summary><b>557</b> · <i>When Skeet Had His Day</i> — Someone watches in dread as the boss&#x27;s daughter takes the floor with a stranger he knows to be an impostor.</summary><p class="sum">Sitting with the bored son-in-law, Torchy is horrified to see the boss&#x27;s daughter take the floor for a showy dance with the impostor.</p></details><details><summary><b>558</b> · <i>When Skeet Had His Day</i> — Someone braced for the boss&#x27;s relative to be humiliated in public sees her triumph instead, and the room applauds.</summary><p class="sum">To his surprise the daughter dances beautifully and lightly, and the pair win applause from the room.</p></details><details><summary><b>561</b> · <i>When Skeet Had His Day</i> — Someone questioning a suspicious guest learns the boss&#x27;s relative secretly hired him as a paid partner for the evening.</summary><p class="sum">The man produces a genuine invitation from the boss&#x27;s daughter and admits she hired him from her dancing school; he is a paid partner who escorts ladies to parties for a fee.</p></details></section><section><h2>G09 · Getting rid of an embarrassing guest</h2>
<p class="pred">Someone the family does not want is about to spoil an occasion, and you have been told, or have offered, to get them out without a scene.</p>
<p class="meta">A junior wants them gone quietly from an unwanted guest. · 18 scenes from 5 stories
(Shunting Brother Bill, Down the Bumps with Cliffy, The Passing By Of Bunny, When Skeet Had His Day, When Ella May Came By) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Bundle them off with a vague story and no plan. <span class='src'>from scene 77</span><br><code>relationships.boss_family +</code> <code>money +</code></li><li>Scare them off with a danger you invent. <span class='src'>from scene 562</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>cheek +</code> <code>flags.told_a_tale set</code></li><li>Stage a scene that makes them leave of their own accord. <span class='src'>from scene 718</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>flags.told_a_tale set</code></li><li>Pass the problem on to someone you dislike. <span class='src'>from scene 117</span><br><code>relationships.colleague -</code> <code>money +</code></li><li>Pay their fare to go far away. <span class='src'>from scene 395</span><br><code>money -</code> <code>relationships.boss +</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>76</b> · <i>Shunting Brother Bill</i> — Someone junior spots an unwelcome guest at a big event and volunteers to remove him quietly, if given a free hand.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy parks the brother in a side room and warns the boss&#x27;s son, then offers to get the man out of the way if given free rein.</p></details><details><summary><b>77</b> · <i>Shunting Brother Bill</i> — Someone junior is paid to keep an unwanted guest away, and bundles him off with a vague story and no plan.</summary><p class="sum">Promised a hundred dollars to keep the brother away until the ceremony is over, Torchy hustles him into a cab with vague talk of someone waiting, and can think of nowhere to go but the groom&#x27;s house.</p></details><details><summary><b>78</b> · <i>Shunting Brother Bill</i> — Someone stuck with an unwanted guest decides to hand him to the person who most wanted him exposed.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy&#x27;s hints about escape are answered vaguely; at the house he decides to present the brother to the hostile aunt as a surprise.</p></details><details><summary><b>116</b> · <i>Down the Bumps with Cliffy</i> — Someone junior who spots the fix is ordered by the boss to carry it out himself, for a promised bonus.</summary><p class="sum">The cane is an immigrant agent&#x27;s badge; when Torchy takes it the crowd follows him, and the boss&#x27;s son orders him out with them and promises twenty dollars; Torchy marches them off.</p></details><details><summary><b>117</b> · <i>Down the Bumps with Cliffy</i> — Someone junior palms off a problem on a rival he dislikes, and walks away with the reward.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy hands the cane to a doorman he dislikes and escapes, leaving the crowd with him; he pockets the twenty dollars and the cousin goes home.</p></details><details><summary><b>395</b> · <i>The Passing By Of Bunny</i> — A disgraced man offers to disappear abroad for good if his benefactor pays the fare, and the benefactor jumps at it.</summary><p class="sum">He proposes going to a fellow exile who runs a remote banana plantation abroad and would keep him; Mr. Robert eagerly asks when a ship sails and has Torchy call a cab.</p></details><details><summary><b>396</b> · <i>The Passing By Of Bunny</i> — The boss&#x27;s relative makes sure a blackmailer really leaves, then admits to someone junior how the episode shook him.</summary><p class="sum">The man asks for clothes too; next morning Mr. Robert tells Torchy he locked him in his cabin and bribed a steward to keep him there until the ship was well out, and swears to burn any more old dress suits.</p></details><details><summary><b>560</b> · <i>When Skeet Had His Day</i> — Someone junior heads off a public scene by offering to question a suspicious guest himself, quietly, out of sight.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s son and the husband decide to confront the stranger; Torchy heads off a scene by offering to do it quietly, and takes the man into the dressing room.</p></details><details><summary><b>562</b> · <i>When Skeet Had His Day</i> — Someone disgusted by a braggart&#x27;s gloating invents a danger to scare him off before he causes trouble.</summary><p class="sum">He boasts of his income and his conquests and gloats at snubbing his family; disgusted, Torchy tells him the husband and brother are furious about the talk.</p></details><details><summary><b>563</b> · <i>When Skeet Had His Day</i> — A braggart is frightened out the back door by his own sister, while the boss&#x27;s relative confesses she hired him.</summary><p class="sum">The man panics and flees, and Torchy has his sister smuggle him out the back; meanwhile the boss&#x27;s daughter tells the family she hired him because she was tired of being a wallflower.</p></details><details><summary><b>564</b> · <i>When Skeet Had His Day</i> — Someone junior who quietly removed an embarrassing guest tells the amused boss it took nothing but talk.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy reports the man has left unwell and wants his fee by post; the boss&#x27;s son asks how he did it, and Torchy says it was just talk.</p></details><details><summary><b>713</b> · <i>When Ella May Came By</i> — Someone junior collecting a guest finds her an outrageous flirt who at once asks which eligible men are present.</summary><p class="sum">The guest, a coquettish Southern belle, orders Torchy about, calls him honey, cuddles up to him in the car, and brightens when she hears the boss&#x27;s son is there.</p></details><details><summary><b>714</b> · <i>When Ella May Came By</i> — Someone fending off a determined flirt mocks her advances so drily that she recoils in offended fury.</summary><p class="sum">Told the boss&#x27;s son is spoken for, she scoffs and flirts with Torchy instead; he mockingly asks if her intentions are serious until she drops his arm in fury.</p></details><details><summary><b>715</b> · <i>When Ella May Came By</i> — A determined flirt ignores every hint and fastens onto a man who is plainly courting someone else.</summary><p class="sum">She holds up dinner to change into a startling gown, then attaches herself to the boss&#x27;s son, leaving the singer trailing behind.</p></details><details><summary><b>717</b> · <i>When Ella May Came By</i> — A hostess desperate to rid her party of a disruptive guest begs the others for a scheme, just as an unexpected caller arrives.</summary><p class="sum">The daughter calls a council to get rid of the flirt, since the singer is left reading alone; a chauffeur&#x27;s deserted wife arrives with her small children to ask for news of her runaway husband.</p></details><details><summary><b>718</b> · <i>When Ella May Came By</i> — Someone junior borrows an unwitting caller&#x27;s sad errand to stage a scene that will scare off an unwanted guest.</summary><p class="sum">Learning the missing husband shares the boss&#x27;s son&#x27;s first name, Torchy borrows the woman and her children and poses them conspicuously at the garden gate.</p></details><details><summary><b>719</b> · <i>When Ella May Came By</i> — Someone junior tells a misleading half-truth in front of a flirt, who concludes the boss has a secret family and flees.</summary><p class="sum">In front of the flirt Torchy tells the boss&#x27;s son that &#x27;she&#x27; is back with the children and wants her Robert; he laughs, and the flirt calls him a brute and storms off.</p></details><details><summary><b>720</b> · <i>When Ella May Came By</i> — A boss spared an unwanted admirer by his junior&#x27;s trick chooses not to correct it, and hurries back to the woman he loves.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s son declines to have the misunderstanding cleared up, goes to find the singer, and sends money to the deserted wife; the flirt leaves by train, and that night the couple stroll in the moonlight.</p></details></section><section><h2>G10 · Talking the boss into backing someone overlooked</h2>
<p class="pred">Someone capable is stuck, snubbed or about to be let go, and you could put their case to the boss yourself.</p>
<p class="meta">A junior wants a fair chance for someone else from the boss. · 12 scenes from 6 stories
(Meeting up with the Great Skid, Batting it up to Torchy, Throwing the Line to Skid, Touching on Tink Tuttle, Late Returns On Popover, Torchy Makes the Sir Class) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Take the blame for them, and tell the boss their whole story. <span class='src'>from scene 40</span><br><code>relationships.boss risk</code> <code>relationships.colleague +</code> <code>flags.recommended set</code></li><li>Go to the boss at home and ask for the promotion outright. <span class='src'>from scene 200</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.boss risk</code> <code>relationships.colleague +</code> <code>flags.recommended set</code></li><li>Slip their proposal onto the boss&#x27;s desk as if it came through channels. <span class='src'>from scene 204</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.supervisor -</code> <code>standing risk</code></li><li>Argue they are too valuable to lose. <span class='src'>from scene 187</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>savvy +</code></li><li>Keep out of it; it is not your place. <span class='src'>archetype</span><br><code>relationships.colleague -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>40</b> · <i>Meeting up with the Great Skid</i> — Someone junior called to account for a bluff takes the blame and uses the moment to urge the boss to promote a colleague.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy takes the blame, argues he could not show a senator&#x27;s son into the general office, then tells the heir the clerk&#x27;s whole story and praises his grit; the heir asks what he suggests.</p></details><details><summary><b>187</b> · <i>Batting it up to Torchy</i> — Someone junior faces an exploding boss and argues that an honest refuser is too valuable to lose and too risky to cast out.</summary><p class="sum">The boss explodes, suspecting the clerk means to turn witness; Torchy says the man knows nothing and is simply too honest, so he is too valuable to lose and too risky to turn loose.</p></details><details><summary><b>188</b> · <i>Batting it up to Torchy</i> — A boss takes a junior&#x27;s advice and rewards an honest old hand with a dignified way out rather than punishment.</summary><p class="sum">The boss calms, hears the old man&#x27;s story from Torchy, and sends him west as a travelling auditor, to be retired on full pay near his son; the old man is chiefly glad the books need not be altered.</p></details><details><summary><b>200</b> · <i>Throwing the Line to Skid</i> — Stung by a rich man&#x27;s mockery of a struggling friend, someone junior goes to the boss at home to get the friend promoted.</summary><p class="sum">The bride&#x27;s stew is a failure and the senator jokes about the cook sleeping on the fire escape; Torchy slips away to the top boss&#x27;s home and reminds him a senior manager is being dismissed for failing in the capital.</p></details><details><summary><b>201</b> · <i>Throwing the Line to Skid</i> — Someone junior talks the boss into a sudden promotion for a friend, and the scornful in-law instantly changes his tune.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy recommends his friend, now a senator&#x27;s son-in-law, for the post; amused, the boss appoints him at five thousand a year, and the senator, hearing the news, becomes all congratulations.</p></details><details><summary><b>204</b> · <i>Touching on Tink Tuttle</i> — Someone junior quietly goes around a dismissive superior and puts a rejected outsider&#x27;s proposal in front of the boss.</summary><p class="sum">Moved by the man&#x27;s hopelessness, Torchy takes the document himself, sends the man home, and later slips it onto the top boss&#x27;s desk as if it came through proper channels.</p></details><details><summary><b>205</b> · <i>Touching on Tink Tuttle</i> — Someone junior summoned for going over a superior&#x27;s head learns he has landed something the boss badly wanted.</summary><p class="sum">Summoned, Torchy admits he bypassed the secretary; the boss reveals the company has been trying to get that very property for eight months and denounces the secretary.</p></details><details><summary><b>356</b> · <i>Late Returns On Popover</i> — A humble worker who was promised his place back returns to find it given to an insider&#x27;s relative.</summary><p class="sum">The waiter explains that he took leave to go home, was promised his job back, but found it given to the chef&#x27;s cousin; he has also spent the savings he needed to buy into his sweetheart&#x27;s father&#x27;s business.</p></details><details><summary><b>362</b> · <i>Late Returns On Popover</i> — Someone junior caught eavesdropping on his superior quickly uses the moment to plead for a humble visitor, and is brushed off.</summary><p class="sum">The friend never learned the soldier&#x27;s name or fate; Mr. Robert notices Torchy eavesdropping, and Torchy uses the moment to mention the waiter, but Mr. Robert puts him off and sends him out.</p></details><details><summary><b>365</b> · <i>Late Returns On Popover</i> — A modest man who did something heroic is found jobless and ignored, and his powerful admirer demands something be done.</summary><p class="sum">The waiter shyly admits he held the hill until the army arrived, was discharged, and has now lost his job; the friend is outraged at such ingratitude, and Mr. Robert takes the waiter into his office.</p></details><details><summary><b>499</b> · <i>Torchy Makes the Sir Class</i> — Someone junior seeks out a snubbed outsider and goads him out of taking his idea to a rival.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy tracks the inventor to his cluttered workshop-home; the old man, insulted by the manager, says he will take his idea to a rival firm, and Torchy calls him a quitter.</p></details><details><summary><b>507</b> · <i>Torchy Makes the Sir Class</i> — Someone who created his own job by backing an outsider wins the day, and the boss says he needs him.</summary><p class="sum">He ends by inviting questions to the inventor; the meeting runs for hours and ends with an option paid and a trial plant voted, the manager slinks out, and the boss&#x27;s son says he is proud of him.</p></details></section><section><h2>G11 · Someone everyone makes fun of</h2>
<p class="pred">There is one person everyone around you mocks, and you can join in, look away or take their side.</p>
<p class="meta">A onlooker wants to fit in, or to do right from the butt of the joke. · 21 scenes from 5 stories
(Meeting up with the Great Skid, Batting it up to Torchy, Merry Dodges A Dead Heat, Some Guesses on Ruby, Then Along Came Sukey) · stage <b>middle</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Mock them along with everyone else. <span class='src'>from scene 28</span><br><code>relationships.outcast -</code></li><li>Stand up for them against the one bullying them. <span class='src'>from scene 32</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.outcast +</code> <code>relationships.supervisor -</code></li><li>Make friends with them. <span class='src'>from scene 179</span><br><code>relationships.outcast +</code></li><li>Tell them their work is good. <span class='src'>from scene 578</span><br><code>relationships.outcast +</code> <code>savvy +</code></li><li>Stay out of it; it is only fun. <span class='src'>archetype</span><br><code>relationships.outcast -</code> <code>flags.looked_away set</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>28</b> · <i>Meeting up with the Great Skid</i> — Someone junior mocks a quiet colleague as a pampered softie, and the colleague just grins back.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy takes a quiet, well-spoken filing clerk for a pampered softie and mocks him at the lunch counter; the clerk takes it with a grin.</p></details><details><summary><b>30</b> · <i>Meeting up with the Great Skid</i> — Someone junior wonders why a capable colleague is stuck at humble work that only family strings got him into.</summary><p class="sum">The clerk confides that his whole family had to pull strings to get him even this job; puzzled that such a capable man is stuck filing, Torchy watches him work and reflects that the head office boy&#x27;s post suits him better.</p></details><details><summary><b>32</b> · <i>Meeting up with the Great Skid</i> — Someone junior stands up for a bullied colleague and learns the colleague is a late starter with fine schooling but no experience.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy dares the secretary to fire him instead; later the clerk explains he is a college man with a late start, and Torchy pities him, having seen how green graduates fare.</p></details><details><summary><b>177</b> · <i>Batting it up to Torchy</i> — A newcomer quickly spots the long-serving old hand everyone laughs at, who hangs on at the bottom year after year.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy picks out the office joke at once: a meek, old-fashioned elderly clerk in fifteen-year-old clothes, a low-paid sub-assistant of the kind always at risk of being cut in a shake-up.</p></details><details><summary><b>178</b> · <i>Batting it up to Torchy</i> — Someone junior who mocks a meek old colleague finds no satisfaction in teasing someone who never fights back.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy jokes at the old clerk daily, but gets only a sad, gentle smile back, and decides there is no sport in teasing someone who never fights back.</p></details><details><summary><b>179</b> · <i>Batting it up to Torchy</i> — Someone junior befriends an overlooked old colleague and learns of the relatives he props up his pride on.</summary><p class="sum">The two become lunch friends; the old man proudly describes his reforming son out west, and Torchy meets the boastful small-time broker son-in-law the old man lives with.</p></details><details><summary><b>180</b> · <i>Batting it up to Torchy</i> — An old colleague scorned at home and overlooked at work lives for a small private pleasure and a distant child.</summary><p class="sum">At home the son-in-law treats the old man with contempt and warns he had better keep his job; the old man&#x27;s joy is his flower garden, and Torchy suggests he move west to his son.</p></details><details><summary><b>367</b> · <i>Merry Dodges A Dead Heat</i> — Someone junior accepts a weekend invitation from a gentle, overlooked colleague stuck forever in a dead-end place.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy goes to spend a weekend with a fastidious, well-dressed audit clerk of about thirty whom the office teases; the clerk earns little, has no hope of a raise, and is one of the firm&#x27;s easily replaced cogs.</p></details><details><summary><b>578</b> · <i>Some Guesses on Ruby</i> — Someone newly senior works alongside the office&#x27;s laughing stock, finds her capable, and a word of thanks lights her up.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s son tells the senior clerk to keep her on figures and away from the old man; Torchy works three hours with her on tables, finds her accurate, and when he says so she gives him a shy, grateful smile.</p></details><details><summary><b>579</b> · <i>Some Guesses on Ruby</i> — Someone who dismissed the office&#x27;s plainest outcast as friendless is startled to see a devoted young man waiting for her.</summary><p class="sum">The typist is the butt of the office for her old-fashioned clothes and plain looks; Torchy is surprised to see her walk off hand in hand with a sturdy young man.</p></details><details><summary><b>580</b> · <i>Some Guesses on Ruby</i> — Someone teasing a solemn colleague about her sweetheart gets only earnest, literal answers about home and study.</summary><p class="sum">Teased, she solemnly explains the young man studied an ancient language with her at college in their small Midwestern home town; she says she dislikes the city.</p></details><details><summary><b>581</b> · <i>Some Guesses on Ruby</i> — Someone who mocked a strange colleague&#x27;s blank stare learns it comes from a childhood catastrophe that killed her whole family.</summary><p class="sum">She says crowds terrify her and tells how, at twelve, a cyclone killed her whole family in front of her; Torchy stops joking and understands her blank stare.</p></details><details><summary><b>607</b> · <i>Then Along Came Sukey</i> — A touchy visitor is greeted by an old acquaintance using the mocking nickname he has always hated.</summary><p class="sum">The sporting friend recognises the newcomer from a summer camp and calls him by a girlish nickname he hates; the small man bristles and the big one laughs.</p></details><details><summary><b>608</b> · <i>Then Along Came Sukey</i> — A hearty bully with a taste for crude jokes keeps baiting a frail, sharp-tongued man who answers him cutting word for word.</summary><p class="sum">The sporting friend, a practical joker and big-game hunter, keeps needling the violinist, who gives as good as he gets, and teasingly invites him on a bear hunt.</p></details><details><summary><b>609</b> · <i>Then Along Came Sukey</i> — A frail man openly admits a fear to a bully, who files it away as the makings of a cruel joke.</summary><p class="sum">The violinist frankly admits he is terrified of large animals and leaves; the boss&#x27;s son gives Torchy an invitation to a musical evening at which his sweetheart will be, and the joker realises the performer is his victim.</p></details><details><summary><b>610</b> · <i>Then Along Came Sukey</i> — A bully begs an invitation to a family gathering purely for the chance to torment one of the guests.</summary><p class="sum">The joker begs an invitation to the musical to have sport with the violinist, describing him as a conceited, sharp-tongued little snob everyone puts up with for his music.</p></details><details><summary><b>611</b> · <i>Then Along Came Sukey</i> — A boss grudgingly lets a bullying friend into a family occasion, and the friend leaves chuckling over some private plan.</summary><p class="sum">He learns a hearty sporting woman will be there too, gets his invitation, and leaves chuckling over a plan; later the boss&#x27;s daughter brings the mannish woman into the office.</p></details><details><summary><b>614</b> · <i>Then Along Came Sukey</i> — A gifted performer holding a room spellbound is ambushed mid-performance by a bully&#x27;s cruel practical joke.</summary><p class="sum">He plays brilliantly and is rude about the applause; during a lullaby a man in a bear costume shambles in behind him, growling.</p></details><details><summary><b>615</b> · <i>Then Along Came Sukey</i> — A frightened man stands up to what terrifies him, and a woman steps in to unmask the bully and carry him off.</summary><p class="sum">White with terror, the violinist nevertheless grabs the music stand to fight; the sportswoman rips off the bear&#x27;s head to expose the joker, rebukes him, and carries the hysterical violinist out of the room.</p></details><details><summary><b>616</b> · <i>Then Along Came Sukey</i> — A bully whose prank went too far is rounded on by his hosts, who make clear such fun is not welcome.</summary><p class="sum">The family round on the sheepish joker, and the boss&#x27;s son is scolding him when the violinist returns.</p></details><details><summary><b>617</b> · <i>Then Along Came Sukey</i> — A humiliated man explains his fear with dignity, refuses pity, and leaves the bully shamed before everyone.</summary><p class="sum">The violinist explains he has been an invalid for fifteen years, refuses sympathy, and dismisses the joker as all beef and no brains; the joker slinks off. The sweetheart fetches Torchy to the sportswoman, who is weeping.</p></details></section><section><h2>G12 · Minding someone who will not be minded</h2>
<p class="pred">You have been put in charge of someone, a relative or a colleague, who does not want a minder and means to go their own way.</p>
<p class="meta">A minder wants to keep them out of trouble from a charge who resists. · 19 scenes from 4 stories
(Down the Bumps with Cliffy, Getting Hermes on the Bounce, Torchy Bugs The System, Gladys In A Double Bill) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Tell them bluntly what they are doing wrong. <span class='src'>from scene 295</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.charge risk</code></li><li>Give them plain advice and a push. <span class='src'>from scene 296</span><br><code>relationships.charge +</code> <code>savvy +</code></li><li>Wrestle them into line. <span class='src'>from scene 225</span><br><code>relationships.charge -</code></li><li>Tell them you disapprove, and keep your distance. <span class='src'>from scene 347</span><br><code>relationships.charge -</code> <code>cheek +</code></li><li>Report honestly to whoever put you in charge, even if it costs you. <span class='src'>from scene 299</span><br><code>money risk</code> <code>relationships.boss_family risk</code> <code>flags.honest_report set</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>111</b> · <i>Down the Bumps with Cliffy</i> — Someone junior is taken off his real work to babysit the boss&#x27;s troublesome relative for a whole day.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s son, who had never met the cousin before, gives Torchy the day off to guide him and keep him out of trouble until evening, promising to make it worth his while.</p></details><details><summary><b>112</b> · <i>Down the Bumps with Cliffy</i> — A relative the boss wants watched refuses any minder, sure he knows best, and the boss is too trusting to insist.</summary><p class="sum">The cousin stubbornly refuses any escort and will not give up his earmuffs; Torchy sees he secretly thinks himself a genius, while the boss&#x27;s son still believes him an innocent and lectures him.</p></details><details><summary><b>222</b> · <i>Getting Hermes on the Bounce</i> — Someone junior must shepherd an awkward pair of country visitors through the city and into a grand party.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy is appalled but follows the plan: feed them, keep them busy, and bring them to a big society party where the friend can meet the nephew quietly.</p></details><details><summary><b>223</b> · <i>Getting Hermes on the Bounce</i> — Someone junior reports back and is told to make a rough country guest presentable for high society by evening.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy lodges them in a cheap hotel and phones the daughter, who decides the nephew must wear evening dress and will send an old suit of her brother&#x27;s.</p></details><details><summary><b>224</b> · <i>Getting Hermes on the Bounce</i> — Someone junior escorting an awkward guest through public mockery has to talk him into clothes he hates.</summary><p class="sum">Everyone laughs at the nephew&#x27;s comic clothes at dinner; back at the hotel he refuses to wear the evening suit.</p></details><details><summary><b>225</b> · <i>Getting Hermes on the Bounce</i> — Someone forced into formal clothes for a grand occasion suffers them like armour, while his elder refuses to look impressed.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy and the uncle wrestle him into the suit; at the theatre the uncle sits solemn, determined not to look like a greenhorn.</p></details><details><summary><b>226</b> · <i>Getting Hermes on the Bounce</i> — Someone junior drags a half-asleep guest to a grand occasion, hoping he will somehow do on the night.</summary><p class="sum">The nephew snores through the play and has to be dragged out; Torchy spends more expense money on a taxi to the grand house, where they are admitted as the daughter&#x27;s guests.</p></details><details><summary><b>290</b> · <i>Torchy Bugs The System</i> — A powerful visitor&#x27;s anxious mother asks someone junior to befriend her difficult son and watch over him.</summary><p class="sum">After the son leaves, the mother comes back to Torchy&#x27;s desk, flatters his kind face, and asks him to befriend her son and keep an eye on him.</p></details><details><summary><b>291</b> · <i>Torchy Bugs The System</i> — Someone junior is paid to befriend and report on a snobbish colleague, who wants nothing to do with him.</summary><p class="sum">She offers five dollars for every &#x27;satisfactory&#x27; weekly report on her son; Torchy accepts, realises he now has to make the son behave to get paid, and is rebuffed again when he tries to be friendly.</p></details><details><summary><b>292</b> · <i>Torchy Bugs The System</i> — A proud newcomer who spurned help comes back asking for it, having run out of money and credit.</summary><p class="sum">After some days the newcomer asks about the cheap lunch place: his father has not paid his club bill and he is posted for debt, and he has run his wages down to almost nothing by midweek.</p></details><details><summary><b>294</b> · <i>Torchy Bugs The System</i> — A spoiled colleague complains about his boss and his lodgings, and someone junior refuses to join in the grumbling.</summary><p class="sum">The newcomer says he won&#x27;t speak to the &#x27;freaks&#x27; at his boarding house and grumbles about his department head; Torchy refuses to join in and learns he wrecked a speeding car in his idle days.</p></details><details><summary><b>295</b> · <i>Torchy Bugs The System</i> — Someone junior tells a spoiled colleague who looks down on him that he is a failure on the edge of dismissal.</summary><p class="sum">The newcomer explains that a car crash and expulsion from college made his father send him to work; Torchy announces he is &#x27;retained&#x27; to help him make good, is scorned as a mucker, and tells him bluntly he is a poor clerk about to be fired.</p></details><details><summary><b>296</b> · <i>Torchy Bugs The System</i> — Someone junior gives a privileged colleague the plain advice he doesn&#x27;t follow himself, and the colleague agrees to try it.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy lectures him to come early, stay late, please his boss and not fail at a small job; the newcomer grudgingly agrees to try, and Torchy sends the mother a candid report.</p></details><details><summary><b>297</b> · <i>Torchy Bugs The System</i> — A colleague who took the junior&#x27;s advice starts winning his supervisor&#x27;s praise, and is pushed to go further.</summary><p class="sum">The newcomer starts arriving early and working hard, wins praise from his department head, and proposes a filing scheme; Torchy next urges him to mix with his fellow boarders.</p></details><details><summary><b>299</b> · <i>Torchy Bugs The System</i> — Someone paid to report on a colleague&#x27;s progress proudly describes changes that the anxious parent may not welcome at all.</summary><p class="sum">He has become friends with an immigrant socialist writer and is volunteering to teach boys at a slum settlement; Torchy writes all this proudly into his report, hoping for a bonus.</p></details><details><summary><b>343</b> · <i>Gladys In A Double Bill</i> — Someone junior sent to fetch a child finds instead a showy young woman who treats him as a mere errand-runner.</summary><p class="sum">After a long wait, &#x27;little Gladys&#x27; appears as a heavily made-up sixteen-year-old with dyed hair and big earrings, and scornfully says Mr. Robert sent one of his &#x27;young men&#x27; in his place.</p></details><details><summary><b>344</b> · <i>Gladys In A Double Bill</i> — Someone junior tries to keep a proper distance from a forward young passenger, who insists on his company and teases him.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy tries to ride up front but she insists he sit with her; he asks which theatre she performs at, and she says she has merely had her hair done, and starts redoing it in the mirror.</p></details><details><summary><b>345</b> · <i>Gladys In A Double Bill</i> — A rebellious young charge cheerfully tells the escort she has been handed to all the ways she defies her parent.</summary><p class="sum">She chatters that her mother makes scenes over her looks, that she was expelled from one school, and that she keeps up with actress friends her mother forbids.</p></details><details><summary><b>347</b> · <i>Gladys In A Double Bill</i> — A flirtatious young charge tries her charms on the escort, and he fends her off by telling her plainly he disapproves.</summary><p class="sum">She flirts with her eyes; Torchy tells her he dislikes painted girls and that she is a kid, they swap insults, and she soon makes it up and takes the last gumdrop.</p></details></section><section><h2>G13 · Calling on a friend from the bottom rung</h2>
<p class="pred">What you need cannot be got through the proper channels, and an old friend from lower down could get it for you.</p>
<p class="meta">A junior wants what the front door will not give from old friends from the bottom rung. · 12 scenes from 8 stories
(A Jolt for Piddie, Keeping Tabs on Piddie, A Whirl with Kazedky, The Glad Hail For Torchy, How Whity Gunked The Plot, Breaking It to the Boss, Torchy Gets an Inside Tip, Some Hoop-la for the Boss) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Get an old friend to deliver a fake message. <span class='src'>from scene 26</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.old_friends +</code> <code>flags.trick set</code></li><li>Ask an old acquaintance what the street says. <span class='src'>from scene 88</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.old_friends +</code></li><li>Trade on your old rank and its slang. <span class='src'>from scene 531</span><br><code>relationships.old_friends +</code> <code>savvy +</code></li><li>Pay for what they tell you. <span class='src'>from scene 532</span><br><code>money -</code> <code>savvy +</code></li><li>Promise them something back, and pay it. <span class='src'>from scene 101</span><br><code>relationships.old_friends +</code> <code>standing -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>26</b> · <i>A Jolt for Piddie</i> — Someone stuck gets an old friend from the bottom rung to help him lure a guard away with a fake message.</summary><p class="sum">Meeting an old messenger-boy friend, Torchy telephones the heir for the name of the likely informer, then has the friend deliver a fake message calling the warden to the telephone.</p></details><details><summary><b>88</b> · <i>Keeping Tabs on Piddie</i> — Someone junior checks out the people his superior is dealing with and learns from an old acquaintance they are crooks.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy finds the address is a fly-by-night brokerage; a former messenger boy now trading on the street tells him the stock is a wildcat.</p></details><details><summary><b>100</b> · <i>A Whirl with Kazedky</i> — Someone trying to be taken seriously in new work is hailed by an old acquaintance only for past glory he wants to forget.</summary><p class="sum">They meet a sports columnist Torchy knows from his newspaper days, who is thrilled to find the friend, a famous former football star, and wants an article from him; the friend wants his fame forgotten.</p></details><details><summary><b>101</b> · <i>A Whirl with Kazedky</i> — Someone blocked from an important visitor is offered a way in by a contact, at the price of reviving a past he wants buried.</summary><p class="sum">The columnist knows the official and where he is dining with a rival group of businessmen, and offers to bring him out in exchange for the football article, which the friend agrees to write.</p></details><details><summary><b>401</b> · <i>The Glad Hail For Torchy</i> — A stranger in unfamiliar territory barges where he is not allowed and wins over the gruff local by naming a mutual friend.</summary><p class="sum">Realising he is headed for the home town of the boatbuilder he once helped, Torchy takes heart, barges into the steamer&#x27;s wheelhouse, and wins over the grumpy pilot by naming the boatbuilder, his cousin.</p></details><details><summary><b>457</b> · <i>How Whity Gunked The Plot</i> — Someone junior uses tricks from an earlier job to investigate for the boss, and runs into an old acquaintance.</summary><p class="sum">Using directories and the who&#x27;s-who, Torchy learns the poet&#x27;s basic facts, then heads to the old newspaper office where he once worked and runs into a former reporter who hangs about there.</p></details><details><summary><b>458</b> · <i>How Whity Gunked The Plot</i> — Someone junior meets a once-promising former colleague whose gambling habit has left him stuck and shabby.</summary><p class="sum">The reporter, once brilliant and full of schemes, is now hooked on stock speculation; he greets Torchy flippantly and asks whether there is a story in his errand.</p></details><details><summary><b>531</b> · <i>Breaking It to the Boss</i> — Someone risen from the bottom uses the knowledge and slang of his old rank to win over a lowly runner.</summary><p class="sum">Circling the block, Torchy hails a telegraph messenger boy, trades on his own past as one, and has the boss tip the boy a dollar.</p></details><details><summary><b>532</b> · <i>Breaking It to the Boss</i> — Someone junior bribes a lowly runner into revealing the hidden route to a powerful man&#x27;s door.</summary><p class="sum">For five dollars more the boy reveals the financier&#x27;s messenger always enters by a side door in a nearby bank, guarded by a watchman; Torchy asks what excuse they could use.</p></details><details><summary><b>598</b> · <i>Torchy Gets an Inside Tip</i> — Someone sent on an impossible errand by his sweetheart calls on an old friend from his earlier, humbler days.</summary><p class="sum">Told not to come back until he has succeeded, Torchy goes to a reporter friend from his newspaper days, who learns the charge is grand larceny of twenty thousand dollars in cash.</p></details><details><summary><b>731</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — Someone arranging a private occasion arrives to find the chosen spot already taken over by strangers with permission.</summary><p class="sum">At the estate they find a film company already shooting under a permit from the owner, run by Torchy&#x27;s old newspaper friend.</p></details><details><summary><b>732</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — Someone whose plan has collided with strangers&#x27; business sees a way to merge them, without telling the boss everything.</summary><p class="sum">The friend is filming a costume village wedding and proposes they combine; Torchy seizes on it, since the boss&#x27;s son only asked for merriment.</p></details></section><section><h2>G14 · A bluff on the spot</h2>
<p class="pred">A door, a guard or a desk is between you and where you need to be, and a quick lie might get you past.</p>
<p class="meta">A junior wants to get past from whoever guards the way. · 13 scenes from 6 stories
(Meeting up with the Great Skid, Frosting the Profess, A Whirl with Kazedky, Landing on a Side Street, How Whity Gunked The Plot, Breaking It to the Boss) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Pose as someone with business there. <span class='src'>from scene 463</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>standing risk</code> <code>flags.bluffed set</code></li><li>Claim a powerful connection you do not have. <span class='src'>from scene 144</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>standing risk</code> <code>flags.bluffed set</code></li><li>Find a cover story that suits the one you want to reach. <span class='src'>from scene 533</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>money -</code></li><li>When the bluff walks into its owner, stall and signal for help. <span class='src'>from scene 37</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.boss risk</code></li><li>Give up and go the proper way. <span class='src'>archetype</span><br><code>standing -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>34</b> · <i>Meeting up with the Great Skid</i> — Grand old friends turn up asking for a colleague, plainly expecting to find him high up in the organisation.</summary><p class="sum">A loud, wealthy young man and his glamorous sister arrive asking for the clerk by his college nickname, clearly expecting him to be an important man in the firm.</p></details><details><summary><b>35</b> · <i>Meeting up with the Great Skid</i> — Someone junior borrows the boss&#x27;s empty private office so a humble colleague can receive grand visitors as if it were his own.</summary><p class="sum">To spare the clerk embarrassment, Torchy tells the visitors he is in conference with the general manager, then smuggles him into the absent heir&#x27;s private office and shows the friends in there.</p></details><details><summary><b>36</b> · <i>Meeting up with the Great Skid</i> — A bluff to impress visitors is in full swing when the real owner of the borrowed office walks in.</summary><p class="sum">The friends greet the clerk as a hero and the sister kisses him; he is too flustered to speak, and at that moment the heir walks into his own office.</p></details><details><summary><b>37</b> · <i>Meeting up with the Great Skid</i> — Someone junior caught using the boss&#x27;s office for a bluff stalls for time while the visitors turn out to know the boss.</summary><p class="sum">Caught out, Torchy stalls the puzzled heir; the loud visitor turns out to know the heir and hails him, praising the clerk as a college football star.</p></details><details><summary><b>38</b> · <i>Meeting up with the Great Skid</i> — A superior walks into a subordinate&#x27;s bluff and must decide on the spot whether to expose it or play along.</summary><p class="sum">The visitor tells the heir the clerk runs the trust and this is his office; Torchy signals frantically behind him, and the heir decides to play along without knowing why.</p></details><details><summary><b>39</b> · <i>Meeting up with the Great Skid</i> — A superior asked point-blank who works for whom gives a tactful answer that keeps a subordinate&#x27;s pride intact.</summary><p class="sum">The heir chats football and, asked which of them works for which, says they both work for the company; the visitors leave believing the clerk is near the top, and the clerk starts to apologise.</p></details><details><summary><b>51</b> · <i>Frosting the Profess</i> — Someone sets up a hidden listener, then gets a boastful swindler talking about his latest mark.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy stations her outside the open transom and goes in posing as still being with the newspaper; the teacher boasts of his rich new pupil.</p></details><details><summary><b>99</b> · <i>A Whirl with Kazedky</i> — Two people trying to reach an important visitor are stonewalled at the front desk, and one refuses to give up.</summary><p class="sum">At the grand hotel the desk clerk says the official is out and receives no one; Torchy&#x27;s bluff fails, but the friend refuses to leave without satisfaction.</p></details><details><summary><b>144</b> · <i>Landing on a Side Street</i> — Someone caught punishing a rich family&#x27;s child faces arrest and bluffs about powerful connections he does not have.</summary><p class="sum">The boy&#x27;s mother screams he is being killed and demands the police; Torchy bluffs that his uncle is a police captain and threatens a counter-complaint.</p></details><details><summary><b>463</b> · <i>How Whity Gunked The Plot</i> — Someone junior slips into a fashionable gathering under a false identity to watch the boss&#x27;s relative and her admirer.</summary><p class="sum">The reporter smuggles Torchy in posing as a press-agency man; the party is in a smart building with society guests, and the cousin, extravagantly dressed, waits eagerly for the host.</p></details><details><summary><b>529</b> · <i>Breaking It to the Boss</i> — Two people set out to confront a powerful man who is famous for never letting anyone reach him.</summary><p class="sum">The financier is famous for being unreachable; at his building a house detective says no one knows where he is, and the old man refuses to believe it.</p></details><details><summary><b>530</b> · <i>Breaking It to the Boss</i> — Stonewalled by a smiling gatekeeper, an outraged elder is ready to give up, and his junior spots a possible back way in.</summary><p class="sum">Upstairs, the silent, secretive offices yield only a clerk who denies knowing the man; the old man storms out, and Torchy recalls the financier is said to use a private lift.</p></details><details><summary><b>533</b> · <i>Breaking It to the Boss</i> — Someone junior uses a powerful man&#x27;s pet hobby as a cover story to talk his boss past a suspicious guard.</summary><p class="sum">Learning the financier loves fancy poultry, Torchy buys two prize birds; at the secret door he tells the guard his boss is a famous breeder delivering birds that were ordered.</p></details></section><section><h2>G15 · Passing for grander than you are</h2>
<p class="pred">You are being taken for grander than you are, and it is working, as long as nobody finds out where you come from.</p>
<p class="meta">A person passing wants to be taken for more from a company that believes it. · 12 scenes from 4 stories
(Where Mildred Got Next, Rung in with the Gold Spooners, When Skeet Had His Day, Getting a Jolt from Westy) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Neither confirm nor deny what they say about you. <span class='src'>from scene 60</span><br><code>standing +</code> <code>flags.passing set</code></li><li>Borrow the clothes and take the floor. <span class='src'>from scene 136</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>standing risk</code></li><li>Slip back into your real place before anyone asks. <span class='src'>from scene 139</span><br><code>savvy +</code></li><li>Look straight through the people you came from. <span class='src'>from scene 556</span><br><code>standing +</code> <code>relationships.family -</code> <code>flags.passing set</code></li><li>Tell them plainly where you come from. <span class='src'>filled gap</span><br><code>standing -</code> <code>relationships.family +</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>54</b> · <i>Where Mildred Got Next</i> — A newcomer in a humble post dresses and carries herself so grandly that everyone takes her for someone far above it.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy introduces a typist whose fine clothes and grand manner make everyone take her for a society lady; on his first day he mistook her for a visitor and held the door for her.</p></details><details><summary><b>59</b> · <i>Where Mildred Got Next</i> — A rumour that a colleague comes from grand people makes the whole staff fawn on her, and one junior mocks it.</summary><p class="sum">A rumour spreads that she is a ruined society girl, and the whole staff, especially the snobbish secretary, start fawning on her; Torchy mockingly nicknames her &#x27;Lady Mildred&#x27;.</p></details><details><summary><b>60</b> · <i>Where Mildred Got Next</i> — A whole workplace spins flattering legends about a reserved colleague, who neither confirms nor denies them.</summary><p class="sum">The nickname sticks and she accepts it without blinking; the staff wait on her and invent grand stories about her, though the boss&#x27;s son treats her as a joke.</p></details><details><summary><b>67</b> · <i>Where Mildred Got Next</i> — A colleague&#x27;s grand airs turn out to be self-made, and the junior who brought about her match is rewarded instead of fired.</summary><p class="sum">The son finds she is no heiress but a Midwestern girl who learned dressmaking and polish while waiting for a chance; the family come round, and the friend makes Torchy an usher at the wedding.</p></details><details><summary><b>135</b> · <i>Rung in with the Gold Spooners</i> — A snubbed young heiress takes up a rival&#x27;s sneering dare by asking the hired help to dance with her.</summary><p class="sum">The boy threatens to have Torchy dismissed; the girl says Torchy acts more like a gentleman, the boy tells her to take Torchy as a partner then, and she asks Torchy for the next waltz.</p></details><details><summary><b>136</b> · <i>Rung in with the Gold Spooners</i> — Someone in a servant&#x27;s post makes a rich youngster hand over his fine clothes so he can join the party as a guest.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy makes the boy swap clothes with him under threat of a scene, and the girl backs him; he goes onto the ballroom floor in borrowed evening dress with her on his arm.</p></details><details><summary><b>137</b> · <i>Rung in with the Gold Spooners</i> — Someone passing himself off in a grand crowd has the time of his life while the watchers try to work out who he is.</summary><p class="sum">They dance brilliantly while she chatters about the scandalised chaperones and her furious aunt, and they applaud for an encore.</p></details><details><summary><b>139</b> · <i>Rung in with the Gold Spooners</i> — Someone who has crashed a grand party slips back into his humble role just before the elders come asking questions.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy dashes back, swaps clothes, puts the rival on the cloakroom counter with orders to know nothing, and leaves; the boy flees, and Torchy decides the girl makes his old sweetheart look ordinary.</p></details><details><summary><b>552</b> · <i>When Skeet Had His Day</i> — Someone meets an old acquaintance from humble days, now dressed like a gentleman, who pretends not to know him.</summary><p class="sum">The customer is a ne&#x27;er-do-well Torchy once knew as a lunch-counter hand; now dressed like a swell, he pretends not to know Torchy at first, then slips away.</p></details><details><summary><b>553</b> · <i>When Skeet Had His Day</i> — Someone recalls an idle hanger-on who never held a job and wonders how he can suddenly afford to live grandly.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy recalls the man as a useless, often-fired, ungainly idler he used to lend money to, the only son in a hard-working family whose sisters have all done well.</p></details><details><summary><b>556</b> · <i>When Skeet Had His Day</i> — An upstart posing as a gentleman at a grand party is announced by his own sister, who is there as a servant.</summary><p class="sum">The man arrives in full evening dress and is received at the door by his own sister, the maid, who gasps his name; he stares through her. Torchy dutifully asks the heavy boss&#x27;s daughter to dance, and is relieved when she says she is engaged.</p></details><details><summary><b>569</b> · <i>Getting a Jolt from Westy</i> — Someone learns that a haughty young woman&#x27;s polish is newly bought, and that her family rose from very humble beginnings.</summary><p class="sum">The next week the same pair are there; his sweetheart explains the guest is from a family newly rich through her father&#x27;s antiques business, and was sent to an expensive finishing school.</p></details></section><section><h2>G16 · Out of place among the rich</h2>
<p class="pred">You are among people far richer than you, plainly not one of them, and everyone can see it.</p>
<p class="meta">A outsider wants to hold your own from a rich crowd. · 9 scenes from 7 stories
(Frosting the Profess, Shunting Brother Bill, Rung in with the Gold Spooners, In on the Oolong, Gladys In A Double Bill, The Glad Hail For Torchy, When Skeet Had His Day) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Brazen it out and enjoy yourself. <span class='src'>from scene 342</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>standing risk</code></li><li>Retreat to a corner and wait for it to end. <span class='src'>from scene 171</span><br><code>standing -</code></li><li>Refuse what they offer you. <span class='src'>from scene 172</span><br><code>standing +</code></li><li>Spend what you must to look the part. <span class='src'>from scene 551</span><br><code>money -</code> <code>standing +</code></li><li>Find the one person there who treats you as an equal. <span class='src'>from scene 173 <span class="warn">(outside this group)</span></span><br><code>relationships.sweetheart +</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>44</b> · <i>Frosting the Profess</i> — Someone junior gets a grand outing on the boss&#x27;s family&#x27;s account and feels small and out of place in it.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy telephones the stunned secretary that he will not be back, rides to the theatre in the family carriage feeling tiny beside her, and is dismayed to find the play is Shakespeare.</p></details><details><summary><b>68</b> · <i>Shunting Brother Bill</i> — Someone junior is being groomed by the whole workplace for a grand social occasion, and feels badly out of his depth.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy is to be an usher at the wedding he helped bring about; the whole office has pitched in with a present, a new suit and coaching in manners, when trouble arrives in the shape of the groom&#x27;s suspicious aunt.</p></details><details><summary><b>133</b> · <i>Rung in with the Gold Spooners</i> — Someone working a servant&#x27;s post at a rich people&#x27;s party has to wait on spoiled youngsters who treat him as furniture.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy works the cloakroom at a society dancing-class ball, handing out tickets to rich, spoiled teenage boys who boast about school pranks and sneak in to smoke.</p></details><details><summary><b>168</b> · <i>In on the Oolong</i> — Someone sent to fetch a superior blunders into a room where he is wildly out of place and everyone stares.</summary><p class="sum">The house turns out to be a girls&#x27; finishing school; bluffing past the maid, Torchy steps into a hall full of two hundred girls in white who all turn to stare and giggle at him.</p></details><details><summary><b>171</b> · <i>In on the Oolong</i> — Someone left waiting in a pleasant spot is suddenly surrounded by a crowd from a world he does not belong to.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy lounges happily in the garden until the concert ends and the girls pour out, trapping him in a corner.</p></details><details><summary><b>172</b> · <i>In on the Oolong</i> — Someone out of place endures a crowd&#x27;s mocking stares, then spots the one person there who once treated him as an equal.</summary><p class="sum">The girls parade past staring and giggling at his red hair; he refuses food offered by maids and wishes the son would come, until he sees the heiress he once danced with.</p></details><details><summary><b>342</b> · <i>Gladys In A Double Bill</i> — Someone junior enjoys a borrowed taste of luxury on an errand and starts feeling superior to people he normally resembles.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy buys gumdrops for the child, enjoys lolling grandly in the chauffeured car and sneering at people in taxis, and senses he is due for a comeuppance.</p></details><details><summary><b>407</b> · <i>The Glad Hail For Torchy</i> — A young man from the city streets wanders among wealthy holidaymakers feeling completely out of place and hopeless.</summary><p class="sum">After sleeping off his seasickness, Torchy wanders the fashionable harbour town among yachting people and feels completely out of place.</p></details><details><summary><b>551</b> · <i>When Skeet Had His Day</i> — Someone newly promoted is invited into the boss family&#x27;s social life for the first time, and finds it costs money.</summary><p class="sum">As private secretary Torchy now gets invited to the boss&#x27;s daughter&#x27;s dance like a real guest; the son-in-law refuses to learn to dance, and in a shoe shop Torchy overhears a customer ordering expensive pumps sent to his hotel.</p></details></section><section><h2>G17 · Making yourself fit for the next rung</h2>
<p class="pred">You want to be ready for the rung above you, and looking and sounding the part will cost money, evenings or pride.</p>
<p class="meta">A ambitious junior wants to be ready when the chance comes from the people who will judge them. · 6 scenes from 4 stories
(A Whirl with Kazedky, When Miss Vee Threw the Dare, The Up Call for Torchy, When Skeet Had His Day) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Study in every spare moment. <span class='src'>from scene 95</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.friend +</code></li><li>Spend on a made-to-measure suit. <span class='src'>from scene 481</span><br><code>money -</code> <code>standing +</code></li><li>Pay for lessons so you will not shame yourself. <span class='src'>from scene 555</span><br><code>money -</code> <code>standing +</code></li><li>Smarten up quietly and daydream. <span class='src'>from scene 232</span><br><code>standing +</code></li><li>Save your money; they can take you as you are. <span class='src'>archetype</span><br><code>money +</code> <code>standing -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>94</b> · <i>A Whirl with Kazedky</i> — Someone junior is pushed by a well-meaning friend to catch up on schooling he thinks will never help him get ahead.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy grumbles that the former filing clerk, now his friend, has him studying schoolbooks in his spare moments at the gate, though he sees no use in it.</p></details><details><summary><b>95</b> · <i>A Whirl with Kazedky</i> — Someone junior keeps up evening lessons mainly so as not to disappoint the friend he once helped get promoted.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy studies to please the friend, reciting his lessons each evening; the boss&#x27;s son notices, and Torchy explains that the friend has been promoted from filing to a salaried post and credits Torchy for it.</p></details><details><summary><b>232</b> · <i>When Miss Vee Threw the Dare</i> — Someone at the bottom quietly smartens himself up, daydreaming of rising high enough to meet a sweetheart as an equal.</summary><p class="sum">Since she left he has smartened up his collars, ties and teeth, daydreaming that by her return he will be a senior executive sent abroad on company business.</p></details><details><summary><b>481</b> · <i>The Up Call for Torchy</i> — Someone long stuck on the bottom rung spends more than he can spare on clothes that make him look ready to rise.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy, still head office boy after nearly four years, announces that his big step up came suddenly one day; he explains that it began with his first made-to-measure suit, bought for cash to impress a girl.</p></details><details><summary><b>482</b> · <i>The Up Call for Torchy</i> — Someone junior caught in a first grown-up ritual is spotted by the boss, who teases him kindly and picks up the bill.</summary><p class="sum">He gets his first barber&#x27;s shave, feeling watched and green, and the boss&#x27;s son in the next chair recognises him, laughs kindly and pays for it, then inspects the new suit back at the office.</p></details><details><summary><b>555</b> · <i>When Skeet Had His Day</i> — Someone who spent on lessons to shine before his sweetheart at a grand party sees an unlikely acquaintance walk in.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy puzzles over the man&#x27;s new money, takes dancing lessons for the party because his sweetheart will be there, and at the dance sees the man arrive.</p></details></section><section><h2>G18 · Still on the bottom rung</h2>
<p class="pred">Years in, you are still at the bottom, people expected you to be higher by now, and you must decide whether to wait, push or go.</p>
<p class="meta">A long-serving junior wants to rise from the people who could raise them. · 6 scenes from 5 stories
(Meeting up with the Great Skid, Batting it up to Torchy, Chancing It For Vee, Torchy Gets A Through Wire, The Up Call for Torchy) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Tell them you like it where you are. <span class='src'>from scene 246</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>standing -</code></li><li>Keep away from everyone until you have made good. <span class='src'>from scene 33</span><br><code>relationships.friend -</code> <code>savvy +</code></li><li>Accept that someone has to stay at the bottom. <span class='src'>from scene 181</span><br><code>standing -</code> <code>flags.gave_up set</code></li><li>Threaten to quit unless your place is made plain. <span class='src'>from scene 490</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.boss risk</code> <code>standing risk</code></li><li>Leave and try elsewhere. <span class='src'>from scene 29</span><br><code>money risk</code> <code>relationships.boss -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>29</b> · <i>Meeting up with the Great Skid</i> — A capable colleague stuck on starting pay for a year admits he lacks the nerve to leave and try elsewhere.</summary><p class="sum">The clerk admits he has been on the same small salary for a year and is not satisfied, but lacks the nerve to leave; Torchy prods him to quit and try elsewhere.</p></details><details><summary><b>33</b> · <i>Meeting up with the Great Skid</i> — A struggling colleague hides from his old friends until he makes good, studying the business every night in case he is ever asked.</summary><p class="sum">The clerk lives alone in a cheap room, hiding from everyone he knew until he makes good, and spends his evenings studying the company&#x27;s business in trade papers.</p></details><details><summary><b>181</b> · <i>Batting it up to Torchy</i> — A long-serving old hand accepts that he is a failure and says someone must stay at the bottom and steady the ladder.</summary><p class="sum">The old man is ashamed to face his son as a failure, meekly accepts his son-in-law&#x27;s scorn, and says some must stay at the bottom and prop the ladder; he is useful at work but never credited.</p></details><details><summary><b>246</b> · <i>Chancing It For Vee</i> — Someone still near the bottom meets a former boss who expected more of him, and has to justify staying put.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy meets his old newspaper boss on Broadway and boasts that he is an &#x27;office-boy-de-luxe&#x27; at the Corrugated Trust; the old boss is plainly disappointed he has not climbed higher, but Torchy likes his bosses and has a mine deal pending with Mr. Robert.</p></details><details><summary><b>479</b> · <i>Torchy Gets A Through Wire</i> — A young man at the bottom tells himself he may declare his love only once he has made something of himself.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy confides that he will tell Vee how he feels once he is in business for himself; he is dragged to see the baby, and on the way out meets the son-in-law looking glum.</p></details><details><summary><b>490</b> · <i>The Up Call for Torchy</i> — Someone faithful for years but still ranked at the bottom refuses to be displayed as a nobody before the woman he loves.</summary><p class="sum">He threatens to quit rather than face them, and explains why: after four years he is still an office boy on paper, and he will not be put on show as a nobody before the girl he loves.</p></details></section><section><h2>G19 · A sweetheart far above you</h2>
<p class="pred">Someone far above you in station has been kind to you, and you cannot believe you have any right to hope.</p>
<p class="meta">A suitor of low standing wants to be worthy of them from a sweetheart far above. · 11 scenes from 5 stories
(In on the Oolong, Throwing the Line to Skid, When Miss Vee Threw the Dare, The Glad Hail For Torchy, How Aunty Got the News) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Keep their picture and tell yourself it is hopeless. <span class='src'>from scene 230</span><br><code>relationships.sweetheart -</code></li><li>Let the letters quietly die. <span class='src'>from scene 191</span><br><code>relationships.sweetheart -</code> <code>money +</code></li><li>Greet them warmly in front of their crowd anyway. <span class='src'>from scene 173</span><br><code>relationships.sweetheart +</code> <code>standing risk</code></li><li>Tell them how you feel before they go. <span class='src'>filled gap</span><br><code>relationships.sweetheart risk</code> <code>cheek +</code></li><li>Wait until you can meet them as an equal. <span class='src'>from scene 479 <span class="warn">(outside this group)</span></span><br><code>relationships.sweetheart risk</code> <code>standing +</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>173</b> · <i>In on the Oolong</i> — A well-born sweetheart greets someone from the bottom warmly in public, and he worries what her own crowd will say.</summary><p class="sum">She hesitates, then comes over and greets him warmly with both hands; he admits he feels outclassed there and worries the others will talk.</p></details><details><summary><b>174</b> · <i>In on the Oolong</i> — Someone finds a warm connection with a well-born sweetheart and learns in the same moment she is going far away.</summary><p class="sum">She stares down the watching girls, serves him tea and sandwiches, and tells him she is an orphan living with an aunt who is taking her abroad for two years after graduation.</p></details><details><summary><b>190</b> · <i>Throwing the Line to Skid</i> — Someone who won the organisation a big deal gets only a small raise, and has given up on a sweetheart far above his means.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy&#x27;s friend gets only a modest promotion and raise for winning the big contract; he soberly admits things are off with the senator&#x27;s daughter he loved, though he still carries her picture.</p></details><details><summary><b>191</b> · <i>Throwing the Line to Skid</i> — Someone on modest pay, sure he can never match a well-off sweetheart&#x27;s life, lets the correspondence quietly die.</summary><p class="sum">Her letters about balls and expensive tastes made him feel he could never keep her, so he let his replies dwindle.</p></details><details><summary><b>230</b> · <i>When Miss Vee Threw the Dare</i> — Someone at the bottom keeps a keepsake from a well-born sweetheart who is far away, sure he has no right to hope.</summary><p class="sum">A year after the heiress went abroad, her photograph still stands on Torchy&#x27;s bureau in the silver frame his elderly landlady bought without a word; he thinks two years is too long to hope and that he is nothing beside her.</p></details><details><summary><b>231</b> · <i>When Miss Vee Threw the Dare</i> — Someone alone in the world treasures two brief kindnesses from a well-born sweetheart and cannot see why she bothered.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy, an orphan with few friends, reflects that she was kind to him on the only two occasions they met, and cannot work out why she noticed him at all.</p></details><details><summary><b>233</b> · <i>When Miss Vee Threw the Dare</i> — Someone of low standing rehearses a grand fantasy of meeting a sweetheart as a distinguished man of the world.</summary><p class="sum">He elaborates a fantasy of meeting her on the homeward ship dressed all in grey, making a polished remark, and strolling the deck with her by moonlight.</p></details><details><summary><b>234</b> · <i>When Miss Vee Threw the Dare</i> — Someone learns a longed-for sweetheart is returning with a titled suitor, and admits he has no claim to object.</summary><p class="sum">A postcard arrives saying she sails home on the tenth with a count who is &#x27;a dear&#x27;; Torchy swings between joy and despair, then admits he has no right to object.</p></details><details><summary><b>243</b> · <i>When Miss Vee Threw the Dare</i> — Someone from the bottom finds that a sweetheart far above him returns his feelings, if only for a stolen moment.</summary><p class="sum">She says Europe was dull and her aunt has given up on her music; the moment turns tender, he kisses her, and she hurries him to the front seat before waving goodbye; he reports to the boss&#x27;s son about her.</p></details><details><summary><b>397</b> · <i>The Glad Hail For Torchy</i> — A young man at the bottom follows his sweetheart&#x27;s glamorous life from afar and feels how far out of her world he is.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt keeps Vee away from Torchy at every turn, then takes her off on a round of fashionable summer resorts; Torchy follows her in the society columns and feels how far he is below that world.</p></details><details><summary><b>667</b> · <i>How Aunty Got the News</i> — Someone just insulted for his origins now holds the proof that would silence her, but cannot see how to use it without boasting.</summary><p class="sum">He leaves with a sarcastic parting shot and drives off in gloom, unable to see how to announce his newly discovered family without seeming to boast, and decides to see the girl anyway.</p></details></section><section><h2>G20 · Her guardian says you are not good enough</h2>
<p class="pred">The person who has charge of the one you love has decided you are beneath her, and has the means to keep you apart.</p>
<p class="meta">A suitor wants to be accepted from the sweetheart&#x27;s guardian. · 34 scenes from 10 stories
(Throwing the Line to Skid, Chancing It For Vee, The Glad Hail For Torchy, Aunty Flags A Rosy One, Torchy Gets A Through Wire, The Up Call for Torchy, Torchy Takes a Chance, Getting a Jolt from Westy, Teamwork with Aunty, How Aunty Got the News) · stage <b>middle</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Give a flip answer and leave. <span class='src'>from scene 258</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.guardian -</code></li><li>Answer every question about your pay and post honestly. <span class='src'>from scene 198</span><br><code>relationships.guardian risk</code> <code>standing -</code></li><li>Do her a service she cannot refuse, and let her thank you. <span class='src'>from scene 522</span><br><code>relationships.guardian +</code> <code>savvy +</code></li><li>Give her advice so good she has to take it. <span class='src'>from scene 623</span><br><code>relationships.guardian +</code> <code>savvy +</code></li><li>Let your new standing speak for you. <span class='src'>from scene 492</span><br><code>standing +</code> <code>relationships.guardian -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>198</b> · <i>Throwing the Line to Skid</i> — A young husband is cross-examined about his small pay and cramped home by his wealthy new father-in-law.</summary><p class="sum">The mother stays to dinner and learns her daughter is the cook; the senator inspects the tiny flat and cross-examines the friend, who admits to twenty-five dollars a week and no private income.</p></details><details><summary><b>199</b> · <i>Throwing the Line to Skid</i> — A wealthy in-law hears a young couple&#x27;s finances and waits smugly for them to come begging for help.</summary><p class="sum">The friend lays out his finances to the last dollar, with seven dollars left; the senator grimly wishes them luck, plainly expecting an appeal for help within a month.</p></details><details><summary><b>247</b> · <i>Chancing It For Vee</i> — A young man calls on the girl he is courting and her guardian tells him plainly never to come again.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy admits he is slow at courting Vee and gets teased about it; her aunt has flatly told him his visits are unwelcome and that he is not to come back.</p></details><details><summary><b>248</b> · <i>Chancing It For Vee</i> — A young man whose sweetheart was taken far away by her guardian cannot find any way to see her again.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt whisks Vee off on a long winter voyage, which Torchy learns of only after the ship has sailed; now they are back, and after two weeks he still has found no way to see her.</p></details><details><summary><b>258</b> · <i>Chancing It For Vee</i> — A guardian catches the banned suitor alone with her charge, and he can only make a flip reply and leave quickly.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt walks in on them tussling on the sofa and demands an explanation; Torchy claims it is a new game, reminds her she never expected him back, and escapes past her.</p></details><details><summary><b>403</b> · <i>The Glad Hail For Torchy</i> — A young man travels far to see his sweetheart and learns she is shut away on a guarded private estate.</summary><p class="sum">The boatbuilder tells Torchy the girl is staying at a very rich man&#x27;s private estate reachable only by private road or launch, with no-trespass signs and dogs; Torchy admits the aunt is against him.</p></details><details><summary><b>423</b> · <i>Aunty Flags A Rosy One</i> — A disguised suitor grows careless after days of success, and his sweetheart&#x27;s guardian quietly finds him out.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy dodges the aunt for days, but grows careless and waves his hat, showing his red hair; she watches through field-glasses, and waits grimly on the dock that evening.</p></details><details><summary><b>424</b> · <i>Aunty Flags A Rosy One</i> — Unmasked by the guardian, a young man sees his sweetheart whisked away, but leaves content with what he had.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt makes him take off his hat and recognises him; next morning she and Vee have left for the mountains, the regular boatman returns, and Torchy refuses pay from the heir and goes home content.</p></details><details><summary><b>475</b> · <i>Torchy Gets A Through Wire</i> — A young man learns from children that his sweetheart secretly keeps his picture, hidden from her guardian.</summary><p class="sum">The girls say Vee keeps a hidden snapshot of him in a boat and doesn&#x27;t want her aunt to know; Torchy plays dumb but is secretly delighted.</p></details><details><summary><b>476</b> · <i>Torchy Gets A Through Wire</i> — A young man hears from children that his sweetheart&#x27;s guardian rejects him for being poor and of no account.</summary><p class="sum">The girls report the aunt dislikes him because he is poor and &#x27;isn&#x27;t anybody&#x27;; he carries them off in a romp just as Vee comes down dressed to leave and greets him warmly.</p></details><details><summary><b>484</b> · <i>The Up Call for Torchy</i> — A suitor who bluffs his way past the door to see his sweetheart finds her disapproving guardian waiting instead.</summary><p class="sum">The girl&#x27;s aunt keeps refusing his calls, so Torchy bluffs his way up to her apartment, only to find the aunt at home with a sprained ankle, who icily asks his excuse.</p></details><details><summary><b>485</b> · <i>The Up Call for Torchy</i> — A disapproving guardian cross-examines a young suitor about his work and pounces on how lowly his position really is.</summary><p class="sum">He asks outright to take the girl for a walk; the aunt calls the friendship a whim, then presses him on his job and learns he is still an office boy and has never told the girl how humble his post is.</p></details><details><summary><b>486</b> · <i>The Up Call for Torchy</i> — A suitor sent packing senses that his sweetheart&#x27;s guardian has hit on a scheme to shame him, but cannot guess what.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt breaks off as if struck by an idea and has him shown out; Torchy worries what she is plotting, while at work the firm is busy with big deals and a paper break-up into many separate companies.</p></details><details><summary><b>489</b> · <i>The Up Call for Torchy</i> — Someone junior praised for tact is asked to receive a visitor who turns out to be his sweetheart&#x27;s hostile guardian.</summary><p class="sum">Praised, Torchy is asked to soothe another caller: the girl&#x27;s aunt, a bondholder alarmed by reorganisation rumours, who is coming at three with someone else; Torchy realises she is bringing the girl and refuses.</p></details><details><summary><b>492</b> · <i>The Up Call for Torchy</i> — A guardian who came to expose a humble suitor finds him seated in authority, and leaves in a huff while her ward winks.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt and the girl are shown in to find Torchy at a real desk; he starts explaining her bonds, and when he says he is private secretary she calls it absurd and sweeps out, while the girl winks at him.</p></details><details><summary><b>508</b> · <i>Torchy Takes a Chance</i> — Someone newly promoted spots in the records that his sweetheart&#x27;s guardian is quietly moving her fortune into a rival&#x27;s hands.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy had expected the new post to be all desk work, but it keeps pulling him into action; checking the transfer book, he sees that his sweetheart&#x27;s aunt is swapping a large holding of the firm&#x27;s bonds for shares in a rival concern.</p></details><details><summary><b>522</b> · <i>Torchy Takes a Chance</i> — A suspicious guardian who is saved from a ruinous deal by her ward&#x27;s suitor has to thank him, however grudgingly.</summary><p class="sum">The mother forgives her son; the aunt, suspicious at first, checks the falling stock, cancels the deal and thanks Torchy, and the boss&#x27;s son is amazed by his methods.</p></details><details><summary><b>565</b> · <i>Getting a Jolt from Westy</i> — A disapproving guardian grants a suitor strictly rationed visits, making plain she is only humouring her ward&#x27;s whim.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt grudgingly allows Torchy one supervised call a week, making clear she is only humouring her niece&#x27;s whim and hinting that many other young men admire the girl.</p></details><details><summary><b>568</b> · <i>Getting a Jolt from Westy</i> — A suitor&#x27;s rationed time with his sweetheart is spoiled by a restless guest, and the guardian ends it to the minute.</summary><p class="sum">His sweetheart explains the guest is unhappy at home; the restless guest keeps interrupting their chat, and at ten the aunt appears and silently shows Torchy out.</p></details><details><summary><b>576</b> · <i>Getting a Jolt from Westy</i> — Someone who witnessed a tender family reconciliation slips away, dreading the day he must face his own sweetheart&#x27;s guardian.</summary><p class="sum">The young man promises and calls her Mother; the girls come in and all embrace tearfully, and Torchy slips away, dreading the day he might have to ask his sweetheart&#x27;s aunt.</p></details><details><summary><b>621</b> · <i>Teamwork with Aunty</i> — Someone sent in the boss&#x27;s place is scorned by a haughty guardian, while his sweetheart speaks up for his new standing.</summary><p class="sum">At the shabby studio the aunt scorns Torchy as a substitute while his sweetheart defends him; the frail sculptor, decorating on a ladder, grows dizzy.</p></details><details><summary><b>623</b> · <i>Teamwork with Aunty</i> — Someone the guardian scorns gives her shrewd, worldly advice that she swallows her pride to adopt as her own.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy tells the aunt to make the show invitation-only, mark prices up and give the margin to Belgian relief for publicity, and woo the reporters at home; she swallows her disdain and adopts the plan.</p></details><details><summary><b>624</b> · <i>Teamwork with Aunty</i> — A guardian gladly uses her ward&#x27;s suitor&#x27;s skills, then tells him he is too humble to attend the occasion himself.</summary><p class="sum">He offers to draw up a list of wealthy guests; she adds a rich but socially unacceptable merchant, then makes clear Torchy himself is not welcome at the event.</p></details><details><summary><b>625</b> · <i>Teamwork with Aunty</i> — A snobbish guardian defends her class barriers, then insists on chaperoning her ward and suitor on a humble errand.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt says she merely recognises existing social distinctions; she insists on coming along to buy the tea things, and Torchy leads them to one of the merchant&#x27;s cheap chain groceries.</p></details><details><summary><b>632</b> · <i>Teamwork with Aunty</i> — A guardian softened by a chastening encounter unexpectedly invites her ward&#x27;s suitor to the occasion she barred him from.</summary><p class="sum">The mellowed aunt tells Torchy to come to the tea after all, in his best coat, and he reports to the boss&#x27;s son that he and the aunt make a great team.</p></details><details><summary><b>665</b> · <i>How Aunty Got the News</i> — A suitor arriving with a fine offer finds the disapproving guardian at home, and nervously invites her along too.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy calls to take his sweetheart driving, but the aunt receives him coldly, reminds him it is not his visiting day, and he nervously invites her along too.</p></details><details><summary><b>666</b> · <i>How Aunty Got the News</i> — A guardian tells her ward&#x27;s suitor plainly that his lack of family name and background is what shames her.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt declines and says the girl is busy; she tells him his attentions are unwelcome and that it humiliates her when servants smile announcing a nameless waif known only by a nickname.</p></details><details><summary><b>668</b> · <i>How Aunty Got the News</i> — A suitor who slipped back in behind the guardian&#x27;s back is caught by her holding her ward&#x27;s hand.</summary><p class="sum">He loiters, then talks his way past the dim maid and finds the girl alone; they are holding hands on a sofa when the aunt appears in the doorway.</p></details><details><summary><b>669</b> · <i>How Aunty Got the News</i> — A guardian about to throw out her ward&#x27;s suitor must hide him hastily when important callers arrive.</summary><p class="sum">As the aunt begins to denounce him, callers are announced; she shuts him and the girl behind curtains and receives the guests, who are Torchy&#x27;s newly married uncle and aunt, known to her from abroad.</p></details><details><summary><b>670</b> · <i>How Aunty Got the News</i> — A hidden suitor overhears his sweetheart&#x27;s snobbish guardian being gracious to his own newly found relatives.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy tells his sweetheart the caller is his real uncle; they listen, amused, to the aunt&#x27;s sweet company voice until she sends for the girl, leaving Torchy hidden.</p></details><details><summary><b>671</b> · <i>How Aunty Got the News</i> — A snobbish guardian listens with respect as a distinguished guest speaks proudly of a nephew she does not know she despises.</summary><p class="sum">The uncle praises the girl and mentions a nephew, the lost son of a woman the aunt once admired; the uncle tells of the mother&#x27;s brave death nursing at the front.</p></details><details><summary><b>672</b> · <i>How Aunty Got the News</i> — A hidden suitor stages his own formal arrival, having himself announced by his newly discovered family name.</summary><p class="sum">Embarrassed by the uncle&#x27;s praise, Torchy slips out, bribes the maid, rings the front bell himself, and has her present his calling card bearing his real name.</p></details><details><summary><b>673</b> · <i>How Aunty Got the News</i> — A snobbish guardian learns the nameless suitor she scorned belongs to a family she respects, and is struck dumb.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt reads the unfamiliar name; the uncle calls Torchy in, the aunt is thunderstruck, and his sweetheart laughs and teases him for never mentioning such a grand name.</p></details><details><summary><b>674</b> · <i>How Aunty Got the News</i> — A suitor whose origins no longer count against him finally sits with his sweetheart without her guardian&#x27;s interference.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt no longer objects as the couple withdraw together to the library, where they sit close over tea.</p></details></section><section><h2>G21 · Contriving a way to be near her</h2>
<p class="pred">You have been kept from the one you love, and a ruse, a disguise or a borrowed invitation might put you in the same room.</p>
<p class="meta">A banned suitor wants time with her from whoever keeps them apart. · 28 scenes from 7 stories
(When Miss Vee Threw the Dare, Chancing It For Vee, The Glad Hail For Torchy, Aunty Flags A Rosy One, Torchy Gets A Through Wire, Showing Gilkey the Way, Then Along Came Sukey) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Take a humble job that puts you near her. <span class='src'>from scene 409</span><br><code>standing -</code> <code>relationships.sweetheart +</code> <code>flags.in_disguise set</code></li><li>Forge a message so you are the one sent. <span class='src'>from scene 237</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.boss risk</code></li><li>Hang back while the rivals rush off. <span class='src'>from scene 255</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.sweetheart +</code></li><li>Quietly sabotage the rival&#x27;s plans to stretch out the time. <span class='src'>from scene 419</span><br><code>relationships.rival -</code> <code>relationships.sweetheart +</code> <code>flags.sabotage set</code></li><li>Steer someone else&#x27;s invitation so you are included. <span class='src'>from scene 539</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.boss_family +</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>235</b> · <i>When Miss Vee Threw the Dare</i> — Someone who swears he will stay away from a sweetheart&#x27;s return dresses in his best that very morning anyway.</summary><p class="sum">He puts her picture away, vowing not to go to the pier, yet shaves for the first time, dresses in his best, and asks the secretary whether any outside errands are due.</p></details><details><summary><b>237</b> · <i>When Miss Vee Threw the Dare</i> — Someone junior forges a small message to the boss so that he himself will be sent on the errand he wants.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy has a messenger-boy friend forge a telegram in which the expected businessman promises to come; the son therefore sends Torchy to meet his sister at the ship.</p></details><details><summary><b>242</b> · <i>When Miss Vee Threw the Dare</i> — A well-born sweetheart quietly arranges a few private minutes alone with someone from the bottom of the ladder.</summary><p class="sum">The heiress is amused at the count&#x27;s removal; at the boss&#x27;s house she sends the daughter in ahead, leaving Torchy a few minutes alone with her to flirt.</p></details><details><summary><b>249</b> · <i>Chancing It For Vee</i> — Someone banned from a house plans a ruse to reach the girl inside, and gets swept in openly with other callers.</summary><p class="sum">Dressed up, Torchy goes to the apartment with a plan to lure Vee out by posing as a messenger from the aunt&#x27;s favoured suitor, but two other young callers arrive with him and the maid shows all three straight in.</p></details><details><summary><b>250</b> · <i>Chancing It For Vee</i> — A banned suitor slips into a gathering of admirers and nervously checks that the guardian who forbade him is absent.</summary><p class="sum">A gushing Southern relative sweeps in and hails the young men as knights come to woo the &#x27;Princess&#x27;; Torchy spots Vee surrounded by admirers and sees with relief that the aunt is not there.</p></details><details><summary><b>255</b> · <i>Chancing It For Vee</i> — While rivals rush off to fetch grand gifts, one suitor simply stays behind and finds himself alone with the girl.</summary><p class="sum">The rivals rush off for candy and stolen orchids; Torchy hangs back, hides behind the hall door as everyone leaves, and is alone with Vee when she shuts it.</p></details><details><summary><b>256</b> · <i>Chancing It For Vee</i> — A young man who defied her guardian to come tells the girl he simply had to see her, and she softens.</summary><p class="sum">Vee teases him but invites him in; he tells her he had to see her whatever her aunt said, and they measure themselves in the mirror and find he has grown taller than her.</p></details><details><summary><b>257</b> · <i>Chancing It For Vee</i> — A suitor fears the girl has given up his keepsake, and learns she has been secretly keeping it against her guardian&#x27;s wishes.</summary><p class="sum">Holding her hand, Torchy notices she no longer wears the ring he gave her and is crestfallen, until she draws it out on a chain hidden round her neck.</p></details><details><summary><b>404</b> · <i>The Glad Hail For Torchy</i> — A young man trying to get near his sweetheart takes a dirty, humble job just to pass close by where she is.</summary><p class="sum">To get a look at the estate, Torchy goes out in borrowed oilskins on a dirty lobster boat with a smelly old fisherman who lets him crank the engine.</p></details><details><summary><b>405</b> · <i>The Glad Hail For Torchy</i> — A seasick young man doing a humble chore finally comes within sight of the grand house where his sweetheart is staying.</summary><p class="sum">Seasick and nauseated by rotten bait and tobacco, Torchy is teased by the fisherman; at last they pass the estate, and people are out on the veranda.</p></details><details><summary><b>408</b> · <i>The Glad Hail For Torchy</i> — A young man gets a chance to do his rival a quick service, and ingratiates himself with a polite, respectful manner.</summary><p class="sum">At the yacht club float, the rich young heir comes in too fast in his speedboat; Torchy leaps and fends it off, and the heir, whose boatman is laid up, gratefully accepts Torchy&#x27;s help.</p></details><details><summary><b>409</b> · <i>The Glad Hail For Torchy</i> — A young man takes menial work under his rich rival because it will bring him straight to his sweetheart.</summary><p class="sum">The heir eagerly hires Torchy as his boatman for a few days and kits him out in a uniform; Torchy finds himself steering a speedboat straight toward Vee.</p></details><details><summary><b>411</b> · <i>Aunty Flags A Rosy One</i> — A young man in a menial disguise keeps his face turned away as his sweetheart and her grand hosts arrive.</summary><p class="sum">At the estate&#x27;s float Torchy keeps his back turned while the heir fetches the picnic party, and hears Vee&#x27;s voice among them.</p></details><details><summary><b>412</b> · <i>Aunty Flags A Rosy One</i> — A young man in disguise is suddenly face to face with his startled sweetheart and silently begs her not to give him away.</summary><p class="sum">A very stout cousin grabs Torchy&#x27;s arm getting aboard, spinning him round face to face with a startled Vee, whom he signals to keep quiet; he makes the cousin comfortable and gives his name as &#x27;Bill&#x27;.</p></details><details><summary><b>413</b> · <i>Aunty Flags A Rosy One</i> — A young man enjoys a day near his sweetheart as hired help, dropping hints to her in front of an unknowing third party.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt waves from the veranda but stays behind; Torchy revels in the ride and in serving the cousin candy, and tells the ladies he came up specially to get this job.</p></details><details><summary><b>414</b> · <i>Aunty Flags A Rosy One</i> — Someone in disguise describes his sweetheart to her face under the pretence of talking about a stranger, and she teases back.</summary><p class="sum">Egged on by the romantic cousin, Torchy describes &#x27;the girl&#x27; he came for in terms that plainly mean Vee, including her peppery temper, and Vee teases back.</p></details><details><summary><b>419</b> · <i>Aunty Flags A Rosy One</i> — Someone junior secretly sabotages his rival&#x27;s equipment to stretch out the time he gets to spend with the girl.</summary><p class="sum">The tide floats the boat, but Torchy secretly disconnects a key engine wire before reporting it afloat; the heir cranks and cranks in vain.</p></details><details><summary><b>420</b> · <i>Aunty Flags A Rosy One</i> — While a rival struggles with a breakdown the suitor caused, the suitor slips away alone with the girl.</summary><p class="sum">While the heir gets covered in grease taking the engine apart and the cousin dozes, Torchy and Vee go exploring the tiny island hand in hand; she learns he was in the smelly lobster boat.</p></details><details><summary><b>422</b> · <i>Aunty Flags A Rosy One</i> — Someone junior fixes the fault he secretly caused, is praised as indispensable, and wins days more near his sweetheart.</summary><p class="sum">The fog lifts to show they are a mile from home; Torchy &#x27;finds&#x27; and reconnects the loose wire in a minute, the cousin says she will never go out without him, and he serves as boatman for four happy days.</p></details><details><summary><b>472</b> · <i>Torchy Gets A Through Wire</i> — A young man turns down a dull invitation until he learns his sweetheart will be there, then accepts at once.</summary><p class="sum">The son-in-law invites Torchy to see his baby; Torchy declines until he hears Vee is staying there, then eagerly agrees to come on Sunday.</p></details><details><summary><b>473</b> · <i>Torchy Gets A Through Wire</i> — A young man whose letters were returned unopened visits a friendly house hoping to learn from his sweetheart what went wrong.</summary><p class="sum">His last letters to Vee came back marked refused, so he goes to clear things up; the sister, Marjorie, says her husband is in disgrace, and mentions that Vee is leaving within the hour.</p></details><details><summary><b>474</b> · <i>Torchy Gets A Through Wire</i> — A young man waiting for a private word with his sweetheart is discovered and pestered by nosy children.</summary><p class="sum">Marjorie agrees to send Vee down; while Torchy waits in the library two giggling young nieces spy on him and identify him by his red hair.</p></details><details><summary><b>477</b> · <i>Torchy Gets A Through Wire</i> — A young man finally gets a moment with his sweetheart but must say what matters in front of nosy onlookers.</summary><p class="sum">Vee and Torchy greet each other with mock formality for the girls&#x27; benefit; the girls refuse every attempt to get rid of them, so Torchy must speak to Vee with them listening.</p></details><details><summary><b>478</b> · <i>Torchy Gets A Through Wire</i> — A young man learns his letters were being intercepted and agrees a secret channel with his sweetheart just before her guardian arrives.</summary><p class="sum">He mentions the returned letters; Vee says to send them care of Marjorie, then hurries off as her aunt arrives, and the girls tell Torchy they like him and ask if he loves her.</p></details><details><summary><b>538</b> · <i>Showing Gilkey the Way</i> — Someone advising a dithering relative of the boss discovers the invitation in question could bring him to his sweetheart.</summary><p class="sum">The couple have left a country-house invitation unanswered and must reply at once; Torchy first drafts a refusal, then learns it is the house where his sweetheart is staying while her aunt is away.</p></details><details><summary><b>539</b> · <i>Showing Gilkey the Way</i> — Someone junior flips his advice to suit himself, steering the boss&#x27;s relative into a visit he can join.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy reverses himself, talks the son-in-law past every objection into accepting, and offers himself as the extra young man they had promised to bring.</p></details><details><summary><b>540</b> · <i>Showing Gilkey the Way</i> — Someone junior tags along with the boss&#x27;s family into a grand house, hoping to snatch time alone with his sweetheart.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s daughter happily agrees, and Torchy arrives with them at a grand country house owned by a newly rich patent-medicine maker, hoping for time alone with his sweetheart.</p></details><details><summary><b>612</b> · <i>Then Along Came Sukey</i> — Someone junior uses the boss family&#x27;s gathering to snatch a little time alone with his sweetheart before her guardian arrives.</summary><p class="sum">The woman, a good-humoured, tomboyish unmarried sportswoman near thirty, greets Torchy boisterously; on the night Torchy arrives early and snatches half an hour with his sweetheart before her aunt appears.</p></details></section><section><h2>G22 · A rival for her in the room</h2>
<p class="pred">Someone richer or grander is courting the person you love, often with her family&#x27;s blessing, and he is right there.</p>
<p class="meta">A suitor wants to win her from a rival suitor. · 21 scenes from 6 stories
(Rung in with the Gold Spooners, When Miss Vee Threw the Dare, Chancing It For Vee, The Glad Hail For Torchy, Aunty Flags A Rosy One, Getting a Jolt from Westy) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Spend more than you can afford to outshine him. <span class='src'>from scene 130</span><br><code>money -</code> <code>relationships.sweetheart risk</code></li><li>Push forward, rival or no rival. <span class='src'>from scene 239</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.sweetheart +</code> <code>relationships.rival -</code></li><li>Pack the rival off in another carriage. <span class='src'>from scene 241</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.rival -</code> <code>relationships.sweetheart +</code></li><li>Hide rather than be seen at a disadvantage. <span class='src'>from scene 406</span><br><code>standing -</code></li><li>Show him you bear no grudge. <span class='src'>from scene 132</span><br><code>relationships.rival +</code> <code>money +</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>130</b> · <i>Rung in with the Gold Spooners</i> — Someone junior falls for a colleague, and when a flashier rival appears he spends more than he can afford to win her back.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy and the girl start flirting, until a flashy clerk from the stock department courts her too and Torchy becomes a side issue; he buys her a box of chocolates, and the boss&#x27;s son sees him coming out of the shop with it.</p></details><details><summary><b>131</b> · <i>Rung in with the Gold Spooners</i> — Someone waiting with a gift for the colleague he fancies is walked past while she makes a date with his boastful rival.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s son teases him about his sweetheart; waiting for her after work, Torchy has to hear the rival brag, and then the girl sweeps past Torchy to sell the rival tickets to a ball.</p></details><details><summary><b>132</b> · <i>Rung in with the Gold Spooners</i> — A rival who just stole someone&#x27;s sweetheart asks him to cover his side job on the night of the date, for half pay.</summary><p class="sum">She agrees to go to the ball with the rival and mocks Torchy as &#x27;a cute little fellow&#x27;; next day the rival cheekily asks Torchy to cover his evening cloakroom job that night for half pay and half the tips, and Torchy agrees to show he bears no grudge.</p></details><details><summary><b>138</b> · <i>Rung in with the Gold Spooners</i> — Someone recently jilted is seen by his rival and his old sweetheart dancing with the finest partner in the room.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy spots the rival and the former sweetheart gaping at him from the gallery; the girl flirts with him, then warns that her aunt is coming.</p></details><details><summary><b>239</b> · <i>When Miss Vee Threw the Dare</i> — Someone of low standing decides to push himself forward to a sweetheart despite a titled rival at her side.</summary><p class="sum">He finds the heiress beside the boss&#x27;s daughter and, deciding he will push forward count or no count, shouts her name through his hands.</p></details><details><summary><b>240</b> · <i>When Miss Vee Threw the Dare</i> — Someone who dreaded a titled rival finds him older and less threatening than he had feared.</summary><p class="sum">The count proves to be a bespectacled middle-aged man; the daughter has invited the heiress to dinner, and Torchy teases that the count is rather old.</p></details><details><summary><b>241</b> · <i>When Miss Vee Threw the Dare</i> — Someone junior quietly manoeuvres a titled rival into a separate carriage so he can ride with the sweetheart himself.</summary><p class="sum">The heiress greets Torchy warmly and introduces him to her doubtful aunt; when the count says he will follow the young ladies, Torchy hails a second taxi and packs him off with the aunt.</p></details><details><summary><b>251</b> · <i>Chancing It For Vee</i> — Someone who is not supposed to be there is asked his name, and the girl covers for him while a rival glowers.</summary><p class="sum">Asked his name, Torchy stalls, and Vee rescues him by calling him an old friend; he takes the alias &#x27;Claude&#x27;, while the aunt&#x27;s favoured suitor, whom Torchy once humiliated at a dance, glowers at him.</p></details><details><summary><b>252</b> · <i>Chancing It For Vee</i> — A young man has to compete in a crowd of flatterers for the attention of a girl who plainly dislikes the fuss.</summary><p class="sum">Vee whispers that the relative is a perennial belle who has decided to launch her into society; the belle keeps the young men competing to flatter Vee, who is bored and embarrassed by it.</p></details><details><summary><b>253</b> · <i>Chancing It For Vee</i> — When rivals all ask the same girl out for the same evening, a busybody turns their rivalry into a public game.</summary><p class="sum">Several young men compete to book Vee for the same night; the relative turns it into a contest of chivalry, and Torchy tells her bluntly that Vee wants her to drop the &#x27;Princess&#x27; nonsense.</p></details><details><summary><b>254</b> · <i>Chancing It For Vee</i> — Rivals for a girl are set a contest to please her by evening, and someone junior is dared into entering blind.</summary><p class="sum">Vee refuses to set tasks, so the relative declares a tournament: each suitor must do something by eight o&#x27;clock to win Vee&#x27;s company for the night; Torchy is dared into it and agrees without knowing what he will do.</p></details><details><summary><b>406</b> · <i>The Glad Hail For Torchy</i> — A young man in dirty work clothes sees his sweetheart laughing with a rich rival and hides rather than be recognised.</summary><p class="sum">He sees Vee in white laughing with the rich young heir in tennis clothes while the aunt parades nearby; ashamed of his reeking oilskins, Torchy hides under his sou&#x27;wester and hurries the boat on.</p></details><details><summary><b>415</b> · <i>Aunty Flags A Rosy One</i> — A disguised suitor has to deliver his rival&#x27;s invitation to the girl, then is left serving a chaperone while they sit together.</summary><p class="sum">Vee cuts him off when he nearly gives her away; the heir asks for Vee to join him at the wheel, and Torchy passes it on, getting a hand squeeze and a whispered &#x27;Pepper!&#x27; while he is left to feed the cousin.</p></details><details><summary><b>416</b> · <i>Aunty Flags A Rosy One</i> — A disguised suitor wins favour with the chaperone while his rival keeps the girl to himself at the front.</summary><p class="sum">The cousin praises Torchy as better than the regular boatman, while the heir shows Vee how to steer; the heir turns back on sighting a fog bank.</p></details><details><summary><b>417</b> · <i>Aunty Flags A Rosy One</i> — A rival who wants to impress loses his way when conditions turn, and his nervousness shows to everyone aboard.</summary><p class="sum">Fog swallows the islands and the heir, anxious and uncertain, soon loses his bearings among the rocks.</p></details><details><summary><b>418</b> · <i>Aunty Flags A Rosy One</i> — A rival who wants to push on is overruled by the women, and has to wait with nothing to do.</summary><p class="sum">The boat runs aground on rocks; the heir wants to press on, but the cousin insists on picnicking where they are, Vee agrees, and they haul the cousin ashore.</p></details><details><summary><b>421</b> · <i>Aunty Flags A Rosy One</i> — Alone at last, a young man learns his sweetheart&#x27;s guardian has another favoured suitor lined up, and they laugh about him together.</summary><p class="sum">Vee is touched that he came so far; they agree the heir, her aunt&#x27;s latest choice, is nice but a stick, and they have a long, affectionate talk until the fog lifts.</p></details><details><summary><b>566</b> · <i>Getting a Jolt from Westy</i> — A suitor arrives for his hard-won visit and finds the guardian&#x27;s favoured rival already settled in ahead of him.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy leaves elated, but on his first visit finds the aunt&#x27;s favoured suitor, a wealthy, wooden young man, already installed at the piano, along with a strange girl.</p></details><details><summary><b>567</b> · <i>Getting a Jolt from Westy</i> — A suitor snubbed by his sweetheart&#x27;s fashionable friends suspects the guardian has stacked the room to keep them apart.</summary><p class="sum">The girl, a haughty, peevish beauty, snubs Torchy and monopolises the rival at the piano; Torchy teases his sweetheart that her aunt has arranged a crowd for his evenings.</p></details><details><summary><b>571</b> · <i>Getting a Jolt from Westy</i> — A suitor is told by his rival, bursting with joy, that the girl has just accepted him, and fears the worst.</summary><p class="sum">Calling at the guest&#x27;s family&#x27;s cluttered house, Torchy meets the rival, who excitedly announces that she has just accepted his ring; Torchy assumes he means his own sweetheart.</p></details><details><summary><b>572</b> · <i>Getting a Jolt from Westy</i> — Someone who braced himself to congratulate a rival learns the prize was someone else, and warms to him at once.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy stiffly congratulates him, then learns the fiancée is the guest; relieved, he warms to the rival, who wants to ask the girl&#x27;s mother rather than her father, and Torchy advises against it.</p></details></section><section><h2>G23 · The boss notices you are in love</h2>
<p class="pred">The boss has noticed your mind is on someone, and you must decide whether to confide in him or ask a favour.</p>
<p class="meta">A junior in love wants time and help from a kindly boss. · 5 scenes from 4 stories
(In on the Oolong, Throwing the Line to Skid, The Glad Hail For Torchy, The Up Call for Torchy) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Blurt out that you need time off at once. <span class='src'>from scene 399</span><br><code>relationships.boss risk</code> <code>money +</code> <code>relationships.sweetheart +</code></li><li>Confide in the boss what it is all for. <span class='src'>from scene 483</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code></li><li>Sulk at your desk and hope nobody asks. <span class='src'>from scene 398</span><br><code>relationships.boss -</code></li><li>Ask for time off, too happy to ask whether it is paid. <span class='src'>from scene 194</span><br><code>money risk</code> <code>relationships.sweetheart +</code></li><li>Keep work and courtship apart. <span class='src'>archetype</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>relationships.sweetheart -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>175</b> · <i>In on the Oolong</i> — The boss&#x27;s heir catches someone junior with a well-born sweetheart and congratulates him rather than scolding.</summary><p class="sum">He asks for her photograph and gives his address; the son finds them together and congratulates Torchy, then belatedly worries about the contracts.</p></details><details><summary><b>194</b> · <i>Throwing the Line to Skid</i> — A newly married junior staff member asks the boss for time off, too happy to ask if it will be paid.</summary><p class="sum">They danced all night, drove round the park till dawn and married at eight, telegraphing her father afterwards; the friend gets ten days off from the top boss, and later invites Torchy to their first home dinner in a small flat.</p></details><details><summary><b>398</b> · <i>The Glad Hail For Torchy</i> — A lovesick young man at work answers the boss&#x27;s relative so sulkily that his mood is noticed and questioned.</summary><p class="sum">A postcard from Vee says her seaside place is nice but awfully stupid; Torchy is daydreaming over it when a buzzer calls him, and he answers Mr. Robert so sulkily that Mr. Robert asks whether it is distress or disposition.</p></details><details><summary><b>399</b> · <i>The Glad Hail For Torchy</i> — Someone junior abruptly demands time off, and the boss&#x27;s relative guesses it is about a girl and generously grants it.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy blurts out that he needs a vacation at once; Mr. Robert, guessing the girl is the reason, gives him two weeks&#x27; advance pay and wishes him luck, and Torchy rushes for the train.</p></details><details><summary><b>483</b> · <i>The Up Call for Torchy</i> — A kindly boss who guesses the junior&#x27;s romance wishes aloud he could do more for him, but promises nothing yet.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy admits the suit is for his sweetheart, just back from abroad; the boss&#x27;s son wishes him luck and says, turning serious, that he wishes he could do more for him some day, then goes back to the heavy workload he carries while the old boss is away.</p></details></section><section><h2>G24 · Meddling in the boss&#x27;s love life</h2>
<p class="pred">You know more about the boss&#x27;s heart than anyone, and you could take a hand in his romance, whether or not he asked you to.</p>
<p class="meta">A trusted junior wants to repay the boss&#x27;s kindness from the boss and the woman he loves. · 23 scenes from 4 stories
(Mr. Robert and a Certain Party, Torchy Tackles a Short Circuit, Mr. Robert Gets a Slant, When Ella May Came By) · stage <b>high</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Plant a reminder where he will find it. <span class='src'>from scene 680</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.boss risk</code></li><li>Send a gift in his name without telling him. <span class='src'>from scene 683</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.boss risk</code> <code>flags.meddled set</code></li><li>Go through his private files to find out what went wrong. <span class='src'>from scene 694</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.boss risk</code> <code>flags.meddled set</code></li><li>Plead his case to her yourself. <span class='src'>from scene 692</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>relationships.boss_love +</code></li><li>Leave his private life alone. <span class='src'>archetype</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>675</b> · <i>Mr. Robert and a Certain Party</i> — Someone now trusted in the inner councils fetches something from the boss&#x27;s desk and uncovers a private keepsake by mistake.</summary><p class="sum">Now sitting in on directors&#x27; meetings, Torchy is sent to the boss&#x27;s son&#x27;s desk for papers and cigarettes, and brings back an old leather case that holds only a miniature portrait of a young woman.</p></details><details><summary><b>678</b> · <i>Mr. Robert and a Certain Party</i> — Someone indebted to a kind boss for help with his own courtship looks for a way to return the favour.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy broods over how to repay the boss&#x27;s son for his help with his own romance; on his supervised weekly visit, now announced by his new family name, he holds yarn for his sweetheart while the aunt watches.</p></details><details><summary><b>679</b> · <i>Mr. Robert and a Certain Party</i> — Someone recognises, on a chance leaflet, the face of the woman his boss once loved and lost.</summary><p class="sum">He spots a concert leaflet on the table showing the woman in the miniature, a singer giving a charity recital, and hints the story to his sweetheart.</p></details><details><summary><b>680</b> · <i>Mr. Robert and a Certain Party</i> — Someone junior and his sweetheart plot to rekindle the boss&#x27;s lost romance, beginning with a planted reminder in his mail.</summary><p class="sum">The sweetheart is thrilled; they plot together, and next morning Torchy slips the leaflet into the boss&#x27;s son&#x27;s mail in an ordinary envelope.</p></details><details><summary><b>681</b> · <i>Mr. Robert and a Certain Party</i> — A junior who meddled in the boss&#x27;s private life cannot read his reaction, and decides to push further anyway.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s son shows no reaction and says nothing all day, but keeps the leaflet; Torchy and his sweetheart decide to go ahead.</p></details><details><summary><b>682</b> · <i>Mr. Robert and a Certain Party</i> — Two meddlers go to inspect the woman who broke the boss&#x27;s heart, and are at first unimpressed.</summary><p class="sum">At the fashionable recital the singer turns out to be plain and simple in manner, until she begins to sing.</p></details><details><summary><b>683</b> · <i>Mr. Robert and a Certain Party</i> — A junior plays a bold trick in public, sending a gift to the boss&#x27;s lost love under the boss&#x27;s own name.</summary><p class="sum">Her singing wins the audience over; when flowers are thrown, Torchy tosses a dozen roses bearing the boss&#x27;s son&#x27;s card at her feet.</p></details><details><summary><b>684</b> · <i>Mr. Robert and a Certain Party</i> — A woman receives a gift she believes comes from a man she lost long ago, and is visibly overcome.</summary><p class="sum">She reads the card, blushes, falters, searches the audience, and after the interval returns wearing the roses over her heart.</p></details><details><summary><b>685</b> · <i>Mr. Robert and a Certain Party</i> — A boss thanked for a gift he never sent realises his junior sent it, and plays along to spare everyone.</summary><p class="sum">After the concert she comes down into the audience, and Torchy and his sweetheart try to flee; she goes instead to the boss&#x27;s son, who was there all along, and thanks him for the roses; he catches Torchy&#x27;s eye and plays along.</p></details><details><summary><b>686</b> · <i>Mr. Robert and a Certain Party</i> — A junior caught meddling in the boss&#x27;s love life fears his anger, while his sweetheart is sure he is secretly pleased.</summary><p class="sum">Outside, the boss&#x27;s son asks whether his card went with the roses, says sarcastically that he hopes his part satisfied them, and stalks off; the sweetheart laughs that he is not really angry.</p></details><details><summary><b>688</b> · <i>Torchy Tackles a Short Circuit</i> — A tactless friend blurts out the boss&#x27;s romantic business in front of staff, adding that the woman expects a visit.</summary><p class="sum">In front of Torchy, the friend loudly reports meeting the singer, who seemed to expect the boss&#x27;s son to call and explain, and said as much.</p></details><details><summary><b>689</b> · <i>Torchy Tackles a Short Circuit</i> — A boss drawn into an awkward romantic explanation by his junior&#x27;s prank orders the junior to come and confess in person.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s son says he is now expected to explain the roses, will not believe the truth would convince her, and tells Torchy he must come and explain it himself.</p></details><details><summary><b>690</b> · <i>Torchy Tackles a Short Circuit</i> — A boss who is bold in business goes to face an old love as nervous as a boy, with his junior in tow.</summary><p class="sum">On the drive the boss&#x27;s son is gloomy and nervous, fearless in business but timid with women; they arrive and she greets him warmly.</p></details><details><summary><b>691</b> · <i>Torchy Tackles a Short Circuit</i> — A man who brings someone else to explain himself to the woman he loves is coolly shown the door.</summary><p class="sum">She is poised; he blurts that he brought Torchy to explain the roses, and she coolly asks why he bothered coming himself, then asks to hear Torchy alone.</p></details><details><summary><b>692</b> · <i>Torchy Tackles a Short Circuit</i> — Someone junior left alone with the boss&#x27;s lost love pleads the boss&#x27;s case as a good man clumsy with women.</summary><p class="sum">Alone with her, Torchy defends the boss&#x27;s son as a good man who is simply clumsy with women, and tells her about the miniature and the roses.</p></details><details><summary><b>693</b> · <i>Torchy Tackles a Short Circuit</i> — Someone junior, repaying the boss&#x27;s help with his own courtship, frankly asks the boss&#x27;s lost love why they parted.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy says he meant to repay the boss&#x27;s son for helping with his own romance, and asks why they parted.</p></details><details><summary><b>694</b> · <i>Torchy Tackles a Short Circuit</i> — Someone junior hears why a romance died, then goes through the boss&#x27;s private files to see whether it is true.</summary><p class="sum">She says she wrote him long letters from Italy and stopped when his replies bored her; back at the empty office after hours, Torchy digs out the boss&#x27;s son&#x27;s personal letter files.</p></details><details><summary><b>695</b> · <i>Torchy Tackles a Short Circuit</i> — Someone junior discovers from the boss&#x27;s own files that the boss killed his romance by writing like a business letter.</summary><p class="sum">The files show he answered her pages with short dictated business letters about the weather and his yacht; Torchy finds him moping at his club and reports she accepted the explanation.</p></details><details><summary><b>698</b> · <i>Mr. Robert Gets a Slant</i> — A boss who took his junior&#x27;s bold romantic advice comes back defeated, and gently tells the junior it failed.</summary><p class="sum">The morning after Torchy urged him to sweep the singer off her feet, the boss&#x27;s son comes in grim and tells Torchy he meant well, but it did not work.</p></details><details><summary><b>699</b> · <i>Mr. Robert Gets a Slant</i> — A suitor who followed crude advice and seized the woman he loves is laughed at as hopelessly behind the times.</summary><p class="sum">He admits he took her in his arms, and she slipped away laughing, calling such caveman methods obsolete; he then tried a formal declaration.</p></details><details><summary><b>700</b> · <i>Mr. Robert Gets a Slant</i> — A modern, independent woman laughs off a suitor&#x27;s old-fashioned devotion, and puts him on probation to become friends first.</summary><p class="sum">She laughed at his impassioned speech too, calling devotion and protection outdated nonsense that would hinder her own development, and put him on probation; he still adores her.</p></details><details><summary><b>701</b> · <i>Mr. Robert Gets a Slant</i> — A suitor on probation crams difficult books to impress a clever woman, and invites his junior along on the trip.</summary><p class="sum">They are to try friendship through concerts and a weekend sailing trip; Torchy suggests himself, his sweetheart and the boss&#x27;s sister and her husband as the party, and the boss&#x27;s son crams highbrow plays to impress her.</p></details><details><summary><b>711</b> · <i>When Ella May Came By</i> — Someone junior is sent to steer a well-meaning but tactless relative of the boss away from a courting couple.</summary><p class="sum">The dim son-in-law keeps barging in on the couple with botanical lectures, and Torchy is sent to steer him away and explain tactfully that he is not wanted.</p></details></section><section><h2>G25 · Stiffening a timid man&#x27;s spine</h2>
<p class="pred">Someone decent is about to back down before a bully, a tyrant or the woman he loves, and a push from you might make him stand firm.</p>
<p class="meta">A onlooker wants to see them stand firm from a timid man. · 15 scenes from 6 stories
(A Whirl with Kazedky, Merry Dodges A Dead Heat, Cutting In On The Bliss, Showing Gilkey the Way, Getting a Jolt from Westy, Torchy Tackles a Short Circuit) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Call him spineless to his face. <span class='src'>from scene 98</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.friend risk</code></li><li>Tell him to walk in and say it straight, and announce him yourself. <span class='src'>from scene 547</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.friend +</code></li><li>Answer for him when he cannot. <span class='src'>from scene 380</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.friend risk</code> <code>flags.committed_him set</code></li><li>Advise a firmer line, and plan it with him. <span class='src'>from scene 438</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.friend +</code></li><li>Let him find his own nerve. <span class='src'>archetype</span><br><code>relationships.friend -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>98</b> · <i>A Whirl with Kazedky</i> — Someone junior shames a discouraged friend out of resigning, and the friend resolves to try once more that very night.</summary><p class="sum">The friend plans to resign; Torchy throws down the schoolbooks and calls him spineless, which stirs him to go that very night to try again in evening dress, with Torchy along.</p></details><details><summary><b>102</b> · <i>A Whirl with Kazedky</i> — Someone finally gets a moment with an important visitor who plainly wants to leave at once.</summary><p class="sum">The columnist lures the official out of the private dinner and introduces the friend as a famous athlete; the puzzled official says he has no interest in football and tries to back away.</p></details><details><summary><b>103</b> · <i>A Whirl with Kazedky</i> — Someone who was too polite to push finally seizes his one chance and will not let the important visitor go.</summary><p class="sum">The friend grabs him and walks him up and down the corridor delivering the sales pitch word-perfect, at times lifting him off his feet, while the rival hosts peer out anxiously.</p></details><details><summary><b>104</b> · <i>A Whirl with Kazedky</i> — Someone written off after one failure comes back, forces his chance, and wins the deal he was sent for.</summary><p class="sum">He gets the official to sign an agreement on a notepad, returns him to his hosts, and tells Torchy he has the contract.</p></details><details><summary><b>380</b> · <i>Merry Dodges A Dead Heat</i> — When a timid colleague cannot answer a woman&#x27;s direct question, someone junior answers for him and commits him to her.</summary><p class="sum">Sneaking past the sisters&#x27; house they are heard; the sisters ask which of them the serenade was for, and when the clerk cannot answer, Torchy holds him back and announces it was for Violet.</p></details><details><summary><b>381</b> · <i>Merry Dodges A Dead Heat</i> — A colleague pushed into a proposal by someone junior finds it frees him from a dead-end job, and thanks him.</summary><p class="sum">The clerk goes along with it, proposes next morning, and returns to work beaming: he is to marry Violet and live abroad, sister included, and he thanks Torchy, who asks only for the cornet.</p></details><details><summary><b>438</b> · <i>Cutting In On The Bliss</i> — Someone junior sent to spy owns up to the man he was spying on, and advises him to take a firmer line.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy confesses he was sent to spy for abuse, says the real problem is a spoiled child, and advises firmness; together they plan an approach, and next morning the bride asks why her breakfast isn&#x27;t served.</p></details><details><summary><b>439</b> · <i>Cutting In On The Bliss</i> — A patient husband quietly hands a spoiled wife real responsibility, and she rises to it once no one else will do it.</summary><p class="sum">The husband calmly puts her in charge of the house and servants, so nothing happens until she gives orders; she accepts, cooks a good breakfast, and Torchy reports back that the honeymoon just started late.</p></details><details><summary><b>545</b> · <i>Showing Gilkey the Way</i> — Someone offering to smuggle out a banished suitor finds the young man does not want to leave quietly.</summary><p class="sum">The suitor is being bandaged in the kitchen; Torchy sends the women back to keep the father busy and offers to see the young man away, but he says he came to see the girl and will not go.</p></details><details><summary><b>546</b> · <i>Showing Gilkey the Way</i> — An outsider who hears a timid suitor&#x27;s honest case urges him to face the girl&#x27;s tyrant of a father directly.</summary><p class="sum">The suitor says they are engaged, do not want the father&#x27;s money, and he is not afraid; Torchy, won over, suggests he walk in and tell the father straight.</p></details><details><summary><b>547</b> · <i>Showing Gilkey the Way</i> — Someone who lectures a frightened suitor about cowardice finds his words taken literally and must announce the showdown himself.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy lectures him that fear is what beats most people and goads him; the suitor promptly marches into the library, where Torchy announces him and the girl gasps.</p></details><details><summary><b>548</b> · <i>Showing Gilkey the Way</i> — A household tyrant rages at a young man who simply stands there unmoved, calmly refusing to be driven out.</summary><p class="sum">The father roars and threatens, but the suitor calmly announces they will marry next week, refuses to be thrown out, and says he would like some dinner.</p></details><details><summary><b>573</b> · <i>Getting a Jolt from Westy</i> — A nervous young man about to ask a parent for a daughter&#x27;s hand begs a former rival to stand beside him.</summary><p class="sum">The young man insists on doing it properly and begs Torchy to stay and support him; Torchy sends for the mother.</p></details><details><summary><b>696</b> · <i>Torchy Tackles a Short Circuit</i> — Someone junior bluntly tells his boss he is hopeless at courtship and urges him to pursue love like a deal.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy tells him bluntly he is hopeless at romance, gets him to admit he still loves her, and urges him to pursue her the way he goes after anything he wants in business.</p></details><details><summary><b>697</b> · <i>Torchy Tackles a Short Circuit</i> — A junior stops his fired-up boss from repeating his old mistake and sends him off to speak in person.</summary><p class="sum">Roused, the boss&#x27;s son decides to write to her tonight; Torchy tells him his letters are the problem and to go in person, and he sets off at once.</p></details></section><section><h2>G26 · Newly promoted, and not everyone accepts it</h2>
<p class="pred">You have just been raised above people who used to order you about: some defer, some resent it, and some have not heard.</p>
<p class="meta">A newly promoted junior wants to be taken seriously in the new place from the old hierarchy. · 16 scenes from 5 stories
(A Whirl with Kazedky, The Up Call for Torchy, Torchy Makes the Sir Class, Breaking It to the Boss, Zenobia Digs Up a Late One) · stage <b>middle</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Refuse the deference and offer your hand. <span class='src'>from scene 496</span><br><code>relationships.colleagues +</code> <code>standing +</code></li><li>Let yourself be ordered about as the boy again, and wait. <span class='src'>from scene 525</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>standing -</code></li><li>Let yourself feel like the indispensable one. <span class='src'>from scene 523</span><br><code>standing risk</code> <code>relationships.colleagues -</code></li><li>Sit brooding that you are only a dummy in the post. <span class='src'>from scene 498</span><br><code>standing -</code></li><li>Prove yourself on the first real test. <span class='src'>from scene 536</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>money +</code> <code>savvy +</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>96</b> · <i>A Whirl with Kazedky</i> — Someone newly promoted is privately sure he is out of his depth, and one early setback convinces him he has failed.</summary><p class="sum">The promoted friend is secretly terrified he is out of his depth; a broker&#x27;s clerk fools him with an old office joke, and next evening Torchy finds him slumped, saying he has failed his first real test.</p></details><details><summary><b>97</b> · <i>A Whirl with Kazedky</i> — A newly promoted person is set an impossible task by a boss who resents his rise, and gives up at the first refusal.</summary><p class="sum">The top boss, resenting the promotion, sent the friend to win a big contract from a visiting foreign official; the friend was politely turned away by a secretary and gave up.</p></details><details><summary><b>491</b> · <i>The Up Call for Torchy</i> — A boss pressed for time settles a loyal junior&#x27;s grievance by promoting him on the spot, just before an awkward visit.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s son admits Torchy&#x27;s position has been ambiguous; pressed for time, he names him private secretary for a nominal subsidiary company, and Torchy moves into a desk in the inner office.</p></details><details><summary><b>493</b> · <i>The Up Call for Torchy</i> — Someone who thought a promotion was only a temporary show learns it is permanent, and vows to prove himself in it.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy offers to resign the stopgap title, but the boss&#x27;s son says the board has confirmed it and the desk is his for good.</p></details><details><summary><b>494</b> · <i>Torchy Makes the Sir Class</i> — Someone just promoted meets his eager replacement on the bottom rung and is startled to be addressed with respect.</summary><p class="sum">On his first mornings as private secretary Torchy finds a polite new boy in his old seat at the gate, who calls him Sir; after four years of being called Boy, the respect braces him.</p></details><details><summary><b>495</b> · <i>Torchy Makes the Sir Class</i> — Someone newly promoted must summon the stiff senior colleague who used to boss him, who now defers to him grudgingly.</summary><p class="sum">Needing papers, Torchy sends for the stiff senior clerk who used to order him about, and the man marches in rigidly formal and calls him Sir.</p></details><details><summary><b>496</b> · <i>Torchy Makes the Sir Class</i> — Someone newly promoted disarms a resentful former superior by refusing deference and offering friendship, and gains a willing coach.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy tells the clerk to drop the formality and offers his hand; the man thaws and coaches him like a big brother on the subsidiary&#x27;s affairs. Then Torchy meets a cold, loud outside development manager.</p></details><details><summary><b>497</b> · <i>Torchy Makes the Sir Class</i> — Someone newly promoted into a post a senior colleague wanted for a relative sees his only assignment taken from him.</summary><p class="sum">The manager had wanted the post for his idle cousin and predicts Torchy will not last ten days; he then gets Torchy&#x27;s only assignment, the inventor&#x27;s proposal, moved into his own department.</p></details><details><summary><b>498</b> · <i>Torchy Makes the Sir Class</i> — A newcomer&#x27;s first judgement is brushed aside by a senior colleague, and he fears the boss now doubts his promotion.</summary><p class="sum">Within minutes the manager dismisses the inventor as a crank and sends him off, making Torchy&#x27;s enthusiasm look like a beginner&#x27;s blunder, and Torchy sits brooding that he is just a dummy in the post.</p></details><details><summary><b>523</b> · <i>Breaking It to the Boss</i> — Someone newly promoted, left in charge while the boss is away, begins to feel like the indispensable person at the top.</summary><p class="sum">With the boss&#x27;s son away for a few days, Torchy is effectively running the office on his own, handling confidential matters and callers, and feels puffed up and important.</p></details><details><summary><b>524</b> · <i>Breaking It to the Boss</i> — The ailing old head, long out of the picture, walks back in unannounced, determined not to be put out to pasture.</summary><p class="sum">The old head of the firm walks in unannounced, having quit his health cure early and angry at being sidelined; he learns the family are away expecting him, and retreats into his room, long out of touch with the business.</p></details><details><summary><b>525</b> · <i>Breaking It to the Boss</i> — Someone newly promoted is ordered about as the lowest junior by an old head who never heard of the change.</summary><p class="sum">Not knowing Torchy has been promoted, the old man orders him about as office boy, and Torchy goes along with it; finding him at a desk in the inner office, the old man demands an explanation.</p></details><details><summary><b>526</b> · <i>Breaking It to the Boss</i> — A returning old head springs a crisis on a newly promoted junior, while a senior colleague shifts the blame elsewhere.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy explains his dummy-company post; the old man reserves judgement, then demands to know about a vital lease a partner firm has refused to renew, and the senior clerk blames the absent son.</p></details><details><summary><b>536</b> · <i>Breaking It to the Boss</i> — The formidable old head, won over by his junior&#x27;s resourcefulness, approves the promotion he never knew about and raises his pay.</summary><p class="sum">The lease arrives signed before closing; the old man approves of Torchy&#x27;s promotion and doubles his salary.</p></details><details><summary><b>634</b> · <i>Zenobia Digs Up a Late One</i> — A boss soothes an angry figurehead by saying his newly promoted right hand runs the whole thing for him.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s son explains that the break-up of the firm required many figurehead presidents; the old man says he knows nothing of the business, and the boss&#x27;s son says his private secretary handles it all.</p></details><details><summary><b>635</b> · <i>Zenobia Digs Up a Late One</i> — Someone newly promoted learns his nominal superior is an absentee who wants nothing to do with the work.</summary><p class="sum">The old man refuses to hear a word, agrees his name may be used, and goes in to see the old boss; the boss&#x27;s son explains he is a restless globetrotter who will soon be off again.</p></details></section><section><h2>G27 · Everyone trusts the expert, and you think he is wrong</h2>
<p class="pred">An expert, a senior colleague or the police have settled what is going on, everyone above you believes them, and your common sense says otherwise.</p>
<p class="meta">A junior wants to be proved right from a trusted expert. · 15 scenes from 4 stories
(Down the Bumps with Cliffy, Pulling A Sleuth Stunt, Torchy Makes the Sir Class, Torchy Gets an Inside Tip) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Quietly run down your own lead. <span class='src'>from scene 267</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.boss risk</code></li><li>Tell the boss the expert is simply wrong. <span class='src'>from scene 501</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.supervisor -</code> <code>standing risk</code></li><li>Learn the subject overnight and argue it before the top. <span class='src'>from scene 500</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>standing risk</code> <code>relationships.boss +</code></li><li>Say nothing; the expert knows best. <span class='src'>archetype</span><br><code>relationships.supervisor +</code></li><li>Keep your doubt to yourself until you have proof. <span class='src'>filled gap</span><br><code>savvy +</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>115</b> · <i>Down the Bumps with Cliffy</i> — Someone junior works out the one small thing that is causing a bewildering mess everyone else is baffled by.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt flees at the smell; Torchy notices the cousin has taken a stranger&#x27;s cane by mistake on the subway and realises the crowd is following the cane.</p></details><details><summary><b>263</b> · <i>Pulling A Sleuth Stunt</i> — A self-proclaimed expert lectures the boss on carelessness and refuses to examine anything except the one item in front of him.</summary><p class="sum">The investigator counts the flowers, scolds the boss for throwing the earlier bunches away, and refuses to inspect doors or offices, claiming the trained mind finds the truth in the flowers alone.</p></details><details><summary><b>264</b> · <i>Pulling A Sleuth Stunt</i> — A pompous expert turns one correct observation into an alarming conclusion and the boss starts to take it seriously.</summary><p class="sum">With much solemn mumbo-jumbo the investigator establishes that the bouquets come every Wednesday, and declares the regularity a calculated threat.</p></details><details><summary><b>265</b> · <i>Pulling A Sleuth Stunt</i> — An impostor expert tells the boss he is in mortal danger and stages an elaborate trap based on nonsense.</summary><p class="sum">Reading symbolism into the flowers, he announces that five desperate men are after the boss, predicts a blood-red bouquet next Wednesday, and orders three policemen hidden in the next room.</p></details><details><summary><b>266</b> · <i>Pulling A Sleuth Stunt</i> — Someone junior distrusts the expert everyone else believes, and lies awake turning over the one clue the expert got right.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy leaves uneasy: the investigator seems like a sideshow faker, yet he was right about the Wednesdays, and that night Torchy gets a hunch about what happens every Wednesday.</p></details><details><summary><b>267</b> · <i>Pulling A Sleuth Stunt</i> — While his superiors prepare a grand trap on an expert&#x27;s advice, someone junior quietly runs down his own lead.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy quietly checks with the building staff and makes a trip out of town; on the day, the boss grudgingly accepts two building guards on the clerk&#x27;s urging and the investigator hides behind a screen.</p></details><details><summary><b>268</b> · <i>Pulling A Sleuth Stunt</i> — Someone junior springs the solution himself at the moment his superiors&#x27; elaborate trap is failing to catch anyone.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy waits on the fire escape outside; a red rose lands on the desk as predicted, and Torchy grabs the man who threw it and shoves him in through the window, telling everyone he is harmless.</p></details><details><summary><b>270</b> · <i>Pulling A Sleuth Stunt</i> — Someone junior explains that he solved by common sense what the boss&#x27;s expensive expert dressed up in jargon.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy explains plain reasoning: the windows are washed on Wednesdays and only a window cleaner could reach the desk; he traced the man through the building staff but could not learn his motive.</p></details><details><summary><b>500</b> · <i>Torchy Makes the Sir Class</i> — Someone out of his depth makes an overlooked expert teach him the whole business from scratch, late into the night.</summary><p class="sum">Stung, the inventor describes nine years of solitary work; Torchy makes him explain the process from first principles, and they talk chemistry until two in the morning.</p></details><details><summary><b>501</b> · <i>Torchy Makes the Sir Class</i> — Someone newly promoted and barely tested tells the boss that a respected senior colleague&#x27;s verdict is simply wrong.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy writes up what he learned, goes back for more, and then tells the boss&#x27;s son the manager is wrong; the boss&#x27;s son, sceptical, asks if he wants to present a minority report.</p></details><details><summary><b>502</b> · <i>Torchy Makes the Sir Class</i> — A junior who dares to contradict a senior authority is given a chance to argue his case before the people at the top.</summary><p class="sum">Warned that the manager is a leading authority, Torchy still wants to speak; the boss&#x27;s son sportingly gives him the floor at tomorrow&#x27;s directors&#x27; meeting, unannounced, and Torchy rushes to prepare with the inventor.</p></details><details><summary><b>504</b> · <i>Torchy Makes the Sir Class</i> — Someone facing his first speech before powerful people writes it out and rehearses it alone, terrified of freezing.</summary><p class="sum">The inventor agrees to spruce up; Torchy writes out his speech word for word and rehearses it alone in his room in plain language.</p></details><details><summary><b>506</b> · <i>Torchy Makes the Sir Class</i> — A junior speaking after a confident senior colleague freezes at first, then wins the room point by point.</summary><p class="sum">The manager delivers a crisp dismissal; Torchy freezes briefly, then speaks, laying out the scheme plainly with figures and answering each objection until the sternest director nods.</p></details><details><summary><b>599</b> · <i>Torchy Gets an Inside Tip</i> — A proud investigator shows off a baffling scrap of evidence as proof his prisoner is mad, missing what it means.</summary><p class="sum">The money belonged to a wealthy widow who backs illegal betting; the arresting detective boasts the butler is a crank, showing a packet of sawdust found in his room.</p></details><details><summary><b>601</b> · <i>Torchy Gets an Inside Tip</i> — Someone questioning an anxious prisoner suddenly works out where the missing money must be hidden.</summary><p class="sum">The butler is anxious for his daughter and denies the theft, saying nothing was found on him; hearing he last saw her the night before, Torchy connects the sawdust to the doll.</p></details></section><section><h2>G28 · A wrongdoer at your mercy</h2>
<p class="pred">Someone who did real wrong is in your hands, begging, and handing them over would be right but hard.</p>
<p class="meta">A person holding the proof wants to do right by everyone from a culprit who begs. · 13 scenes from 3 stories
(Keeping Tabs on Piddie, The Passing By Of Bunny, Torchy Gets an Inside Tip) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Quietly undo the damage and say nothing. <span class='src'>from scene 93</span><br><code>relationships.culprit +</code> <code>flags.kept_quiet set</code></li><li>Name the theft to their face. <span class='src'>from scene 92</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.culprit -</code></li><li>Bargain: everything back, and the charge dropped. <span class='src'>from scene 603</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.culprit +</code></li><li>Give them what they ask, to be rid of them. <span class='src'>from scene 393</span><br><code>money -</code> <code>relationships.culprit +</code></li><li>Report it to the boss. <span class='src'>filled gap</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>relationships.culprit -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>87</b> · <i>Keeping Tabs on Piddie</i> — Someone junior sent on an urgent errand peeks at what he is carrying and finds his superior is gambling with the firm&#x27;s property.</summary><p class="sum">The secretary sends Torchy urgently downtown with a letter and a package; on the way Torchy opens the letter and finds it orders a huge stock purchase secured with bonds from the company safe.</p></details><details><summary><b>89</b> · <i>Keeping Tabs on Piddie</i> — Someone junior holding a superior&#x27;s stolen stake must decide how to stop him without informing on him or letting him try again.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy watches the stock swing all afternoon without delivering the bonds, unsure how to handle it without informing on the secretary or letting him try again.</p></details><details><summary><b>90</b> · <i>Keeping Tabs on Piddie</i> — Someone junior finds a superior who gambled the firm&#x27;s property collapsed at his desk, sure he is ruined.</summary><p class="sum">Back at closing time he finds the secretary collapsed at his desk beside a newspaper reporting that the stock crashed in the last quarter hour.</p></details><details><summary><b>91</b> · <i>Keeping Tabs on Piddie</i> — A superior caught out in wrongdoing begs someone junior to vouch that he was led astray, and pleads for his family.</summary><p class="sum">Told the package was delivered on time, the secretary wails that he is ruined, begs Torchy to say he was led into it, and whines about his wife and child.</p></details><details><summary><b>92</b> · <i>Keeping Tabs on Piddie</i> — A superior who stole to keep up with the neighbours grovels before someone junior, begging not to be reported.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy names the theft outright; the secretary confesses everything, including debts for a house and a car to keep up with the neighbours, and begs on his knees not to be reported.</p></details><details><summary><b>93</b> · <i>Keeping Tabs on Piddie</i> — Someone junior quietly saves a superior from ruin, and the boss, having overheard everything, chooses mercy over dismissal.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy reveals he never delivered the bonds; the boss&#x27;s son, who overheard everything from his office, takes the bonds back, forgives the secretary and covers his loss, which was only forty dollars.</p></details><details><summary><b>387</b> · <i>The Passing By Of Bunny</i> — The boss&#x27;s relative loses his temper with a disgraced former friend, then finds the man broken and begging for mercy.</summary><p class="sum">Enraged, Mr. Robert shakes the man until he collapses, then is ashamed; the wretch whimpers that he is dying and begs to be helped to die clean and decently dressed.</p></details><details><summary><b>390</b> · <i>The Passing By Of Bunny</i> — The boss&#x27;s relative, having rescued a disgraced acquaintance, confronts him about the cruel betrayal that got him cast out.</summary><p class="sum">Transformed by the clothes, the man lounges at the club smoking Mr. Robert&#x27;s cigarettes; Mr. Robert says he has not forgiven him for jilting a friend&#x27;s sister at the altar to run off with an adventuress.</p></details><details><summary><b>393</b> · <i>The Passing By Of Bunny</i> — A disgraced acquaintance refuses honest work and presses the man who rescued him for luxuries, and gets them.</summary><p class="sum">He mocks respectability and says he has friends in the bread line; he refuses to work, and when shown the door he instead asks for champagne and caviar, which Mr. Robert orders.</p></details><details><summary><b>600</b> · <i>Torchy Gets an Inside Tip</i> — Someone takes on a prisoner&#x27;s case knowing the wronged party is powerful and will not forgive the loss.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy gets a jail pass, reflects that the widow will not let the money go, and visits the butler, a weak-chinned, dignified man.</p></details><details><summary><b>602</b> · <i>Torchy Gets an Inside Tip</i> — Someone presses a stubborn prisoner by hinting he knows the secret, until the man agrees to bargain for his child&#x27;s sake.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy warns him of fifteen years in prison and mentions the doll; the butler breaks down and agrees to any terms that get him out and take his daughter abroad.</p></details><details><summary><b>603</b> · <i>Torchy Gets an Inside Tip</i> — Someone bargains with a hard, powerful victim to drop charges against a desperate thief in exchange for everything back.</summary><p class="sum">The hard-headed widow at first wants him jailed, but agrees to drop the charge and pay the passage abroad if she gets every dollar back.</p></details><details><summary><b>604</b> · <i>Torchy Gets an Inside Tip</i> — Someone produces a child&#x27;s cherished toy before an angry victim and cuts it open to reveal the stolen money.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy returns with the doll, which he had coaxed away from the child, and cuts it open before the angry widow to reveal the money sewn inside.</p></details></section><section><h2>G29 · Standing by someone the law or a mob is after</h2>
<p class="pred">Someone you owe or pity is cornered by officials or an angry crowd, and you could step clear of them.</p>
<p class="meta">A loyal junior wants to see them safe from the hunted, and those hunting them. · 10 scenes from 3 stories
(Getting in with the Glory Be, Backing out of a Fluff Riot, Torchy Gets an Inside Tip) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Insist they are honest, whatever the officials say. <span class='src'>from scene 12</span><br><code>relationships.hunted +</code> <code>standing risk</code></li><li>Barge in with a bluff to reach them. <span class='src'>from scene 124</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.hunted +</code> <code>flags.bluffed set</code></li><li>Refuse to leave when told to save yourself. <span class='src'>from scene 125</span><br><code>relationships.hunted +</code> <code>standing risk</code></li><li>Take their hand as if they were with you. <span class='src'>from scene 593</span><br><code>relationships.hunted +</code> <code>relationships.sweetheart risk</code></li><li>Step clear before you are mixed up in it. <span class='src'>archetype</span><br><code>relationships.hunted -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>12</b> · <i>Getting in with the Glory Be</i> — Someone junior defends an absent boss against colleagues and an official who all say the boss has run off.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy locks the certificates in a bank vault; the laid-off staff sneer at the boss as they leave, and the investigator returns, calls the boss a runaway, and Torchy insists he has gone to the mine.</p></details><details><summary><b>13</b> · <i>Getting in with the Glory Be</i> — Someone left in charge watches the place shut down around him, still sure the vanished boss was honest.</summary><p class="sum">The marshal says the company is a swindle and waits two weeks for the boss, who never returns; the office is stripped and Torchy, still loyal, worries how to face the boss for letting it close.</p></details><details><summary><b>122</b> · <i>Backing out of a Fluff Riot</i> — Someone watching an angry crowd recognises the man they are after as a former boss he admired and trusted.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy eggs them on; when the door opens, a calm, smiling man in a new beard faces the mob, and Torchy recognises his first beloved boss from the vanished mining company.</p></details><details><summary><b>124</b> · <i>Backing out of a Fluff Riot</i> — Someone junior sees a former boss about to be mobbed and invents a bluff on the spot to reach him.</summary><p class="sum">When payment is promised only for next month the crowd turns violent; Torchy barges through posing as a bank messenger with the empty document case, shouting that money has arrived.</p></details><details><summary><b>125</b> · <i>Backing out of a Fluff Riot</i> — A cornered former boss tells someone junior to save himself, and the junior insists on staying out of loyalty.</summary><p class="sum">Behind the locked partition the old boss admits he is cornered and tells Torchy to leave before he gets mixed up in it; Torchy refuses, out of gratitude for the shares he was once given.</p></details><details><summary><b>126</b> · <i>Backing out of a Fluff Riot</i> — Someone junior tries to sneak a cornered former boss out of the building, and they are spotted on the way.</summary><p class="sum">The crowd moves into the corridor to organise; Torchy urges escape by an upper elevator, the old boss agrees to walk out rather than run, and a lookout raises the alarm.</p></details><details><summary><b>127</b> · <i>Backing out of a Fluff Riot</i> — Someone junior is caught with a disgraced former boss in front of his current one, and vouches for the man&#x27;s honesty.</summary><p class="sum">The crowd and a guard catch them just as the top boss steps out of his meeting; the women call Torchy one of the gang, and he swears his old boss is honest, so the top boss vouches for them and orders the crowd away.</p></details><details><summary><b>592</b> · <i>Torchy Gets an Inside Tip</i> — A stranger learns a polite child is alone, her only parent jailed, and she is terrified of being put in care.</summary><p class="sum">She is under age for work; she has no home, her English father was arrested three weeks ago, and he told her never to let herself be put in an institution.</p></details><details><summary><b>593</b> · <i>Torchy Gets an Inside Tip</i> — Someone shields a frightened stray child from an officious guard just as his elegant sweetheart comes out and sees them.</summary><p class="sum">When a store detective she fears reappears, Torchy takes her hand as if she is with him; his well-dressed sweetheart comes out and takes in the scene without scorn.</p></details><details><summary><b>594</b> · <i>Torchy Gets an Inside Tip</i> — A young woman of means meets a starving runaway child and, without fuss, invents a reason to feed her.</summary><p class="sum">The child explains she ran away before her landlady could send her to a home and has eaten nothing all day; the sweetheart invites her to tea.</p></details></section><section><h2>G30 · An order from above you think is wrong</h2>
<p class="pred">The boss has given an order you think dishonest or reckless, and you are the one who must carry it out or refuse.</p>
<p class="meta">A subordinate wants to keep the job and a clear conscience from the boss. · 8 scenes from 3 stories
(Batting it up to Torchy, Gloom Shunting For The Boss, How Whity Gunked The Plot) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Refuse, and resign rather than make a false entry. <span class='src'>from scene 185</span><br><code>relationships.boss -</code> <code>money -</code> <code>flags.refused_order set</code></li><li>Say nothing and let it go out. <span class='src'>from scene 315</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>flags.looked_away set</code></li><li>Carry it out with a flourish and a joke. <span class='src'>from scene 317</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.boss +</code></li><li>Do it, and complain bitterly afterwards. <span class='src'>from scene 459</span><br><code>money +</code> <code>standing -</code></li><li>Tell the boss plainly it should not be done. <span class='src'>filled gap</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.boss risk</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>183</b> · <i>Batting it up to Torchy</i> — Someone junior is sent to fetch a meek old colleague into a crisis meeting and fears he is to be made the scapegoat.</summary><p class="sum">During a tense emergency directors&#x27; meeting the boss sends Torchy for the old clerk, and Torchy fears they mean to make him the scapegoat.</p></details><details><summary><b>184</b> · <i>Batting it up to Torchy</i> — A meek old colleague comes back from a crisis meeting and calmly starts writing his resignation without saying why.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy urges the old clerk to put up a front; he returns calmly and says he was only given instructions, but is now writing his resignation, which Torchy begs him to tear up.</p></details><details><summary><b>185</b> · <i>Batting it up to Torchy</i> — An old hand ordered to falsify records would rather lose his living than do something he knows is dishonest.</summary><p class="sum">The old man was told to alter his books to disguise the incriminating cheques; unaware of the scandal, he refuses simply because it would be a false entry and he has never made one.</p></details><details><summary><b>186</b> · <i>Batting it up to Torchy</i> — Someone junior must carry to the boss the resignation of an honest colleague who refused the boss&#x27;s own crooked order.</summary><p class="sum">Though resigning will leave him jobless and at his son-in-law&#x27;s mercy, he signs the resignation; Torchy admires his nerve and delivers it to the top boss.</p></details><details><summary><b>314</b> · <i>Gloom Shunting For The Boss</i> — The boss fires off an insulting message to a partner the firm cannot do without, and those below him can only watch.</summary><p class="sum">Amid slumping stock and strikes, the gout-ridden boss quarrels with the firm&#x27;s indispensable ore partner and wires him to &#x27;go sew his head in a bag&#x27;; Torchy shows the message to the head clerk, who is appalled.</p></details><details><summary><b>315</b> · <i>Gloom Shunting For The Boss</i> — Everyone agrees the boss&#x27;s rash message should not go out, but nobody dares tell him, and the fallout lands on those below.</summary><p class="sum">Nobody dares tell the boss not to send it; the partner threatens to resign and stir up a revolt, then the boss falls ill with flu and is confined at home, leaving Mr. Robert frantic.</p></details><details><summary><b>317</b> · <i>Gloom Shunting For The Boss</i> — A raging boss orders someone junior to carry out a reckless command that the boss hasn&#x27;t the nerve to do himself.</summary><p class="sum">The boss rants about being a useless old wreck; Torchy teases that his temper is mostly bluff, which pleases him, and is then ordered to throw all his medicines out of the window.</p></details><details><summary><b>459</b> · <i>How Whity Gunked The Plot</i> — A struggling man is ordered by a new boss to praise someone he knows is a fraud, or lose his job.</summary><p class="sum">The reporter has just been assigned to cover the poet&#x27;s tea party, and bitterly says the poet is his own invention, a joke he built up in print, and his new editor is taking the fraud seriously.</p></details></section><section><h2>G31 · Pumped for what you know</h2>
<p class="pred">Someone friendly, or someone official, is asking you questions, and what you know belongs to someone else.</p>
<p class="meta">A junior wants to be obliging without betraying anyone from a questioner. · 7 scenes from 4 stories
(Getting in with the Glory Be, Shunting Brother Bill, First Aid for the Main Stem, Torchy In On The Draw) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Stall them, then tell the boss. <span class='src'>from scene 9</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>savvy +</code></li><li>Enjoy the treats and chatter on. <span class='src'>from scene 71</span><br><code>relationships.friend -</code> <code>savvy -</code> <code>flags.let_slip set</code></li><li>Tell the truth, for the fun of shocking them. <span class='src'>from scene 153</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.boss risk</code> <code>flags.let_slip set</code></li><li>Ask who they are before you say a word. <span class='src'>filled gap</span><br><code>savvy +</code></li><li>Say nothing at all. <span class='src'>archetype</span><br><code>relationships.questioner -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>9</b> · <i>Getting in with the Glory Be</i> — Someone junior left alone fends off an official&#x27;s questions about the business and proudly reports it to the boss.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy watches the boss&#x27;s moods follow the mail; after a slack spell with only a complaining investor writing in, a federal investigator comes round asking questions, and Torchy stalls him and tells the boss.</p></details><details><summary><b>69</b> · <i>Shunting Brother Bill</i> — A suspicious elder treats someone junior like a thief, then turns suddenly sweet on learning who he is.</summary><p class="sum">Delivering a note to the groom&#x27;s house, Torchy is treated as a likely thief by the sharp-eyed aunt until she learns who he is, when she abruptly turns sweet.</p></details><details><summary><b>70</b> · <i>Shunting Brother Bill</i> — Someone junior is plied with treats and flattery by a hostile elder, and is too busy enjoying them to see the motive.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt sits him down with cake and lemonade and flatters him with praise from the couple, then begins asking about the bride.</p></details><details><summary><b>71</b> · <i>Shunting Brother Bill</i> — Someone junior realises too late he has been pumped dry of a friend&#x27;s secrets by a hostile elder who wants to stop a marriage.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy lets slip everything he knows about the bride&#x27;s background; the aunt telephones people in her home town, learns the bride has a brother in the state penitentiary, and shows Torchy out.</p></details><details><summary><b>153</b> · <i>First Aid for the Main Stem</i> — Someone junior, chatting at home, lets slip the big boss&#x27;s worst private habit to one of the boss&#x27;s own relatives.</summary><p class="sum">The pious sister starts on his moral training and asks if he swears; he says he gave it up after hearing the top boss, her cousin, swear like an artist when his gout is bad, and she is shocked.</p></details><details><summary><b>332</b> · <i>Torchy In On The Draw</i> — Someone junior who has embarrassed himself retreats, only to be challenged by a cranky stranger demanding who he is.</summary><p class="sum">The artist looks puzzled and the sister stifles giggles, so Torchy retreats downstairs to a room full of hunting trophies, where a sunburnt old man in a wheelchair rolls in and demands to know who he is.</p></details><details><summary><b>333</b> · <i>Torchy In On The Draw</i> — Someone junior chats freely to a stranger and realises too late he has betrayed a secret the family was keeping from him.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy breezily tells the old man he has just bought a painting at the artist&#x27;s sale upstairs; the old man, clearly angry at this news, has the butler summon the couple and blocks Torchy from leaving.</p></details></section><section><h2>G32 · Covering for the boss&#x27;s absence</h2>
<p class="pred">Someone above you has gone off on private business just when he is needed, and you are the one left to cover for him.</p>
<p class="meta">A junior wants to protect him without lying outright from those asking where he is. · 10 scenes from 4 stories
(Keeping Tabs on Piddie, In on the Oolong, When Ella May Came By, Some Hoop-la for the Boss) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Tell a kindly cover story. <span class='src'>from scene 85</span><br><code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>flags.covered set</code></li><li>Pay out of your own pocket so nobody is let down. <span class='src'>from scene 86</span><br><code>money -</code> <code>relationships.family +</code></li><li>Quietly do his forgotten duty yourself. <span class='src'>from scene 170</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>flags.covered set</code></li><li>Tell the one asking the truth, lightly. <span class='src'>from scene 710</span><br><code>relationships.boss risk</code> <code>standing +</code></li><li>Say you do not know where he is. <span class='src'>archetype</span><br><code>relationships.boss -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>84</b> · <i>Keeping Tabs on Piddie</i> — While a superior is off gambling in secret, his trusting family turn up at the workplace looking for him.</summary><p class="sum">While he is out his gentle wife and small son arrive to take him shopping; Torchy makes friends with the boy and wonders how such a man won such a wife.</p></details><details><summary><b>85</b> · <i>Keeping Tabs on Piddie</i> — Someone junior covers for an absent superior to his family, and the wife takes the cover story as proof of his importance.</summary><p class="sum">The boy is promised new shoes; Torchy, a poor liar, tells the wife her husband is busy with a big deal downtown, and she glows with pride.</p></details><details><summary><b>86</b> · <i>Keeping Tabs on Piddie</i> — Someone junior quietly pays out of his own pocket so a superior&#x27;s child will not be disappointed.</summary><p class="sum">Rather than disappoint the boy, Torchy slips ten dollars of his own into an envelope as if from the father; the secretary returns sweating and wretched.</p></details><details><summary><b>166</b> · <i>In on the Oolong</i> — Someone junior reasons from small clues that the boss&#x27;s heir has skipped work to court someone.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy phones the son&#x27;s valet, learns he left in formal afternoon dress, and concludes it is a social call; the boss guesses it is the young violinist he has been neglecting business for, and Torchy finds a cryptic appointment on the son&#x27;s desk pad.</p></details><details><summary><b>169</b> · <i>In on the Oolong</i> — Someone junior reaches the boss&#x27;s heir with an urgent message, and the heir refuses to leave the person he is courting.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy retreats, creeps round the veranda to the son, who is gazing at the violinist, and whispers the contract warning; the son says he cannot possibly leave in the middle of her performance.</p></details><details><summary><b>170</b> · <i>In on the Oolong</i> — Someone junior quietly takes a superior&#x27;s forgotten duty on himself so the superior can stay where he wants to be.</summary><p class="sum">The son says where the contracts are; Torchy offers to phone the office to deal with it, and is told to wait in the garden until the concert ends.</p></details><details><summary><b>176</b> · <i>In on the Oolong</i> — Someone junior quietly covers the heir&#x27;s lapse, then learns the sweetheart who remembered him is a wealthy heiress.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy says he had the secretary send the contracts quietly so the son need only act innocent; her photograph arrives, the pious sister disapproves, and the widow identifies the girl as a family friend&#x27;s heiress and buys a silver frame.</p></details><details><summary><b>709</b> · <i>When Ella May Came By</i> — The old head, fed up with his heir&#x27;s absences, asks the junior who knows all about his son&#x27;s courtship how it is going.</summary><p class="sum">With the boss&#x27;s son neglecting work to court the singer, the old boss grumbles at his absence and asks Torchy how long the romance will take; Torchy says he is doing well now.</p></details><details><summary><b>710</b> · <i>When Ella May Came By</i> — Someone junior, asked by the old head to forecast the heir&#x27;s romance, reports a family plot to leave the couple alone.</summary><p class="sum">The old boss asks, drily, when his son might return to business; Torchy predicts a crisis at the boss&#x27;s daughter&#x27;s weekend house party, where the couple are to be left alone together.</p></details><details><summary><b>722</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — A boss&#x27;s heir arrives giddy with personal news just as angry backers gather, blaming his neglect for a business loss.</summary><p class="sum">They blame the often-absent boss&#x27;s son for the loss of a vital ship charter and want him to resign; he breezes in, beaming, to tell Torchy the singer has accepted him, and Torchy warns him of the angry group.</p></details></section><section><h2>G33 · Someone wants to trade on your access</h2>
<p class="pred">Because you sit near the powerful, a stranger or an old acquaintance wants you to open a door, pass on a word or lend your name.</p>
<p class="meta">A trusted insider wants to stay trusted from someone who wants access. · 11 scenes from 3 stories
(The Passing By Of Bunny, Torchy Takes a Chance, Sifting Out Uncle Bill) · stage <b>middle</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Check with the one they claim to know before you pay a cent. <span class='src'>from scene 385</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.boss +</code></li><li>Brush them off with a joke. <span class='src'>from scene 510</span><br><code>cheek +</code></li><li>Shadow them to see what they are really after. <span class='src'>from scene 511</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.boss +</code></li><li>Ask who told them you were such an easy mark. <span class='src'>from scene 649</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.stranger -</code></li><li>Do the favour; it costs you nothing. <span class='src'>filled gap</span><br><code>relationships.stranger +</code> <code>relationships.boss risk</code> <code>flags.lent_name set</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>383</b> · <i>The Passing By Of Bunny</i> — Someone junior on an errand is accosted by a ragged stranger who claims to be an old friend of the boss&#x27;s relative.</summary><p class="sum">Leaving the club with Mr. Robert&#x27;s reply, Torchy is followed by a ragged, drink-smelling beggar who claims to be an old friend of &#x27;Bob Ellins&#x27; and knows the club doorman&#x27;s name.</p></details><details><summary><b>384</b> · <i>The Passing By Of Bunny</i> — A down-and-out stranger begs someone junior for money on the strength of a friendship with the boss&#x27;s relative.</summary><p class="sum">The beggar says he is too ashamed to face Mr. Robert himself and asks Torchy for five dollars, then two, then fifty cents, giving a name to pass on; Torchy stalls and goes to send the message while the man waits.</p></details><details><summary><b>385</b> · <i>The Passing By Of Bunny</i> — Unsure whether a beggar&#x27;s claim of knowing the boss&#x27;s relative is true, someone junior checks with the relative before paying.</summary><p class="sum">Unsure whether to believe him, Torchy phones Mr. Robert, who is shocked that his friend should be begging and says he will come at once, telling Torchy to hold the man and say nothing.</p></details><details><summary><b>509</b> · <i>Torchy Takes a Chance</i> — Someone newly raised to the boss&#x27;s side is courted by a shady acquaintance angling for inside information.</summary><p class="sum">He tells the boss&#x27;s son, who is worried by it; then a flashy small-time broker Torchy knows fishes for inside information from his new post and asks where the rival firm&#x27;s offices are.</p></details><details><summary><b>510</b> · <i>Torchy Takes a Chance</i> — Someone junior brushes off a shady acquaintance&#x27;s probing and grows suspicious of the excuse he gives for being around.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy brushes him off with a joke and the broker leaves, claiming he is only visiting a cousin who keeps books for the rival firm.</p></details><details><summary><b>511</b> · <i>Torchy Takes a Chance</i> — Someone curious shadows a suspicious acquaintance, retrieves a torn-up secret message, and pieces it together over lunch.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy tails him, sees a stranger slip him a note, which he reads and tears up; Torchy fishes the pieces from the wastebasket and reassembles a cryptic message naming the rival firm&#x27;s two leaders.</p></details><details><summary><b>646</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — Someone newly settled in authority is visited by a shabby-genteel stranger who asks for him by his old childhood nickname.</summary><p class="sum">Soon after his elderly aunt&#x27;s elopement, a stranger in a seedy raincoat with a flashy cane calls at the office asking for Torchy by his nickname, and settles in with a charming smile.</p></details><details><summary><b>647</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — A smooth stranger who assumes the newly promoted man handles big deals tries to pitch him a speculative scheme.</summary><p class="sum">The stranger, admiring the office, says he has a proposition in municipal franchises; Torchy says the firm does not deal in such things.</p></details><details><summary><b>648</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — A smooth talker insists his speculative schemes are the genuine kind, unlike those of all the other hawkers.</summary><p class="sum">The man describes himself as a legitimate promoter who does the hard work of setting up transport franchises in southern towns.</p></details><details><summary><b>649</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — Someone newly placed near the powerful is asked by a stranger to lend his name as an introduction to rich men.</summary><p class="sum">He complains no one with money will see him and asks Torchy simply to introduce him to wealthy men; Torchy asks who told him he was such an easy mark.</p></details><details><summary><b>653</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — A long-lost relative offers to reveal someone&#x27;s family history only in exchange for a loan and useful introductions.</summary><p class="sum">The man offers to tell Torchy about his family only after Torchy lends him two hundred dollars and introduces him to rich investors; Torchy stalls and invites him home.</p></details></section><section><h2>G34 · The boss in a temper</h2>
<p class="pred">The boss is raging, the whole place is afraid of him, and you have to go in anyway.</p>
<p class="meta">A junior wants to get through it, or bring him round from a raging boss. · 9 scenes from 5 stories
(Where Mildred Got Next, In on the Oolong, Breezing By With Peggy, Gloom Shunting For The Boss, Torchy Tackles a Short Circuit) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Take your time, and refuse to be rattled. <span class='src'>from scene 164</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.boss risk</code></li><li>Tease him that his temper is mostly bluff. <span class='src'>from scene 317 <span class="warn">(outside this group)</span></span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.boss +</code></li><li>Walk in as calm as a guest. <span class='src'>from scene 55</span><br><code>standing +</code> <code>relationships.boss +</code></li><li>Find him something else to do. <span class='src'>from scene 318</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.boss +</code> <code>money -</code></li><li>Keep out of his way until it blows over. <span class='src'>archetype</span><br><code>relationships.boss -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>55</b> · <i>Where Mildred Got Next</i> — Someone at the bottom is summoned to face the angry boss over sloppy work, and walks in as calm as a guest.</summary><p class="sum">The furious top boss sends Torchy to fetch whoever typed a badly misspelled letter; she comes along perfectly calm, as if invited to tea, while Torchy promises to defend her.</p></details><details><summary><b>56</b> · <i>Where Mildred Got Next</i> — An angry boss about to tear into a careless subordinate is disarmed by her poise and good looks.</summary><p class="sum">The boss starts to roar about her spelling, looks up, sees how striking she is and loses his temper entirely; she calmly complains that his marks mean she must retype it.</p></details><details><summary><b>164</b> · <i>In on the Oolong</i> — When the boss throws the whole place into a panic, someone junior refuses to be rattled and strolls in unhurried.</summary><p class="sum">After a quiet week the top boss suddenly throws the office into a panic, grilling every department head in turn; Torchy, unimpressed after his newspaper days, takes his time answering the boss&#x27;s shouts.</p></details><details><summary><b>165</b> · <i>In on the Oolong</i> — The boss, desperate to find his absent heir before a deadline, turns in frustration to someone junior for ideas.</summary><p class="sum">The boss asks if Torchy knows where his son is, admits the company will lose a lot of money unless the son is found by four-thirty, and grudgingly lets Torchy think about it.</p></details><details><summary><b>305</b> · <i>Breezing By With Peggy</i> — The boss&#x27;s young dependents ask for nothing but thank him, and one&#x27;s bold affection disarms a man known for his temper.</summary><p class="sum">The young people say they only came to thank him for managing their late father&#x27;s small estate; the girl suddenly hugs the boss and kisses his bald head, and instead of exploding he softens.</p></details><details><summary><b>316</b> · <i>Gloom Shunting For The Boss</i> — Someone junior is sent to a sick, furious boss precisely because he is the one person who sometimes improves his mood.</summary><p class="sum">Mr. Robert sends Torchy to the boss&#x27;s house with papers, partly because Torchy tends to cheer the old man up; Torchy finds him limping about the library in a rage.</p></details><details><summary><b>318</b> · <i>Gloom Shunting For The Boss</i> — A bored, ailing boss demands that someone junior find him an occupation, then makes him carry out his own vague suggestion.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy smashes all the medicine in the areaway; the boss, bored and miserable after four days indoors, demands something to do, and when Torchy suggests games he is sent off with twenty dollars to buy some.</p></details><details><summary><b>319</b> · <i>Gloom Shunting For The Boss</i> — Someone junior returns from a strange errand to face an outraged professional, and the boss turns the matter into a joke.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy buys a heap of toys with a salesman&#x27;s help and returns to find the doctor furious about the medicines; the boss cuts him off by showing off &#x27;Torchy&#x27;s drug substitute&#x27;.</p></details><details><summary><b>687</b> · <i>Torchy Tackles a Short Circuit</i> — Someone junior who meddled in the boss&#x27;s private life is frozen out with wounded silence and has no chance to apologise.</summary><p class="sum">For three days the boss&#x27;s son has treated Torchy with cold, injured dignity over the roses; then a tactless, fat club friend of the boss&#x27;s son drops into the office.</p></details></section><section><h2>G35 · A benefactor who wants to run your life</h2>
<p class="pred">Someone who supports you, a rich relative or a parent, has decided what work and what marriage are good for you.</p>
<p class="meta">A dependent wants to live their own way from a controlling benefactor. · 9 scenes from 3 stories
(Torchy Bugs The System, Torchy In On The Draw, Merry Dodges A Dead Heat) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Walk away from the money. <span class='src'>from scene 335</span><br><code>money -</code> <code>relationships.benefactor risk</code> <code>flags.walked_away set</code></li><li>Own the deception, and leave with a handshake. <span class='src'>from scene 336</span><br><code>relationships.benefactor +</code> <code>money -</code></li><li>Stay at the dreary work and tell yourself you deserve no better. <span class='src'>from scene 371</span><br><code>money +</code> <code>standing -</code></li><li>Keep your real work secret under their roof. <span class='src'>from scene 334</span><br><code>relationships.benefactor -</code> <code>flags.secret_work set</code></li><li>Ask them what they are afraid you will become. <span class='src'>filled gap</span><br><code>relationships.benefactor +</code> <code>savvy +</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>300</b> · <i>Torchy Bugs The System</i> — Someone junior who did too well at a paid favour finds his honest report has ended both the arrangement and his friend&#x27;s reform.</summary><p class="sum">The newcomer&#x27;s father arrives and takes him away: the mother, alarmed by the company he keeps, has him sent abroad for a year, and Torchy realises his own glowing report cost him the job.</p></details><details><summary><b>334</b> · <i>Torchy In On The Draw</i> — A rich guardian confronts the young couple he supports after learning they have secretly defied his wishes under his roof.</summary><p class="sum">The old man is the wife&#x27;s rich invalid uncle; he confronts the couple for running a studio and sales in his house against his wishes, and the wife says painting is her husband&#x27;s life&#x27;s work.</p></details><details><summary><b>335</b> · <i>Torchy In On The Draw</i> — A dependent told to give up his calling or lose his benefactor&#x27;s support calmly chooses to walk away.</summary><p class="sum">The uncle says painting is not man&#x27;s work and gives them a choice: stop or leave; the artist calmly chooses to leave, and the wife tells the uncle she hates him for his nagging suspicion.</p></details><details><summary><b>336</b> · <i>Torchy In On The Draw</i> — A dependent who deceived his benefactor owns up honestly, admits he was ungrateful, and prepares to leave with dignity.</summary><p class="sum">The artist apologises for deceiving the uncle, says he could not live idly on his money, and prepares to leave at once with a handshake.</p></details><details><summary><b>337</b> · <i>Torchy In On The Draw</i> — A harsh benefactor, faced with honest defiance, admits his bitterness and selfishness and asks the young people to forgive him.</summary><p class="sum">The uncle, won over by the young man&#x27;s spine, admits he has been selfish and bitter since being crippled after a lifetime of exploring, asks forgiveness, and the wife embraces him.</p></details><details><summary><b>370</b> · <i>Merry Dodges A Dead Heat</i> — Someone who grew up idle and privileged lost everything at once and had to be rescued by a hard-headed relative.</summary><p class="sum">The clerk explains he was raised in luxury abroad until his father&#x27;s business collapsed and both parents died, leaving him penniless; his shrewd aunt, who saved her fortune and made more in property, rescued him.</p></details><details><summary><b>371</b> · <i>Merry Dodges A Dead Heat</i> — A dependent kept at dreary work by a strict benefactor sees no way out and believes he deserves nothing better.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt insists he work at something steady, so he is stuck in a dull clerk&#x27;s job he hates and feels he deserves; he adds that two large spinster neighbours are coming to dinner.</p></details><details><summary><b>372</b> · <i>Merry Dodges A Dead Heat</i> — A timid man admits his guardian is pushing a match on him, and insists he could never bring himself to propose.</summary><p class="sum">He blushingly admits his aunt is matchmaking between him and the neighbours, but says he could never marry or propose, being such a duffer, then abruptly clams up.</p></details><details><summary><b>374</b> · <i>Merry Dodges A Dead Heat</i> — A guardian sees her matchmaking going badly and quietly takes steps to loosen up her shy young relative.</summary><p class="sum">Dinner is stiff and dull; the aunt, seeing her plan stalling, has champagne opened and makes her nephew drink, while turning down Torchy&#x27;s glass.</p></details></section><section><h2>G36 · Taken in by someone richer</h2>
<p class="pred">Someone older and richer has taken you in, and you must decide how much of their generosity, and their rules, to accept.</p>
<p class="meta">A young person taken in wants a home without losing themselves from a benefactor. · 10 scenes from 4 stories
(Landing on a Side Street, First Aid for the Main Stem, Zenobia Digs Up a Late One, How Aunty Got the News) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Come back when you could have run. <span class='src'>from scene 147</span><br><code>relationships.benefactor +</code></li><li>Be yourself at their table, irreverence and all. <span class='src'>from scene 149</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.benefactor +</code></li><li>Side with the lively one against the pious one. <span class='src'>from scene 638</span><br><code>relationships.benefactor +</code> <code>relationships.household -</code></li><li>Take the gift on its thin pretext. <span class='src'>from scene 664</span><br><code>relationships.benefactor +</code> <code>relationships.sweetheart +</code></li><li>Insist on paying your own way. <span class='src'>filled gap</span><br><code>money -</code> <code>standing +</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>147</b> · <i>Landing on a Side Street</i> — A shrewd elder gives a suspicious stranger an easy chance to run away, to see whether he comes back.</summary><p class="sum">She questions him and learns he is an orphan with no lodging who works at the trust; she lets him fetch his bags alone to see if he will run, and he comes back, saying he trusted her to be fair.</p></details><details><summary><b>148</b> · <i>Landing on a Side Street</i> — Someone homeless who passed a character test is invited into a wealthy elder&#x27;s home and given a lost son&#x27;s rooms.</summary><p class="sum">Pleased, the grandmother, a widow, invites him to dinner over her pious sister&#x27;s protests and lets him wash up in her absent son&#x27;s rooms, kept unchanged for twenty years.</p></details><details><summary><b>149</b> · <i>Landing on a Side Street</i> — Someone from the bottom dines at a wealthy table and finds the old hostess livelier and less stuffy than he expected.</summary><p class="sum">Left unwatched among valuables, Torchy enjoys a fine dinner, blunders only over grace, and finds the grandmother a lively free-thinker who scorns churches, charity and society.</p></details><details><summary><b>150</b> · <i>Landing on a Side Street</i> — Someone at the bottom learns the eccentric elder who took him in is related to the man at the top of his firm.</summary><p class="sum">She says she collects unbelievers of every kind for dinner-table argument and laughs at his irreverence; he tells her he is homeless, and next day learns from the boss&#x27;s son that she is the top boss&#x27;s cousin.</p></details><details><summary><b>152</b> · <i>First Aid for the Main Stem</i> — Someone taken into an elderly household finds one host lively and the other set on saving his soul.</summary><p class="sum">Now boarding with the elderly widow, Torchy gets on well with her lively ways, and describes her old-fashioned, deeply pious sister, who has started including him in her prayers.</p></details><details><summary><b>636</b> · <i>Zenobia Digs Up a Late One</i> — Someone risen from nothing still lives with the elderly benefactors who took him in off the street years before.</summary><p class="sum">A week later Torchy is at the theatre with one of the two elderly ladies who took him into their home years ago; he describes their old-fashioned house.</p></details><details><summary><b>637</b> · <i>Zenobia Digs Up a Late One</i> — Someone taken in by two elderly sisters describes how differently each one looks after him, one pious and one worldly.</summary><p class="sum">He describes his two adopted aunts: one slow and relentlessly pious, who reads scripture to him twice a week, and the other lively and modern.</p></details><details><summary><b>638</b> · <i>Zenobia Digs Up a Late One</i> — An elderly benefactor treats a young man she took in as an equal, and joins him in teasing her stuffier sister.</summary><p class="sum">The lively aunt goes to concerts and radical meetings, looks after his clothes without preaching, talks to him as an equal, and joins him in teasing her sister.</p></details><details><summary><b>663</b> · <i>How Aunty Got the News</i> — Someone newly claimed by a long-lost relative finds the gruff old man is warm and playful underneath.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy finds his new great-uncle gruff on the surface but boyish and kind, teasing the pious aunt at breakfast and disguising his good turns with jokes.</p></details><details><summary><b>664</b> · <i>How Aunty Got the News</i> — A generous relative hands a young man a luxury on a thin pretext, hinting he should share it with his sweetheart.</summary><p class="sum">The uncle surprises his bride with an expensive car and chauffeur, then asks Torchy to take the car out for the afternoon to keep the chauffeur happy, hinting he might take a companion.</p></details></section><section><h2>G37 · Helping a couple against the family</h2>
<p class="pred">A couple you know want to marry, and someone in the family is set on stopping it.</p>
<p class="meta">A ally of the couple wants to see them married from a family elder who forbids it. · 9 scenes from 4 stories
(Shunting Brother Bill, Throwing the Line to Skid, Showing Gilkey the Way, Zenobia Digs Up a Late One) · stage <b>middle</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Stand by the couple against the elder. <span class='src'>from scene 73</span><br><code>relationships.couple +</code> <code>relationships.elder -</code></li><li>Let the elder see them together, and soften. <span class='src'>from scene 197</span><br><code>relationships.couple +</code> <code>relationships.elder +</code></li><li>Keep the elder distracted while the couple act. <span class='src'>from scene 543</span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.elder risk</code></li><li>Give them your blessing after the fact. <span class='src'>from scene 645</span><br><code>relationships.couple +</code></li><li>Stay out of family business. <span class='src'>archetype</span><br><code>relationships.elder +</code> <code>relationships.couple -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>72</b> · <i>Shunting Brother Bill</i> — A disapproving relative uncovers a scandal in a bride&#x27;s family, but the timid groom surprises everyone by standing firm.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt finds the brother&#x27;s penitentiary address on the guest list and asks the boss&#x27;s son to break the match; the shy groom refuses flatly, and the son backs him.</p></details><details><summary><b>73</b> · <i>Shunting Brother Bill</i> — A relative who fears losing her household position fights a marriage, and the groom&#x27;s friend stands by the couple anyway.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt, who fears losing her place running the groom&#x27;s household, berates the boss&#x27;s son by telephone; he stands by the couple, and a small quiet noon wedding goes ahead.</p></details><details><summary><b>197</b> · <i>Throwing the Line to Skid</i> — A formal visit from disapproving in-laws collapses into a tearful family reunion in a cramped doorway.</summary><p class="sum">The friend answers in his shirtsleeves; the bride runs from the kitchen in a party dress and apron and throws herself on her mother, upsetting the senator&#x27;s plan for a short formal call.</p></details><details><summary><b>541</b> · <i>Showing Gilkey the Way</i> — A guest in a grand house senses the family on edge and learns a forbidden romance is behind it.</summary><p class="sum">The hostess and her daughter seem jumpy, his sweetheart stays out of sight with the other girls, and the son-in-law tells Torchy a man is the cause.</p></details><details><summary><b>542</b> · <i>Showing Gilkey the Way</i> — A household tiptoes around a domineering father because the young man he banished has vowed to come back.</summary><p class="sum">The daughter&#x27;s young engineer sweetheart, once thrown out and banned by her tyrannical father, has sent word he will try again; nobody dares tell the father.</p></details><details><summary><b>543</b> · <i>Showing Gilkey the Way</i> — A household hiding a secret from its tyrant must keep him distracted when a noise outside threatens to give it away.</summary><p class="sum">At a jolly dinner, a crash of glass outside alarms everyone but the host; his wife soothes him and goes to look herself.</p></details><details><summary><b>549</b> · <i>Showing Gilkey the Way</i> — A bully whose roaring has always worked meets someone who does not flinch, and the whole household sees him beaten.</summary><p class="sum">The father collapses into a chair beaten while the women feed the suitor; his wife coaxes him with cigars and news that the wedding is put off two weeks.</p></details><details><summary><b>644</b> · <i>Zenobia Digs Up a Late One</i> — A pious sister waits in dread, and learns her lively sibling has run off with the old flame she once thwarted.</summary><p class="sum">She shoos him out at midnight; next day the pious sister waits grimly, the lively one fails to come home to dinner, and a telegram announces the two have eloped.</p></details><details><summary><b>645</b> · <i>Zenobia Digs Up a Late One</i> — Someone who once stopped a relative&#x27;s elopement learns, forty years later, that the lovers have finally done it anyway.</summary><p class="sum">The pious sister sobs that forty years ago she stopped the same pair eloping when her sister was engaged to a clergyman; Torchy gives the elderly couple his blessing.</p></details></section><section><h2>G38 · A love let slip, and one more chance</h2>
<p class="pred">You let someone you loved drift away, through pride, work or neglect, and a last chance to see them has come.</p>
<p class="meta">A former suitor wants them back from the one who got away. · 15 scenes from 4 stories
(Throwing the Line to Skid, When Ira Showed Some Pep, Zenobia Digs Up a Late One, Mr. Robert and a Certain Party) · stage <b>low</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Go, and marry them that same night. <span class='src'>from scene 193</span><br><code>relationships.lost_love +</code> <code>money risk</code></li><li>Wait for them in the cold, however long it takes. <span class='src'>from scene 284</span><br><code>relationships.lost_love risk</code> <code>standing -</code></li><li>Tell yourself it is hopeless and put their picture away. <span class='src'>from scene 677</span><br><code>relationships.lost_love -</code></li><li>Turn up at their door and ask whether they are still themselves. <span class='src'>from scene 641</span><br><code>relationships.lost_love +</code> <code>cheek +</code></li><li>Give the ring to someone who waited for you instead. <span class='src'>from scene 286 <span class="warn">(outside this group)</span></span><br><code>relationships.lost_love -</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>192</b> · <i>Throwing the Line to Skid</i> — A struggling young man who let his sweetheart drift away learns she is in town for one last evening before leaving.</summary><p class="sum">He has been saving hard, skipping social life and teaching immigrants in the evenings; she stopped writing when he gave no reason, but she is now in town for a farewell dance before sailing, and he is invited.</p></details><details><summary><b>193</b> · <i>Throwing the Line to Skid</i> — Someone who swore to stay away from a sweetheart above his station turns up next morning having married her.</summary><p class="sum">He decides not to go, but next morning appears beaming in formal dress and tells Torchy he has just married her.</p></details><details><summary><b>279</b> · <i>When Ira Showed Some Pep</i> — A reserved visitor confides to someone junior that he is searching for an old sweetheart who left home to seek fame.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy teases him about chasing a chorus girl; the visitor says she is an old friend who was a waitress back home under another name, and that he has to find her.</p></details><details><summary><b>280</b> · <i>When Ira Showed Some Pep</i> — A man admits he lost the girl he loved because he was too busy building his business to propose in time.</summary><p class="sum">The visitor explains that he courted the waitress for months but was too busy with his newly bought business to propose in time.</p></details><details><summary><b>281</b> · <i>When Ira Showed Some Pep</i> — A man whose neglect drove his sweetheart away has come to the city with a ring, hoping it is not too late.</summary><p class="sum">On a night he forgot a date with her, she left with a friend to audition for a city show and was hired; he has had no word from her since, and has now bought a ring to offer her.</p></details><details><summary><b>283</b> · <i>When Ira Showed Some Pep</i> — A suitor sends a note to his former sweetheart and learns she brushed it aside for a wealthy admirer&#x27;s invitation.</summary><p class="sum">Undaunted, the visitor wants to offer her the ring; an usher friend of Torchy&#x27;s takes a note backstage, but she tosses it aside unread and is off to a late supper with a wealthy admirer.</p></details><details><summary><b>284</b> · <i>When Ira Showed Some Pep</i> — A rejected suitor refuses to give up and waits outside in the cold for her, and someone junior loyally waits with him.</summary><p class="sum">Barred from the fancy supper club for lack of evening clothes, the visitor insists on waiting outside for her, and Torchy stays with him while the night&#x27;s crowd comes and goes.</p></details><details><summary><b>285</b> · <i>When Ira Showed Some Pep</i> — A faithful suitor finally faces his old sweetheart, now on a rich man&#x27;s arm, and she laughs in his face.</summary><p class="sum">After midnight she comes out on the arm of the old rich man; the visitor steps up to explain himself, and she recognises him and laughs coldly in his face.</p></details><details><summary><b>639</b> · <i>Zenobia Digs Up a Late One</i> — An older woman out with her young companion notices a stranger staring at her, and jokes that she has an admirer.</summary><p class="sum">At the play a man in a box keeps watching them through opera glasses; the aunt jokes she has an admirer.</p></details><details><summary><b>640</b> · <i>Zenobia Digs Up a Late One</i> — Someone junior finds his nominal superior on his doorstep late at night, asking eagerly about the woman he lives with.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy recognises the watcher as his absentee figurehead boss; at home, as Torchy returns with late-night sausage sandwiches, the old man arrives in a taxi and asks about the lady.</p></details><details><summary><b>641</b> · <i>Zenobia Digs Up a Late One</i> — An old admirer tracks down a woman he loved forty years ago and nervously asks whether she is still herself.</summary><p class="sum">The old man asks whether she is still lively and whether her sister is alive; the aunt calls him in, and they meet for the first time in forty years.</p></details><details><summary><b>642</b> · <i>Zenobia Digs Up a Late One</i> — Two old sweethearts meet again over a midnight snack and banter, circling a night they both remember.</summary><p class="sum">The three eat sausage sandwiches with beer; the aunt teases him, and he recalls an August night long ago.</p></details><details><summary><b>643</b> · <i>Zenobia Digs Up a Late One</i> — An old flame still holds a grudge against the relative who parted them, while the woman laughs it off.</summary><p class="sum">They toast that night; he says he has never forgiven her pious sister for what she did then, and he hints why he acted as he did long ago.</p></details><details><summary><b>676</b> · <i>Mr. Robert and a Certain Party</i> — Someone junior stumbles on the boss&#x27;s old heartbreak and cannot believe any woman would have turned him down.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s son blushes and admits she jilted him, not the reverse; Torchy is astonished, since he is one of the most eligible bachelors in town.</p></details><details><summary><b>677</b> · <i>Mr. Robert and a Certain Party</i> — A boss caught mooning over an old love brushes it off as hopeless, while his junior sees he has not forgotten.</summary><p class="sum">He dwells fondly on her face, then declares it hopeless and tells Torchy to put the dusty case back in the drawer or the wastebasket.</p></details></section><section><h2>G39 · A snob shown up</h2>
<p class="pred">Someone around you looks down on a humble person you have reason to think is worth far more, and the truth is about to come out.</p>
<p class="meta">A onlooker wants to see the snob put right from a snob and the person they scorn. · 18 scenes from 6 stories
(Shunting Brother Bill, Torchy Bugs The System, Late Returns On Popover, Getting a Jolt from Westy, Teamwork with Aunty, Some Hoop-la for the Boss) · stage <b>middle</b></p>
<h3>Options</h3><ol><li>Mock the snob for it. <span class='src'>from scene 357</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.snob -</code></li><li>Rub it in once the truth is out. <span class='src'>from scene 366</span><br><code>cheek +</code> <code>relationships.snob -</code> <code>standing +</code></li><li>Hand the snob to the one person who can show them up. <span class='src'>from scene 78 <span class="warn">(outside this group)</span></span><br><code>savvy +</code> <code>relationships.snob -</code></li><li>Refuse to join the sneering. <span class='src'>from scene 294 <span class="warn">(outside this group)</span></span><br><code>relationships.snob risk</code> <code>relationships.humble +</code></li><li>Let the snob find out for themselves. <span class='src'>archetype</span><br><code>savvy +</code></li></ol>
<h3>Scenes</h3><details><summary><b>79</b> · <i>Shunting Brother Bill</i> — An accuser demands a stranger confess his shameful past, and a respected newcomer walks in and greets him as a friend.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt demands how long since he got out of prison; the bewildered brother is rescued when a visiting clergyman arrives and greets him warmly as an old friend.</p></details><details><summary><b>80</b> · <i>Shunting Brother Bill</i> — A supposed disgrace in the family turns out to be honourable work, leaving the accuser grovelling and the meddler sheepish.</summary><p class="sum">The brother turns out to be a minister serving as a prison chaplain; the aunt grovels, Torchy gets him back in time for the end of the wedding, and the brother bears no grudge.</p></details><details><summary><b>287</b> · <i>Torchy Bugs The System</i> — Someone junior makes a friendly offer to a snobbish newcomer on the same pay, and gets coldly snubbed for it.</summary><p class="sum">A snobbish new junior clerk in the bond room, a rich man&#x27;s son, coldly snubs Torchy&#x27;s friendly offer to show him a cheap lunch place, saying he lunches at his club.</p></details><details><summary><b>293</b> · <i>Torchy Bugs The System</i> — Someone junior lends a broke, snobbish colleague money, and has to hear him sneer at the ordinary people around them.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy stakes him to lunch and refuses his stickpin as security; the newcomer sneers at the cheap, crowded lunch places and the working people in them.</p></details><details><summary><b>298</b> · <i>Torchy Bugs The System</i> — A former snob discovers that the humble people he refused to speak to are more interesting than he imagined.</summary><p class="sum">Within two weeks the newcomer is enthusing about his fellow boarders: a hard-working aspiring cartoonist and an old man who has travelled the world.</p></details><details><summary><b>357</b> · <i>Late Returns On Popover</i> — A snobbish supervisor sneers at a humble worker waiting in the lobby, and someone junior mocks him for it.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy lets him wait on the bench; the head clerk sneers that waiters are the spineless scum of mankind, and Torchy mocks his snobbery.</p></details><details><summary><b>363</b> · <i>Late Returns On Popover</i> — A snobbish supervisor gushes about an unknown hero, never suspecting whom he has just been sneering at.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy retells the war story to the head clerk, who gushes about the nameless hero; then Mr. Robert and the friend come out discussing the banquet.</p></details><details><summary><b>366</b> · <i>Late Returns On Popover</i> — A snobbish supervisor is confronted with proof that the humble worker he sneered at is the hero he admired.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy rubs it in to the snobbish head clerk; the waiter serves as head waiter at the banquet where he is toasted, and Mr. Robert buys him a half share in a florist&#x27;s shop so he can marry his sweetheart.</p></details><details><summary><b>570</b> · <i>Getting a Jolt from Westy</i> — A young woman polished beyond her family has grown ashamed of the plain mother who stayed behind to raise her.</summary><p class="sum">The guest scorns her unrefined mother; Torchy&#x27;s sweetheart is going to stay with her, and hints that Torchy may visit, teasing him about the rival&#x27;s constant presence.</p></details><details><summary><b>574</b> · <i>Getting a Jolt from Westy</i> — A plain, defensive mother, used to being left out of her own family, is suddenly asked for her daughter&#x27;s hand.</summary><p class="sum">The mother, rough, over-jewelled and defensive, at first addresses Torchy by mistake; then the young man asks formally for her daughter&#x27;s hand.</p></details><details><summary><b>575</b> · <i>Getting a Jolt from Westy</i> — A mother her daughter has outgrown is moved to tears when a suitor shows her the respect the daughter never does.</summary><p class="sum">Touched that he came to her first, the mother softens and weeps, admits she spoiled her daughter, and asks him to tell the girl her old mother still loves her.</p></details><details><summary><b>626</b> · <i>Teamwork with Aunty</i> — A snobbish woman recognises the humble shop assistant serving her as a poor boy who once admired her.</summary><p class="sum">A stout, expert clerk serves them; the aunt recognises him as a poor boy from her childhood town who used to ask her to skate, and recalls something odd about his family.</p></details><details><summary><b>627</b> · <i>Teamwork with Aunty</i> — A snob condescends to a childhood admirer she thinks has come down in life, offering him cast-offs and advice.</summary><p class="sum">She patronises him about his lowly job and large family and offers her niece&#x27;s cast-off clothes, while he answers meekly.</p></details><details><summary><b>628</b> · <i>Teamwork with Aunty</i> — A snob who has just patronised a humble man learns he is far richer and more powerful than she is.</summary><p class="sum">A chauffeur arrives with telegrams for him, and he admits the limousine and the store are his; he is the very merchant she wanted to reach.</p></details><details><summary><b>629</b> · <i>Teamwork with Aunty</i> — A humiliated snob tries to regain the upper hand by suggesting the rich man&#x27;s trade is beneath him.</summary><p class="sum">He explains he owns nearly a hundred stores and was filling in for a sick manager; he takes Torchy for her son, and she asks whether he means to retire from such petty work.</p></details><details><summary><b>630</b> · <i>Teamwork with Aunty</i> — A self-made man calmly defends the humble trade he rose through, and says he takes real pride in it.</summary><p class="sum">He says his business, with thousands of employees, feeds poor people honestly at a small profit and is neither petty nor sordid, and he will not retire.</p></details><details><summary><b>631</b> · <i>Teamwork with Aunty</i> — A rich man snubbed for his origins declines the grand occasion but quietly gives the struggling cause more than anyone.</summary><p class="sum">He drives them back in his car, views the sculptures, declines to attend as being from the wrong end of town, orders four bronzes and leaves a large cheque.</p></details><details><summary><b>725</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — A relative who snubbed a humble woman rushes to claim her once she makes a brilliant match, and offers to stage the wedding.</summary><p class="sum">The grumblers catch his mood and collect for a wedding present; the singer&#x27;s snobbish cousin, who had shunned her as a performer, now offers her grand country house for a society wedding.</p></details></section>
<section><h2>Unassigned (179)</h2><p class="meta">Scenes that fit no situation recurring in three or more stories.</p><details><summary><b>0</b> · <i>Getting in with the Glory Be</i> — Someone just let go goes looking for a new place and finds a crowd of other applicants already waiting for the same opening.</summary><p class="sum">Just fired from his last place, Torchy walks into a new office tower looking for an office-boy job; the lobby starter mocks him and sends him up to a corridor already packed with boys answering the same advertisement.</p></details><details><summary><b>1</b> · <i>Getting in with the Glory Be</i> — A newcomer pushes past a queue of rivals into a place that turns out much smaller than its grand front promised.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy brushes past the jeering queue and gets into the office first, finding a tiny two-room outfit with a grand name, a typist and a fussy clerk who tries to send him back out.</p></details><details><summary><b>2</b> · <i>Getting in with the Glory Be</i> — Someone who wants an opening badly tells the other applicants it is already filled and shuts them out before anyone checks.</summary><p class="sum">Liking the look of the easygoing boss, Torchy takes down the &#x27;boy wanted&#x27; sign, tells the waiting crowd the job is filled, and locks them out while they hammer on the door.</p></details><details><summary><b>5</b> · <i>Getting in with the Glory Be</i> — Someone hired on cheek alone finds the new work easy and passes the time teasing an anxious colleague.</summary><p class="sum">The boss hires him at five dollars a week; the work turns out to be folding circulars and posting them, and Torchy teases the anxious, fussy bookkeeper.</p></details><details><summary><b>6</b> · <i>Getting in with the Glory Be</i> — Someone at the bottom of a small outfit sees no real customers ever come in, yet is dazzled by its sales pitch.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy describes the vain typist who treats him as barely human, and notices that almost no customers ever come in; the business lives by mail, and he is thrilled by the gold-mine circulars.</p></details><details><summary><b>7</b> · <i>Getting in with the Glory Be</i> — Someone junior swallows whole the far-fetched story behind the venture he works for and repeats it as gospel.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy retells the circular&#x27;s lurid legend of a hidden mine whose map passed through many hands down to a travelling salesman.</p></details><details><summary><b>8</b> · <i>Getting in with the Glory Be</i> — Someone junior believes his employer&#x27;s pitch so completely that he cannot understand why so few buyers take it up.</summary><p class="sum">The circular says the finder got religion and wants to share the gold with ministers, so the company sells cheap shares only to preachers; Torchy is amazed so few of them bite.</p></details><details><summary><b>10</b> · <i>Getting in with the Glory Be</i> — A boss suddenly praises someone junior and announces he is leaving, and the junior begs to be trusted with the place.</summary><p class="sum">The boss praises him, then that evening flatters him, announces a sudden trip west, and dismisses the other two staff; Torchy begs to be left in charge of the office.</p></details><details><summary><b>11</b> · <i>Getting in with the Glory Be</i> — Someone junior is given a stake in a doubtful venture by a boss about to vanish, and feels suddenly rich.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy mentions wanting to buy some of the stock; the boss hands him a hundred shares on the spot against a small raise docked from his pay, then leaves him with two weeks&#x27; wages.</p></details><details><summary><b>14</b> · <i>Getting in with the Glory Be</i> — Someone who believed in a crooked employer is left broke with a worthless stake and must start looking for work again.</summary><p class="sum">Broke and hungry, with worthless shares in a vault, Torchy leaves a note for the boss and goes looking for another job.</p></details><details><summary><b>15</b> · <i>A Jolt for Piddie</i> — Someone gets taken on over a supervisor&#x27;s head because the big boss picked him out of the line on a whim.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy is now the gate boy at a big trust, screening visitors for the fussy private secretary; he got the job because the vice-president, passing through the applicant line-up, pointed at his red hair and said &#x27;take that one&#x27;.</p></details><details><summary><b>22</b> · <i>A Jolt for Piddie</i> — Someone important was goaded by his friends into a boastful bet he had no idea how to win.</summary><p class="sum">The heir explains that at his club he was teased into a large bet that he could shoot a deer with an antique flintlock, though he knew nothing about hunting.</p></details><details><summary><b>23</b> · <i>A Jolt for Piddie</i> — A man who has quietly won a bet finds his mocking friends have tipped off the authorities to spoil it.</summary><p class="sum">He learned to shoot in the woods, killed a deer out of season, and shipped it under a false name; his friends tipped off the game wardens, who tracked the parcel with dogs.</p></details><details><summary><b>42</b> · <i>Frosting the Profess</i> — A member of the boss&#x27;s family treats someone junior as a friend, and he is unsure how far to take it.</summary><p class="sum">The daughter, just home from finishing school, has heard about Torchy from her brother and treats him like one of the family; they become friendly over several visits.</p></details><details><summary><b>45</b> · <i>Frosting the Profess</i> — A sheltered young relative of the boss confides a secret ambition that others have always laughed off.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy ends up enjoying the play; the daughter swoons over the love scene and confides she is sure she could play the heroine, having been denied a part at school.</p></details><details><summary><b>52</b> · <i>Frosting the Profess</i> — A flatterer, thinking himself among friends, mocks the victim he has been praising while she listens unseen.</summary><p class="sum">The teacher gloats that rich pupils pay whatever their talent, calls her a baby elephant and says her acting would make angels weep.</p></details><details><summary><b>57</b> · <i>Where Mildred Got Next</i> — A boss too charmed to discipline a poor worker quietly has someone else correct her, while she ignores every rule.</summary><p class="sum">The boss corrects her gently, holds the door for her, and quietly assigns a plain, expert typist to fix her work; she keeps coming in whenever she likes and brushes off the secretary&#x27;s rebuke about hours.</p></details><details><summary><b>58</b> · <i>Where Mildred Got Next</i> — Nobody will fire a poised but useless worker, and the one finally sent to do it comes back having promised her a raise.</summary><p class="sum">Everyone agrees she should be fired, but the boss and his son pass the task down to the secretary, who is so polite that she talks him into promising her a raise; the male clerks court her in vain.</p></details><details><summary><b>61</b> · <i>Where Mildred Got Next</i> — Someone junior who likes needling a haughty servant of the boss is sent down with a message for him.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy enjoys insulting the boss&#x27;s son&#x27;s haughty chauffeur; one evening he is sent down to tell the chauffeur to wait half an hour.</p></details><details><summary><b>62</b> · <i>Where Mildred Got Next</i> — On a whim, someone junior lends the boss&#x27;s car to a colleague for a ride home, without asking anyone.</summary><p class="sum">In the sleet the typist comes out, and on a whim Torchy bows her into the boss&#x27;s son&#x27;s car and orders the chauffeur to drive her home; she plays along without a question.</p></details><details><summary><b>63</b> · <i>Where Mildred Got Next</i> — Someone junior&#x27;s prank turns out to involve a painfully shy friend of the boss, and he pushes ahead with it anyway.</summary><p class="sum">Too late, Torchy sees the boss&#x27;s son&#x27;s painfully shy, plump friend already sitting in the car; he introduces them anyway and slams the door on the friend&#x27;s protests.</p></details><details><summary><b>81</b> · <i>Keeping Tabs on Piddie</i> — A long-serving, self-important underling who handles only trifles starts showing an unusual interest in a risky investment.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy describes the pompous private secretary as a loyal, small-minded long-serving clerk who makes a great show of any bigger task; one morning he orders Torchy to phone for the opening price of a speculative stock.</p></details><details><summary><b>83</b> · <i>Keeping Tabs on Piddie</i> — A normally cautious superior starts whispering with a shady adviser and then goes to pieces with nerves at his desk.</summary><p class="sum">The secretary holds whispered meetings with a seedy tipster, then grows visibly frantic, washing his hands and drinking water, and leaves early saying he may be back late.</p></details><details><summary><b>109</b> · <i>Down the Bumps with Cliffy</i> — A comfortably-off relative of the boss treats every stranger as his personal guide, and is never discouraged by rebuffs.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy sees the cousin as an idle heir playing at architecture, who stops anyone in the street for directions and is never discouraged by being snubbed.</p></details><details><summary><b>120</b> · <i>Backing out of a Fluff Riot</i> — Someone junior sent on a quick errand with strict orders not to dawdle hears a commotion on the way back.</summary><p class="sum">The secretary sends Torchy with forgotten papers to the top boss at a directors&#x27; meeting in another building, warning him not to talk to suspicious characters; after delivering them Torchy hears a commotion on the floor below.</p></details><details><summary><b>121</b> · <i>Backing out of a Fluff Riot</i> — Someone on an errand stops to watch a crowd of small investors besieging the office of a firm they say has cheated them.</summary><p class="sum">Curious, Torchy finds a crowd of angry working women besieging the locked door of a doubtful high-interest investment firm, shouting that they have been cheated.</p></details><details><summary><b>123</b> · <i>Backing out of a Fluff Riot</i> — A smooth talker facing angry investors lets them vent, then offers soothing promises with nothing behind them.</summary><p class="sum">The women abuse the man as a swindler; he lets them shout themselves out, then smoothly announces an extra dividend voted by the board.</p></details><details><summary><b>134</b> · <i>Rung in with the Gold Spooners</i> — Someone in a servant&#x27;s post overhears a rich youngster snub his partner, and cannot resist offering advice.</summary><p class="sum">A lovely, spirited girl scolds the sullen boy who brought her for hiding in the cloakroom instead of dancing; he dares her to tell on him, and Torchy butts in advising him to dance with her.</p></details><details><summary><b>140</b> · <i>Landing on a Side Street</i> — Someone at the bottom calls out a petty wrong against him in public and finds himself thrown out of his lodgings for it.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy publicly accuses his nosy landlady&#x27;s husband of borrowing his good suit without asking; the landlady throws a fit, and a few days later he comes home to find his things in the hall and a new lodger in his room.</p></details><details><summary><b>141</b> · <i>Landing on a Side Street</i> — Someone homeless and nearly broke is made the butt of a prank, and is in no mood to let it pass.</summary><p class="sum">Almost broke, having banked his savings on his friend&#x27;s advice, Torchy goes to find the friend for a loan; passing a quiet respectable house he is squirted with water and lies in wait in the vestibule.</p></details><details><summary><b>142</b> · <i>Landing on a Side Street</i> — Someone chasing a spoiled child who wronged him follows him right into a wealthy home, where the child hides behind an indulgent elder.</summary><p class="sum">He forces his way in and chases a spoiled twelve-year-old with a squirt gun into the parlour, where the boy hides behind a heavy old lady who mildly tells Torchy not to speak ill of the child.</p></details><details><summary><b>143</b> · <i>Landing on a Side Street</i> — Someone disciplining a spoiled rich child who has been tormenting his own elders is caught in the act by the family.</summary><p class="sum">The old lady turns out to be tied to her chair by the boy, who has been squirting her too; Torchy chases the boy down and is soaking him with his own gun when two more women walk in.</p></details><details><summary><b>145</b> · <i>Landing on a Side Street</i> — A clear-eyed elder refuses to condemn an intruder on a spoiled child&#x27;s word, and a family quarrel erupts over it.</summary><p class="sum">The boy&#x27;s shrewd grandmother refuses to call the police without facts, while the boy tells ever-worse lies; the mother, insulted that the grandmother won&#x27;t take her son&#x27;s side, storms off with him.</p></details><details><summary><b>151</b> · <i>Landing on a Side Street</i> — Someone junior surprises the boss by revealing that the boss&#x27;s own relative has taken him in as a lodger.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s son already knows of the incident; Torchy tells him he won the argument and is now staying with the old lady as a trial boarder, leaving the son open-mouthed.</p></details><details><summary><b>159</b> · <i>First Aid for the Main Stem</i> — A powerful man used to having his own way runs into the rules of a place where his money buys nothing extra.</summary><p class="sum">At dinner the boss orders cocktails and wine and is offered buttermilk; the pious proprietor gently reproves him for raising his voice.</p></details><details><summary><b>160</b> · <i>First Aid for the Main Stem</i> — A powerful man finds every comfort he asks for forbidden by a proprietor who will not bend for anyone.</summary><p class="sum">No coffee, smoking only at set hours, no billiards and no cards; Torchy tours the dull, hushed house while the boss fumes.</p></details><details><summary><b>161</b> · <i>First Aid for the Main Stem</i> — A powerful man threatens to crush a small proprietor who will not bend the rules, and gets only a calm reminder of the time.</summary><p class="sum">Told lights go out at nine forty-five, the boss orders his car for the morning and threatens to build a rowdy hotel next door; the proprietor calmly points to the clock.</p></details><details><summary><b>162</b> · <i>First Aid for the Main Stem</i> — Someone junior who cannot sleep catches the strict keeper of the house secretly breaking his own rules.</summary><p class="sum">Unable to sleep in the silence, Torchy looks out of his window and sees the proprietor in the basement playing poker with his staff and drinking from a decanter.</p></details><details><summary><b>163</b> · <i>First Aid for the Main Stem</i> — Someone junior brings the boss evidence of a rule-maker&#x27;s hypocrisy, and is forgiven his own earlier indiscretion for it.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy leads the boss to the game; the boss joins it, forgives Torchy, and leaves next morning cheerful, tearing up the proprietor&#x27;s gambling debts.</p></details><details><summary><b>182</b> · <i>Batting it up to Torchy</i> — When the organisation is caught up in a public scandal, the boss&#x27;s first instinct is to fight rather than deny.</summary><p class="sum">A state bribery investigation implicates the company through some cheques; the boss&#x27;s son frets about his club friends, the top boss says let them prove it, and Torchy teases the flustered secretary.</p></details><details><summary><b>206</b> · <i>Touching on Tink Tuttle</i> — Someone junior sent to find an outsider in secret tracks him to a grim place where his own family resent him.</summary><p class="sum">Ordered to bring the man in next morning and tell no one, Torchy travels to a grim factory town, where the man&#x27;s hostile sister says he is probably in the factory yard.</p></details><details><summary><b>207</b> · <i>Touching on Tink Tuttle</i> — A desperate outsider will sell something valuable for far less than it is worth, because he needs only a small sum.</summary><p class="sum">The man, living secretly in a shed in the yard, will sell cheap, for just the two thousand he needs; he says the shed is where he expected to die.</p></details><details><summary><b>208</b> · <i>Touching on Tink Tuttle</i> — A worn-out outsider reveals he has spent everything he had on one private dream, while his health gives out.</summary><p class="sum">He tells how the factory wore out his inventor father and has given him consumption; he gave up factory work to build a dream machine, and shows Torchy a flying machine in the dark.</p></details><details><summary><b>209</b> · <i>Touching on Tink Tuttle</i> — Someone junior urges a sick dreamer to take the money and save himself, and finds the boss interested only in the deal.</summary><p class="sum">He has spent his last dollar on the aeroplane and needs money for an engine; Torchy urges him to sell the option and go somewhere healthy, and tells the boss, who cares only about the price.</p></details><details><summary><b>210</b> · <i>Touching on Tink Tuttle</i> — A poor inventor who has just succeeded in secret finds the rich owner&#x27;s son walking in to look over his work.</summary><p class="sum">The deal goes through; the man has spent it all on an engine and has flown briefly; then the factory owner&#x27;s rich son and a technical expert walk in to inspect the machine.</p></details><details><summary><b>211</b> · <i>Touching on Tink Tuttle</i> — A rich heir who wants something on a whim demands to buy a poor man&#x27;s life&#x27;s work, and is refused.</summary><p class="sum">The expert doubts the design, but the owner&#x27;s son, who knew the inventor&#x27;s father as foreman, demands to buy it at once; the inventor refuses to sell.</p></details><details><summary><b>212</b> · <i>Touching on Tink Tuttle</i> — A poor man refuses a rich man&#x27;s ever-higher offers for his dream, and is given one day to sell or be thrown out.</summary><p class="sum">The heir offers a thousand, then five thousand; the inventor furiously says the factory killed his father and he will not be robbed of his one dream; the heir gives him twenty-four hours to sell or be evicted.</p></details><details><summary><b>213</b> · <i>Touching on Tink Tuttle</i> — Someone junior realises a dying friend is refusing a fortune because he means to end his life on his own terms.</summary><p class="sum">The inventor says he is dying and wants no money; he means to fly out over the sea at sunrise and climb until the fuel runs out.</p></details><details><summary><b>214</b> · <i>Touching on Tink Tuttle</i> — Someone junior who tried to talk a desperate friend out of a final act is left not knowing, and haunted by it.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy begs him to fly briefly and take the money; the inventor sends a farewell card and disappears with the machine, and Torchy is left haunted, not daring to think what happened.</p></details><details><summary><b>218</b> · <i>Getting Hermes on the Bounce</i> — A bored young woman of means is struck by a handsome stranger she takes for a humble local.</summary><p class="sum">Ashore on the island she met a handsome, sun-tanned young man she took for a local fisherman and nicknamed after a Greek god.</p></details><details><summary><b>219</b> · <i>Getting Hermes on the Bounce</i> — A flirt toys with a quiet stranger she thinks beneath her, then leaves, sure she broke his heart.</summary><p class="sum">She flirted with him for three days, and he said little about himself; his old uncle let them be, and she sailed away laughing, thinking she had left him heartbroken.</p></details><details><summary><b>220</b> · <i>Getting Hermes on the Bounce</i> — Someone who left a humble admirer behind finds she cannot forget him, and secretly sends for him.</summary><p class="sum">Back in society she found she could not forget him, so she sent the uncle money to visit the city and bring his nephew; they arrive this afternoon, and she cannot meet the train herself.</p></details><details><summary><b>227</b> · <i>Getting Hermes on the Bounce</i> — Someone finally sees the admirer she sent for and is horrified to find he is not the man she remembered.</summary><p class="sum">The girls come down eager; the friend recognises the uncle but is horrified when Torchy points out the yawning nephew as her supposed island hero.</p></details><details><summary><b>228</b> · <i>Getting Hermes on the Bounce</i> — Someone who thought she was courting a humble man learns he was of her own class all along.</summary><p class="sum">A handsome guest overhears and greets her; he is the real man from the island, a society painter the boss&#x27;s daughter knows, who was only holidaying there and calls the old man uncle as all the summer people do.</p></details><details><summary><b>229</b> · <i>Getting Hermes on the Bounce</i> — When the misunderstanding clears, the humble guest brought all that way is simply sent home, and the junior has to tell him.</summary><p class="sum">She is mortified at what she called him, but he says it flattered him; they hold hands, and she tells Torchy to send the unwanted nephew off to bed.</p></details><details><summary><b>238</b> · <i>When Miss Vee Threw the Dare</i> — Someone sent on an errand waits among an excited crowd, hoping for a glimpse of someone who is not his errand.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy waits in the eager pier crowd as the ship is warped in, and spots the boss&#x27;s large daughter at the rail.</p></details><details><summary><b>245</b> · <i>When Miss Vee Threw the Dare</i> — No story content here: this is the publisher&#x27;s advertising for other books and belongs in no group.</summary><p class="sum">Not a scene: the publisher&#x27;s back-matter advertising other adventure novels, split in with the last story of the volume.</p></details><details><summary><b>260</b> · <i>Pulling A Sleuth Stunt</i> — Something odd keeps happening right under the boss&#x27;s nose, and those below him offer silly theories that the boss waves off.</summary><p class="sum">The head clerk explains that bouquets have appeared on the boss&#x27;s desk four times in broad daylight with nobody seen; Torchy suggests a lovesick typist, the clerk names one, and the boss scoffs that it is more likely someone wanting a raise.</p></details><details><summary><b>269</b> · <i>Pulling A Sleuth Stunt</i> — The feared culprit turns out to be a harmless old man, and the boss turns to the junior who caught him for answers.</summary><p class="sum">The culprit is a frail, meek old window cleaner who apologises; the boss asks how Torchy ever worked it out.</p></details><details><summary><b>271</b> · <i>Pulling A Sleuth Stunt</i> — A humble outsider confesses he has been secretly honouring the boss because someone at home keeps running the boss down.</summary><p class="sum">The old man says his son-in-law is always running the boss down as a bloodsucker, so to relieve his feelings he has been bringing the boss flowers as a secret tribute to a man he admires.</p></details><details><summary><b>282</b> · <i>When Ira Showed Some Pep</i> — Someone junior helps a visitor track down his lost sweetheart and they watch her shine in a glamorous new life.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy finds her name in a theatre programme, and they catch the show, where she stands out glamorously in the chorus; the visitor stares at her the whole time.</p></details><details><summary><b>288</b> · <i>Torchy Bugs The System</i> — A supervisor demands a lazy newcomer be fired, and learns the boss has promised the newcomer&#x27;s powerful father a fair trial.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy gets back at him by blocking the gate and pretending not to know him; the newcomer keeps arriving late, his department head demands he be fired, and the boss reveals he promised the boy&#x27;s father, a big stockholder, a three-month trial.</p></details><details><summary><b>289</b> · <i>Torchy Bugs The System</i> — A well-connected newcomer who cannot be fired is to be worked hard instead, while his mother fusses over his hardships.</summary><p class="sum">The boss tells the department head to dock the newcomer&#x27;s pay and pile on work; then the newcomer&#x27;s gushing mother comes to say goodbye before sailing for Europe, fretting over her son&#x27;s hardship at a humble job.</p></details><details><summary><b>304</b> · <i>Breezing By With Peggy</i> — Someone junior warns visitors how to behave before the boss, and they gently mock him before facing the boss themselves.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy ushers them in, warning them not to be jokey; the girl teases him, and the boss keeps them standing, then trades dry remarks with her.</p></details><details><summary><b>307</b> · <i>Breezing By With Peggy</i> — The boss holds up his model young guests as examples to everyone, and even someone junior starts minding his manners.</summary><p class="sum">For days the wards are models of courtesy at the boss&#x27;s house, and the boss holds them up as examples; Torchy, sent there on errands, finds himself being politer at work too.</p></details><details><summary><b>308</b> · <i>Breezing By With Peggy</i> — Someone junior sees the boss&#x27;s favourite young guests drop their company manners and fight like cats in private.</summary><p class="sum">Waiting in the library, Torchy sees the model pair squabble viciously over whether the sister may drive the car, ending with her slapping her brother and pulling his hair.</p></details><details><summary><b>320</b> · <i>Gloom Shunting For The Boss</i> — A dignified boss throws himself into childish amusements while a disapproving professional watches and scoffs.</summary><p class="sum">The boss plays with the ring toss and air-gun while the doctor scoffs, breaks a cabinet door, and then unpacks an indoor putting green.</p></details><details><summary><b>321</b> · <i>Gloom Shunting For The Boss</i> — A sceptical visitor gets drawn into the boss&#x27;s silly game, and soon everyone in the house is serving it.</summary><p class="sum">The doctor is drawn in, the two bet on putts, and soon they have laid out a golf course across the whole ground floor with the butler and Torchy as caddies.</p></details><details><summary><b>323</b> · <i>Gloom Shunting For The Boss</i> — The boss adopts someone junior&#x27;s cheeky catchphrase and uses it to greet an angry partner who has come to confront him.</summary><p class="sum">The boss teaches his friends Torchy&#x27;s chant to greet the directors, who take it as a joke and join a foursome; then the offended partner storms in, and the boss has everyone chant at him.</p></details><details><summary><b>324</b> · <i>Gloom Shunting For The Boss</i> — The boss disarms an angry partner by drawing him into a game and staking their whole dispute on the result.</summary><p class="sum">The partner demands an explanation; the boss drafts him into the game, withdraws the insult as gout talking, and wagers that if the partner wins he gets his way in their dispute.</p></details><details><summary><b>325</b> · <i>Gloom Shunting For The Boss</i> — A crisis the boss&#x27;s relative feared is settled by the boss&#x27;s game, and someone junior earns thanks for the idea behind it.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy tells a baffled Mr. Robert by phone that the crisis is being settled by indoor golf; the partner wins, the two old men laugh and drink together, and next day the boss gives Torchy a caddie&#x27;s tip.</p></details><details><summary><b>329</b> · <i>Torchy In On The Draw</i> — Someone junior is taken to an event in a rich household where family tensions are hinted at but not explained.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy gathers the sister once fancied the artist before he married a poor girl whose rich uncle they now live with; the show is held in a studio carved out of the uncle&#x27;s top floor.</p></details><details><summary><b>330</b> · <i>Torchy In On The Draw</i> — Someone junior watches a guest take a catty dig at the boss&#x27;s relative, and the host quickly smooths it over.</summary><p class="sum">At the crowded, arty reception the artist&#x27;s showy wife makes a catty remark about the stout sister, but the artist&#x27;s gentle charm soon smooths things over.</p></details><details><summary><b>338</b> · <i>Torchy In On The Draw</i> — A reconciled benefactor looks at a dependent&#x27;s work for the first time and sees how he could help it grow.</summary><p class="sum">Shown the paintings, the uncle asks why the artist paints such dull scenes, and starts describing the wonderful places abroad he could take him to paint.</p></details><details><summary><b>339</b> · <i>Torchy In On The Draw</i> — Someone junior whose loose tongue caused a family blow-up ends up thanked and rewarded for the reconciliation that followed.</summary><p class="sum">The uncle proposes an expedition abroad with the couple, which they joyfully accept; he rewards Torchy for his loose talk with his prize leopard skin.</p></details><details><summary><b>346</b> · <i>Gladys In A Double Bill</i> — Someone junior escorting a precocious young girl is startled by how worldly she tries to sound.</summary><p class="sum">They share the gumdrops; she turns out to be sixteen and chatters knowingly about racy plays, divorces and novels.</p></details><details><summary><b>348</b> · <i>Gladys In A Double Bill</i> — A young man arrives with a painted girl clinging to his arm, right in front of the sweetheart he hoped to impress.</summary><p class="sum">Arriving, Gladys clings to Torchy&#x27;s arm to make an entrance before Marjorie and Vee, who stare; Marjorie hardly recognises her, and Gladys gushes about her &#x27;sport&#x27; with &#x27;dear Torchy&#x27;.</p></details><details><summary><b>349</b> · <i>Gladys In A Double Bill</i> — A parent is shocked by a defiant daughter in public, and the other parent flees rather than take any part.</summary><p class="sum">Gladys&#x27;s quiet, modest mother is shocked at her looks and pleads; Gladys defies her, and the father, asked to intervene, flees round the corner with a cigar.</p></details><details><summary><b>350</b> · <i>Gladys In A Double Bill</i> — A defiant young girl rejects a kindly offer to tone herself down, so the older women go off to plot.</summary><p class="sum">The mother weeps; Vee offers Gladys a mirror and washcloth, which she angrily refuses, so Vee, Marjorie and the mother withdraw into the house together.</p></details><details><summary><b>351</b> · <i>Gladys In A Double Bill</i> — A rebellious youngster is shown her own behaviour copied by her parent, and is so horrified she gives it up.</summary><p class="sum">The mother returns made up exactly like her daughter, in a blond wig and earrings; appalled at seeing her mother look so vulgar, Gladys breaks down and starts scrubbing her own face.</p></details><details><summary><b>352</b> · <i>Gladys In A Double Bill</i> — A young man who arrived with another girl on his arm faces his sweetheart on the ride home, unsure of his welcome.</summary><p class="sum">Mother and daughter strip off the paint together and embrace; later Torchy sheepishly holds the car door for Vee, who pretends to be cold but is plainly amused.</p></details><details><summary><b>358</b> · <i>Late Returns On Popover</i> — Someone junior is pleased to see a friend he once helped now returned as a rising star with a tale to tell.</summary><p class="sum">Called into Mr. Robert&#x27;s office, Torchy finds his friend, a former junior now an assistant manager married to a senator&#x27;s daughter, back from Greece where he joined the war effort on a whim.</p></details><details><summary><b>359</b> · <i>Late Returns On Popover</i> — Someone who once needed help from the bottom rungs returns with a triumph that wins him a banquet from the directors.</summary><p class="sum">The friend rebuilt a war-damaged railway for the Greek army and came back with a huge steel contract for the firm, and a celebratory directors&#x27; banquet is planned in his honour.</p></details><details><summary><b>360</b> · <i>Late Returns On Popover</i> — Someone junior lingers uninvited in a superior&#x27;s room so he can hear a visitor&#x27;s exciting story.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy lingers to listen as the friend describes the wrecked railway and how he wandered off alone toward the front, got lost at night, and slept in a sheep pen.</p></details><details><summary><b>361</b> · <i>Late Returns On Popover</i> — A visitor recalls finding an unknown soldier holding a position alone after everyone else was gone, calmly doing his duty.</summary><p class="sum">At dawn the friend came upon a lone soldier manning a machine gun on a hill, his comrades all killed or wounded, who calmly drove back an infantry charge while the friend lay flat.</p></details><details><summary><b>368</b> · <i>Merry Dodges A Dead Heat</i> — A shy colleague awkwardly warns his guest that the visit will be more formal than he let on.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy takes the invitation as kindness and accepts with a joke; the clerk later hints shyly that two ladies are coming to dinner and he should bring dark clothes.</p></details><details><summary><b>369</b> · <i>Merry Dodges A Dead Heat</i> — Someone junior expecting a colleague&#x27;s humble lodgings finds a mansion, and learns the lowly colleague is a rich relative&#x27;s heir.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy packs full evening dress to surprise his host, but is himself surprised to find the clerk lives in a grand estate with a butler, as his aunt&#x27;s heir &#x27;under certain conditions&#x27;.</p></details><details><summary><b>373</b> · <i>Merry Dodges A Dead Heat</i> — A timid man is seated between two formidable women his guardian wants him to court, while the guardian watches everything.</summary><p class="sum">The clerk admires Torchy&#x27;s evening clothes; the wiry, shrewd aunt sizes Torchy up with one glance, and the two sisters prove enormous, with the slight clerk wedged between them at table.</p></details><details><summary><b>375</b> · <i>Merry Dodges A Dead Heat</i> — A painfully shy man, loosened up by drink, suddenly charms the women his guardian wants him to court.</summary><p class="sum">After a toast the clerk livens up, describes European cities, agrees that ladies need an escort abroad, and cracks jokes that make the sisters shake with laughter.</p></details><details><summary><b>376</b> · <i>Merry Dodges A Dead Heat</i> — A guest is sent to bed early by a stern host, and notices someone in the house slipping out again at night.</summary><p class="sum">He plays piano after dinner and walks the sisters home; the aunt sends Torchy to bed, and from his window Torchy hears the clerk sneak out again.</p></details><details><summary><b>377</b> · <i>Merry Dodges A Dead Heat</i> — A guest is sent out at night by a stern host to fetch her relative home from some embarrassing escapade.</summary><p class="sum">A cornet plays love songs from the waterfront; the aunt, guessing it is her nephew making a fool of himself, sends Torchy out to order him home to bed.</p></details><details><summary><b>378</b> · <i>Merry Dodges A Dead Heat</i> — Someone sent to fetch a colleague catches him in an embarrassing act, and the colleague begs him to keep it quiet.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy crashes through a hedge and a vegetable garden and finds the clerk playing the cornet on the neighbours&#x27; wharf; he begs Torchy not to tell his aunt and denies it is a serenade.</p></details><details><summary><b>379</b> · <i>Merry Dodges A Dead Heat</i> — A timid man realises his harmless outburst will be taken as a declaration of love by the women who overheard it.</summary><p class="sum">The clerk says the champagne made him restless and he only wanted to let off steam where nobody would hear; Torchy says the whole shore heard, and he is horrified the sisters will think it a serenade.</p></details><details><summary><b>391</b> · <i>The Passing By Of Bunny</i> — A disgraced man admits his betrayal without shame and says the people who pushed the match knew what he was.</summary><p class="sum">The man coolly admits he is a cad, says everyone knew the bride was too good for him, and says the adventuress used him as prey but he would still go back to her.</p></details><details><summary><b>392</b> · <i>The Passing By Of Bunny</i> — A man born to privilege describes how he sank to the bottom of the heap, scrabbling for coins with the poorest.</summary><p class="sum">He recounts how he ran through an inheritance, was abandoned by the adventuress in Paris and cut off by his father, then worked as a stoker, pot-scrubber and steward among the poorest men on the world&#x27;s docks.</p></details><details><summary><b>394</b> · <i>The Passing By Of Bunny</i> — A man who has been helped turns the help into leverage, threatening his benefactor with a public scandal.</summary><p class="sum">When Mr. Robert threatens to throw him out, the man says that now he is dressed as a gentleman he could make a public scandal, openly threatening blackmail, but adds that he has a proposal.</p></details><details><summary><b>400</b> · <i>The Glad Hail For Torchy</i> — A young man sets off impulsively on a long journey to see his sweetheart, with no invitation and little idea of the way.</summary><p class="sum">A ticket clerk teases him that the place on the card is not a station and sells him a route north; Torchy rides the overnight express in high spirits.</p></details><details><summary><b>402</b> · <i>The Glad Hail For Torchy</i> — A city stranger is fed tall tales by country locals, and gets even by feeding them some outrageous tales of his own.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy and the pilot trade tall tales, the locals spinning yarns about lobsters and rocks and Torchy matching them with city nonsense.</p></details><details><summary><b>410</b> · <i>Aunty Flags A Rosy One</i> — Someone who took a humble job to get near his sweetheart learns he may soon face her disapproving guardian too.</summary><p class="sum">Heading out as the rich heir&#x27;s stand-in boatman, Torchy learns the picnic guests are from the house, including Vee and possibly the aunt, and sizes up the restless, slightly pompous heir.</p></details><details><summary><b>425</b> · <i>Cutting In On The Bliss</i> — A family sighs with relief as a spoiled young woman is finally married off after a long, tangled courtship.</summary><p class="sum">At the wedding of Mr. Robert&#x27;s goddaughter, her lively mother openly says she is glad it is over, and the groom looks most relieved of all after a tangled courtship.</p></details><details><summary><b>426</b> · <i>Cutting In On The Bliss</i> — A rich young man drops his near-fiancée on sight for her beautiful, fickle friend and courts the friend headlong.</summary><p class="sum">The bride was a beautiful, prankish girl juggling several suitors; the rich, idle groom, then half-engaged to her school friend, fell for her at first sight and rushed her with his racing car and dancing.</p></details><details><summary><b>427</b> · <i>Cutting In On The Bliss</i> — A fickle young woman keeps several suitors dangling at once while the older people around her treat it as a joke.</summary><p class="sum">She hesitated over his ring while keeping two other suitors busy in turns, and her mother and Mr. Robert laughed it off, since she was barely nineteen.</p></details><details><summary><b>428</b> · <i>Cutting In On The Bliss</i> — A spoiled young woman agrees to marry not from love but because a friend describes the wedding party she could have.</summary><p class="sum">Her father called the suitor an impudent puppy and her mother wept; the girl sulked for a week, then agreed only when a friend described a romantic lawn wedding, and set the date for two weeks later.</p></details><details><summary><b>441</b> · <i>Being Sicced On Percey</i> — Someone junior recognises a famous, much-attacked rival arriving calmly for a private showdown with the boss.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy recognises the visitor as a notorious railway president, battered by legislatures, indictments and angry shareholders, arriving calm and sardonic for a showdown with the boss.</p></details><details><summary><b>443</b> · <i>Being Sicced On Percey</i> — Sent in with a supervisor&#x27;s forgotten papers, someone junior walks in on the climax of a tense confrontation.</summary><p class="sum">The head clerk fusses all day, then forgets vital papers; Torchy takes them in mid-meeting and hears the boss demand whether the rival will drop a competing trolley line, and the rival say it is up to his agent.</p></details><details><summary><b>448</b> · <i>Being Sicced On Percey</i> — Someone junior watches a hard-driving opponent stop in the middle of urgent business to be kind to a crying child.</summary><p class="sum">Near the farm the agent stops for a crying little girl who has lost her birthday nickel, comforts her, and buys her a big box of chocolates.</p></details><details><summary><b>449</b> · <i>Being Sicced On Percey</i> — A determined man meets the stubborn landowner blocking his plans, who refuses for reasons of grief rather than money.</summary><p class="sum">After a flat tyre they reach the old farmer, who refuses to sell because his wife and children are buried on the land and he wants to lie there in peace.</p></details><details><summary><b>450</b> · <i>Being Sicced On Percey</i> — A determined man makes an honest, heartfelt case to a stubborn opponent and is flatly refused anyway.</summary><p class="sum">The agent asks only for a strip on the far side, candidly admits his backers&#x27; bad reputation, and eloquently explains how the line would benefit the district; the farmer still refuses.</p></details><details><summary><b>451</b> · <i>Being Sicced On Percey</i> — After every argument fails, a chance earlier kindness suddenly turns up at the decisive moment in front of the opponent.</summary><p class="sum">He tells of his own farm boyhood and how the railway transformed it; still refused, he is interrupted when the farmer&#x27;s daughter runs out and recognises him as the man who bought her chocolates.</p></details><details><summary><b>453</b> · <i>Being Sicced On Percey</i> — After someone junior&#x27;s report, the boss turns a formidable opponent into an ally and the old rival falls.</summary><p class="sum">The railway president resigns within a week; the agent now meets the boss as an ally, and the firm backs the trolley line.</p></details><details><summary><b>460</b> · <i>How Whity Gunked The Plot</i> — A disgruntled insider reveals the unimpressive reality behind someone&#x27;s public reputation, which he himself helped to build.</summary><p class="sum">The reporter says anyone can pay to print a book, that he steered the poet to a vanity press for a commission and even padded his verses; Torchy remembers the poet as a soft-spoken &#x27;mushbag&#x27;.</p></details><details><summary><b>461</b> · <i>How Whity Gunked The Plot</i> — Someone admits that a reputation everyone now takes seriously began as his own joke that got out of hand.</summary><p class="sum">The reporter explains that the poet craved publicity and that he wrote the flattering feature and coined the &#x27;sculptor poet&#x27; tag as a joke, which stuck until everyone believed it.</p></details><details><summary><b>462</b> · <i>How Whity Gunked The Plot</i> — A resentful former associate learns of his rival&#x27;s rich romance and eagerly offers to help someone junior wreck it.</summary><p class="sum">The poet actually lives off cheese factories inherited from his father and cooled toward the reporter after losing money in his stock tips; learning of the widow, the reporter plots to wreck the romance for revenge.</p></details><details><summary><b>464</b> · <i>How Whity Gunked The Plot</i> — A resentful former associate braces for a snub from the man he mocks, and is greeted with embarrassing warmth instead.</summary><p class="sum">The poet enters in a monk&#x27;s robe and sandals, is gushed over by the cousin, and greets the resentful reporter with warm, unashamed friendliness.</p></details><details><summary><b>468</b> · <i>How Whity Gunked The Plot</i> — A schemer who meant to ruin a rival&#x27;s romance learns the rival was desperate to escape it, and is thanked.</summary><p class="sum">The reporter admits the joke; the poet, delighted, thanks him for freeing him from a widow who had been pursuing him for weeks, and showers them with cigars and photos.</p></details><details><summary><b>503</b> · <i>Torchy Makes the Sir Class</i> — Someone who offers to pay for smartening up a shabby ally discovers the ally is far richer than he looks.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy tactfully offers to pay for smartening up the shabby inventor for the directors, and the old man pulls out a thick roll of banknotes.</p></details><details><summary><b>505</b> · <i>Torchy Makes the Sir Class</i> — Someone who urged an ally to dress for an important meeting sees him arrive transformed beyond recognition.</summary><p class="sum">After a sleepless night Torchy has the speech pat; the inventor arrives transformed into a smartly tailored gentleman.</p></details><details><summary><b>512</b> · <i>Torchy Takes a Chance</i> — Someone junior cracks an intercepted tip and shows the boss that a sweetheart&#x27;s guardian is about to lose heavily.</summary><p class="sum">He decodes it: one leader is leaving, the other is unloading, and the backwards phrase means get out from under. The boss&#x27;s son sees that the rival&#x27;s stock is about to slump, which will hurt the aunt badly.</p></details><details><summary><b>513</b> · <i>Torchy Takes a Chance</i> — Someone sent racing to warn a hostile guardian of a ruinous deal presses a servant for her whereabouts.</summary><p class="sum">Her lawyers do not know if she has signed; the stock is falling, and Torchy is sent to find and warn her. The maid, caught wearing the girl&#x27;s hat, trades the aunt&#x27;s whereabouts for his silence.</p></details><details><summary><b>514</b> · <i>Torchy Takes a Chance</i> — Someone rushing on an urgent errand is stranded by slow connections and ends up sleeping rough at a deserted stop.</summary><p class="sum">The aunt is at a remote country house party; slow branch-line trains strand him, and he reaches the village at two in the morning and sleeps on a baggage truck.</p></details><details><summary><b>515</b> · <i>Torchy Takes a Chance</i> — Someone chasing an urgent warning arrives to find the people he needs have gone offshore, out of reach.</summary><p class="sum">At dawn he writes a note begging the girl to stop the aunt signing, learns the whole party is out on a yacht, and goes back for an old boat he saw tied up in a creek.</p></details><details><summary><b>516</b> · <i>Torchy Takes a Chance</i> — Someone on an urgent errand meets a daring young man about to try a risky machine his family knows nothing about.</summary><p class="sum">Paddling out, he gives a lift to a young man carrying fuel to a brand-new flying boat he has kept secret from his family; Torchy says he would never go up in it.</p></details><details><summary><b>517</b> · <i>Torchy Takes a Chance</i> — Someone who swore he would never take a reckless risk begs to take it the moment it can reach his sweetheart.</summary><p class="sum">When the young man points out the yacht carrying his own parents, and Torchy&#x27;s sweetheart and her aunt, Torchy begs to fly along, saying he will risk his neck to reach the girl.</p></details><details><summary><b>518</b> · <i>Torchy Takes a Chance</i> — Someone who jumped at a desperate chance finds himself suddenly committed to it and clinging on in terror.</summary><p class="sum">They take off across the water at speed and lift into the air; Torchy clings to a strut in terror.</p></details><details><summary><b>519</b> · <i>Torchy Takes a Chance</i> — Someone terrified by a leap into the unknown finds within minutes that he is calm, even enjoying it.</summary><p class="sum">His fear fades into delight at the smooth flight; they swing wide of the yacht and he cannot make himself heard over the engine.</p></details><details><summary><b>520</b> · <i>Torchy Takes a Chance</i> — Someone who must deliver a warning with no way to speak improvises a message from whatever he has at hand.</summary><p class="sum">They climb and dive, then circle back to the yacht; Torchy stuffs his note into a melon he happened to bring so he can drop it on deck.</p></details><details><summary><b>521</b> · <i>Torchy Takes a Chance</i> — A risky dash delivers its message to the sweetheart, while the daredevil&#x27;s own mother collapses at seeing her son aloft.</summary><p class="sum">He drops the melon on deck as the girl runs to it; the pilot shouts to his mother on board, who faints, and they land back by the dock.</p></details><details><summary><b>527</b> · <i>Breaking It to the Boss</i> — An old head who feared he was finished finds a crisis only he knows how to fight, and comes back to life.</summary><p class="sum">The file shows only a polite request and a refusal; the lease expires tomorrow, and the old man realises a powerful, reclusive financier he has fought before is behind it, and rouses himself for battle.</p></details><details><summary><b>528</b> · <i>Breaking It to the Boss</i> — The returning old head sets the whole place scrambling, and takes the newly promoted junior with him into battle.</summary><p class="sum">He has the whole office in a frenzy for hours preparing, then tells Torchy to come along to see the financier.</p></details><details><summary><b>534</b> · <i>Breaking It to the Boss</i> — A reclusive man of power comes out for his hobby and finds an old rival smuggled in by a cheeky junior.</summary><p class="sum">The ruse works; the financier comes out expecting the birds, recognises his old rival, and is annoyed to learn how they got in.</p></details><details><summary><b>535</b> · <i>Breaking It to the Boss</i> — An old fighter confronts a slippery rival and wins by quietly naming the lever he holds over him.</summary><p class="sum">The financier squirms and refuses until the old man threatens foreclosure on a defaulted bond issue he holds; the financier gives way and admires the birds, which the old man says are Torchy&#x27;s gift.</p></details><details><summary><b>544</b> · <i>Showing Gilkey the Way</i> — A guest follows the women slipping away after dinner and learns the banned suitor has blundered in by the back.</summary><p class="sum">The wife passes the crash off as a stranger breaking a frame; after dinner the women slip away one by one, and the boss&#x27;s daughter tells Torchy the banned suitor has arrived and fell into the glass.</p></details><details><summary><b>550</b> · <i>Showing Gilkey the Way</i> — Someone who quietly coached another&#x27;s triumph is found out and praised privately by the sweetheart he hoped to impress.</summary><p class="sum">The father gives in, grumbling only about the church; the sweetheart, who overheard Torchy coaching the suitor, praises him on the veranda.</p></details><details><summary><b>554</b> · <i>When Skeet Had His Day</i> — A family&#x27;s black sheep, thrown out for cadging from a sister in service, swears he will make them all sorry.</summary><p class="sum">A year earlier the man had been thrown out of the boss&#x27;s house for badgering his sister, a maid there, for money, and swore he would show his family some day.</p></details><details><summary><b>577</b> · <i>Some Guesses on Ruby</i> — A timid new hire tried on the boss&#x27;s own work takes every word literally and produces nonsense.</summary><p class="sum">A new, vacant-looking typist is tried on the boss&#x27;s son&#x27;s dictation and types out every aside word for word, including his instructions to her.</p></details><details><summary><b>582</b> · <i>Some Guesses on Ruby</i> — A devoted young man gives up a good place to follow the woman he loves, who cannot see why he came.</summary><p class="sum">Raised by a clergyman uncle, she worked her way through college meaning to become a missionary; her sweetheart gave up a good job to follow her and try to stop her going. Then Torchy goes to find the boss&#x27;s son at his club.</p></details><details><summary><b>583</b> · <i>Some Guesses on Ruby</i> — A successful creative man complains that no one can fill the role he wrote around a stranger who haunted him.</summary><p class="sum">At the club a successful playwright friend of the boss&#x27;s son complains that no actress can play a part he wrote around a strange, plain woman he once met.</p></details><details><summary><b>584</b> · <i>Some Guesses on Ruby</i> — A demanding guest remembers a clumsy new servant who carried out every passing wish to the absurd letter.</summary><p class="sum">He describes a clumsy new waitress at a remote summer hotel who obeyed every request to the letter, serving even ice cream on hot plates.</p></details><details><summary><b>585</b> · <i>Some Guesses on Ruby</i> — A self-absorbed guest was unnerved by a servant&#x27;s blank, unwavering attention, and never thought to ask what she was thinking.</summary><p class="sum">She would stand and stare at him while he ate; told to look elsewhere, she stared at the ceiling instead, and her blank, awkward plainness fascinated him.</p></details><details><summary><b>586</b> · <i>Some Guesses on Ruby</i> — A boss boasts to a friend that his quick-witted junior can find a nameless stranger the friend has searched for.</summary><p class="sum">He wrote her into the play until it centred on her; he traced the hotel but not her, and the boss&#x27;s son bets him dinner that Torchy can find her.</p></details><details><summary><b>587</b> · <i>Some Guesses on Ruby</i> — Someone junior matches a stranger&#x27;s description to an overlooked colleague, and wins the boss&#x27;s bet on the spot.</summary><p class="sum">From the description and the Midwest detail, Torchy guesses it is the new typist; the playwright recognises her, and she is called into the private office, as wooden as ever.</p></details><details><summary><b>588</b> · <i>Some Guesses on Ruby</i> — A self-important man learns the servant who stared at him was only trying hard to remember his every whim.</summary><p class="sum">She does not recognise the playwright until he mentions hot plates; then she recites all his fussy preferences, and he realises she had been staring to memorise his wishes.</p></details><details><summary><b>589</b> · <i>Some Guesses on Ruby</i> — An overlooked, earnest colleague refuses a dazzling offer for the sake of a duty she has set herself.</summary><p class="sum">He apologises and offers her the part at a large salary, but she refuses because she means to be a missionary; Torchy says he and her sweetheart will persuade her.</p></details><details><summary><b>590</b> · <i>Some Guesses on Ruby</i> — Someone junior and a devoted sweetheart talk a reluctant colleague out of her plans and into sudden success.</summary><p class="sum">Together they talk her into signing; she plays herself and packs the theatre, and her sweetheart, now doing well, gets the contract for the sign bearing her name.</p></details><details><summary><b>591</b> · <i>Torchy Gets an Inside Tip</i> — Someone idly waiting in public is approached by a lost, shabby child who politely asks how she can find work.</summary><p class="sum">Waiting in a department-store entrance for his sweetheart, Torchy is approached by a thin, shabby, well-mannered little girl who asks whether it is true she needs work papers to get a job.</p></details><details><summary><b>595</b> · <i>Torchy Gets an Inside Tip</i> — A child talks trustingly of her father, a long-serving servant abroad, now jailed here for a large theft.</summary><p class="sum">Over tea the child says her father was head butler to an English officer until the war closed the house, and came to America for work; he is accused of stealing a large sum.</p></details><details><summary><b>596</b> · <i>Torchy Gets an Inside Tip</i> — A child innocently mentions that her ailing, jailed father had suddenly found the money for their escape abroad.</summary><p class="sum">The child insists her father is innocent and says he had just found a way to take her to a relative&#x27;s ranch overseas; Torchy is doubtful, but the sweetheart backs the child, who then shows her battered doll.</p></details><details><summary><b>597</b> · <i>Torchy Gets an Inside Tip</i> — A sweetheart takes in a stray child against her guardian&#x27;s views and orders her suitor to rescue the child&#x27;s father.</summary><p class="sum">The doll went missing the night before the arrest and reappeared beside her; the sweetheart decides to take the child home despite her aunt, and orders Torchy to find the father and get him freed.</p></details><details><summary><b>605</b> · <i>Torchy Gets an Inside Tip</i> — Someone who quietly rescued a stray child&#x27;s father is rewarded by his sweetheart with sudden, private affection.</summary><p class="sum">The widow counts the money, forgives the butler and has the case dropped; the child, who won over the aunt through her cat, is reunited with her father, and the sweetheart kisses Torchy.</p></details><details><summary><b>613</b> · <i>Then Along Came Sukey</i> — A gifted but petulant performer makes the whole household wait on his whims before he consents to begin.</summary><p class="sum">With the aunt watching Torchy sternly, the violinist fusses imperiously over the flowers, the draughts and his strings before playing.</p></details><details><summary><b>618</b> · <i>Then Along Came Sukey</i> — Someone learns a hearty, overlooked woman secretly loves the man who just insulted her, and quietly sends him to her.</summary><p class="sum">The sportswoman sobs that the violinist called her a meddling old maid, and that she loves him; Torchy tells the violinist someone in the library needs him, and he rushes off eagerly.</p></details><details><summary><b>619</b> · <i>Then Along Came Sukey</i> — An ill-matched pair brought together by a quiet word turn out to suit each other, the timid one now bold.</summary><p class="sum">A week later the violinist is warm and cordial to Torchy and is escorting the sportswoman out, clearly courting her.</p></details><details><summary><b>650</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — A foundling risen from nothing is told by a shabby stranger that he is the relative who abandoned him as a child.</summary><p class="sum">The man says the woman who raised Torchy as a child gave his address, and reveals he is the uncle who left four-year-old Torchy in her care.</p></details><details><summary><b>651</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — A drifter excuses having abandoned a small child in his care by describing a sudden chance he could not refuse.</summary><p class="sum">He explains he was broke and had to rush south for a business boom, promising to send for the boy; the boom collapsed and he drifted from job to job.</p></details><details><summary><b>652</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — Someone with no family is unimpressed by the relative who turns up, but cannot bring himself to turn him away.</summary><p class="sum">He never came back; Torchy asks if he is really his uncle, and is unimpressed, but cannot bring himself to reject the only relative who has ever appeared.</p></details><details><summary><b>654</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — Someone unsure of a new-found relative comes home to find his household breaking up around him.</summary><p class="sum">The woman who raised him confirms the man is the one; at home the pious aunt has packed to leave rather than live with her sister&#x27;s new husband, and assumes Torchy must go too.</p></details><details><summary><b>655</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — A disapproving sister sits waiting to walk out the moment the newly married couple she opposed come home.</summary><p class="sum">The pious aunt sits at dinner in her hat, ready to leave; the eloped couple burst in, and the bride demands to know why her sister is dressed to go.</p></details><details><summary><b>656</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — A newly married couple win over a disapproving relative by insisting she is needed, and making peace with a sudden kiss.</summary><p class="sum">The bride forbids either of them to leave and has her husband make peace by kissing the pious sister and apologising for the past; the household settles down happily together.</p></details><details><summary><b>657</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — An old man recalls how his stiff-necked brother disowned a son for marrying a girl who worked in the family office.</summary><p class="sum">Over coffee the new husband tells how his brother disinherited his son for marrying a clever red-haired girl from the office, and how the young couple eloped to Paris.</p></details><details><summary><b>658</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — An old man recalls a feckless relative who took his small child off chasing a get-rich scheme, leaving the mother behind.</summary><p class="sum">The feckless nephew went west chasing mining deals, taking his lively red-haired little boy away from the mother, who stayed to run their business.</p></details><details><summary><b>659</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — Someone embarrassed by a shabby relative must bring him into a respectable home just as an old family mystery is told.</summary><p class="sum">The nephew died suddenly, and the boy was never found; just then the doorbell rings, and Torchy, embarrassed, brings his newly found uncle into the library.</p></details><details><summary><b>660</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — A man posing as someone&#x27;s kin is confronted by a witness from the past and must admit whose child he abandoned.</summary><p class="sum">The new husband recognises the visitor from the voyage and demands where the lost boy was left; the visitor admits he was entrusted with him, and says Torchy is the boy.</p></details><details><summary><b>661</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — Someone who never knew his family learns in one evening who his parents were, and that both are dead.</summary><p class="sum">A locket Torchy has always kept holds his mother&#x27;s picture; the old man tells of her later remarriage and death in the war, the aunt comforts Torchy, and the impostor is shown out.</p></details><details><summary><b>662</b> · <i>Sifting Out Uncle Bill</i> — A foundling who thinks he is alone again is claimed as kin by the kindly old man who had been his nominal superior.</summary><p class="sum">Torchy thinks he has no family left, but the old man, his nominal company president, claims him as his great-nephew, and Torchy happily accepts.</p></details><details><summary><b>702</b> · <i>Mr. Robert Gets a Slant</i> — A boss so distracted by romance that he neglects the practical arrangements arrives with his guests to find nothing ready.</summary><p class="sum">Distracted, the boss&#x27;s son leaves the boat&#x27;s preparations to his captain and ships only the books; at the club the party finds the boat unmanned.</p></details><details><summary><b>703</b> · <i>Mr. Robert Gets a Slant</i> — A host whose hired help has vanished asks his guests to do the work themselves, and anxiously watches the woman he loves.</summary><p class="sum">A note says the captain left days ago; the boss&#x27;s son offers to sail with the guests as amateur crew, and everyone, including the singer, agrees.</p></details><details><summary><b>704</b> · <i>Mr. Robert Gets a Slant</i> — A suitor who meant to impress with clever talk is seen instead at hard work, giving orders, and she notices.</summary><p class="sum">The guests haul on ropes, the son-in-law in yellow gloves; the boss&#x27;s son, in paint-spattered clothes, sails hard and barks orders instead of talking literature, and the singer watches him curiously.</p></details><details><summary><b>705</b> · <i>Mr. Robert Gets a Slant</i> — When a task turns wet and hard, a pampered man shirks it and a capable young woman steps forward to do it.</summary><p class="sum">As the wind rises, Torchy&#x27;s sweetheart takes over the wet foredeck job the son-in-law shirks; the boss&#x27;s son lets the singer try the wheel, and she loves the heeling boat.</p></details><details><summary><b>706</b> · <i>Mr. Robert Gets a Slant</i> — A leader responsible for inexperienced guests keeps going in rising danger, weighing whether to ease off before it is too late.</summary><p class="sum">The gale strengthens and they run for a sheltered cove, the boat heeling hard in heavy gusts as the boss&#x27;s son considers shortening sail.</p></details><details><summary><b>707</b> · <i>Mr. Robert Gets a Slant</i> — When disaster strikes, one guest panics while the host calmly puts everyone to work, and the rest keep their heads.</summary><p class="sum">The mast breaks and goes over; the son-in-law panics while the boss&#x27;s son calmly organises everyone to chop away the wreckage and motor into the cove, where the women have made dinner, cooked by the singer.</p></details><details><summary><b>708</b> · <i>Mr. Robert Gets a Slant</i> — A courting pair who could not connect through clever talk find each other over shared chores, and the pretence is thrown away.</summary><p class="sum">The singer laughs that she can cook and wash up too; the pair do the dishes together, the boss&#x27;s son has Torchy throw the unread plays overboard, and the couple are seen side by side over a chart.</p></details><details><summary><b>716</b> · <i>When Ella May Came By</i> — A polished man is helpless against a flirt&#x27;s all-out assault, while the woman he loves looks on, amused.</summary><p class="sum">Through dinner and next morning she monopolises the helpless boss&#x27;s son with chatter, palm-reading and flowers, while the singer watches, amused; the daughter grows angry.</p></details><details><summary><b>723</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — A distracted heir meets his critics&#x27; hard question with happy news, and is rescued at the last moment by a colleague&#x27;s effort.</summary><p class="sum">The boss&#x27;s son greets them all warmly and announces his engagement; asked about the charter, he vaguely thinks someone was told to handle it, and the senior clerk staggers in battered, holding the signed charter.</p></details><details><summary><b>724</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — A loyal senior colleague who pulled off a heroic effort for the firm finds the boss too lovestruck to notice.</summary><p class="sum">The senior clerk spent the night on the waterfront, was knocked about, and closed the option two hours before it lapsed, but the boss&#x27;s son barely notices and keeps telling everyone he is to be married.</p></details><details><summary><b>726</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — A groom finds his relatives have planned a vast, formal wedding around him without asking what he wants.</summary><p class="sum">The cousin and the boss&#x27;s daughter plan a lavish wedding three weeks off, with a bishop, an organ and a special train; the boss&#x27;s son protests.</p></details><details><summary><b>727</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — A groom rebels against the solemn ceremony his family is arranging, and insists on a wedding that is actually happy.</summary><p class="sum">He denounces solemn weddings as gloomy barbarism and insists on a cheerful one; the next day he tells Torchy the bride agrees and asks him to her apartment.</p></details><details><summary><b>734</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — A stiff family gathering, dressed up and given music, lets go and turns into a riotous celebration.</summary><p class="sum">Costumed, everyone grows playful; with hidden cameras rolling and the band striking up, the party and the actors romp across the lawn in a merry procession.</p></details><details><summary><b>736</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — No story content here: this is the publisher&#x27;s advertising for other books and belongs in no group.</summary><p class="sum">Not a scene: the publisher&#x27;s back-matter advertising other novels, split in with the last story of the volume.</p></details><details><summary><b>737</b> · <i>Some Hoop-la for the Boss</i> — No story content here: this is the publisher&#x27;s advertising for other books and belongs in no group.</summary><p class="sum">Not a scene: more of the publisher&#x27;s back-matter advertising other novels, split in with the last story of the volume.</p></details></section>
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