He acted tough, but I knew he was a cream puff.

"So," I drawled, "what brings you here?"

"I heard Cook E. Kutter was the man to see for making cookies."

I inclined my head slightly.

"Word's been getting around," he continued, "that you've gone soft. That you let the Doughboy get away with murder."

"That's a damn lie!" I burst out, then struggled to regain control. "P. F. never touched that dame. Besides, he's a ticklish one to deal with. Yeah, I let him go ... he'd risen as far as he could. What's it to ya?" I leaned back with a creak and parked my feet on the desk, between last week's coffee and some bootleg recipes off the Internet.
All of a sudden he seemed a little nervous. He cleared his throat: "Well..."

"Cream gone sour?" I asked sympathetically, and poured us both glasses of whiskey. "Have a pick-me-up."

He waved it away. "No thanks," he said, "I'm trying to cut back. Listen. I want to make a batch of chocolate chip. Can you help?"

"Maybe. Do you have what it takes? Raw courage? Unyielding persistence? Butter? Flour? Chocolate chips?"

Oh, he had it all, but he was holding out on me. I could tell. Still, I played it cool.

"You want to know? I'll tell you.

"You'll need ingredients: butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, flour, salt, baking soda, and the chips. You need to mix them, and you've got to do it right.

"First the wet stuff, then the dry. The chips come last."

Oh, I told him sure enough. I gave him the whole story.

"Now it's your turn," I said, "give!"

"What do you mean?" He was all innocence, up to the elbows in creamed butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla. But I wasn't having it this time.

"You know what I mean." He wouldn't talk. I pounded on the desk, threatened, I admit it, but he simply stirred flour, salt, and soda into his creamed mixture. Finally I had had enough.

*

There was something on my face. I licked it off. Cream filling. Delicately, I parted his severed hemispheres, and there, nestled in the cream, I saw it. I KNEW he'd been holding out on me! I reached in and picked it up. I reverently wiped off the cream with my handkerchief, and popped it in my mouth. I love cherries.