ffle While You Wait!' Oh, we
shall get on--you'll see. Still, I can't truthfully report much progress
yesterday or to-day, though a shade more to-day than yesterday. I've
been counting callously on Maltby, as Phil disapprovingly knows, and I
brought three short manufactured-in-advance articles for the Garden Ex.
down with me. So my first step was to stifle my last maidenly scruple
and take them straight to Maltby; I hoped they would pay at least for
the typewriter. It was a clear ice-bath of a morning, and the walk up
Fifth Avenue braced me for anything. I stared at everybody and a good
many unattached males stared back; sometimes I rather liked it, and
sometimes not. It all depends.

"But I found the right building at last, somewhere between the Waldorf
and the Public Library. There's a shop on its avenue front for the sale
of false pearls, and judging from the shop they must be more expensive
than real ones. Togo dragged me in there at first by mistake; and as I
was wearing my bestest tailor-made and your furs, and as Togo was
wearing his, plus his haughtiest atmosphere, we seemed between us to be
just the sort of thing the languid clerks had been waiting for. There
was a hopeful stir as we entered--no, swept in! I was really sorry to
disappoint them; it was horrid to feel that we couldn't live up to their
expectations.

"We didn't sweep out nearly so well! But we found the elevator round the
corner and were taken up four or five floors, passing a designer of _de
luxe_ corsets and a distiller of _de luxe_ perfumes on the way, and
landed in the impressive outer office of the Garden Ex.

"But how stupid of me to describe all this! You've been there twenty
times, of course, and remember the apple-green art-crafty furniture and
potted palms and things. Several depressed-looking persons were
fidgeting about, but my engraved card--score one for Hillhouse!--soon
brought Maltby puffing out to me with both hands extended. Togo didn't
quite cut him dead, but almost, and he insulted an entire roomful of
stenographers on his way to the great man's sanctum. My first _sanctum_,
Ambo! I did get a little thrill from that, in spite of Maltby.

"Stop chattering, Susan--stick to facts. Yes, Phil, please. Fact One:
Maltby was surprisingly flustered at first. He was, Ambo! He jumped to
the conclusion that I was down for shopping or the theaters, and assumed
of course you were with me. So you were, dear--our way! But I thought
Maltby a