s not only out, but he would not be in
for several days. His physician had ordered him to a sanitarium.

The young woman resumed her typing; she did not again, glance up.
The caller seemed to consider waiting on a chance that she had been
misinformed. He was now sure he had seen Baird enter the building, and
the door of his private office was closed. The caller idled outside the
railing, absently regarding stills of past Buckeye atrocities that had
been hung upon the walls of the office by someone with primitive tastes
in decoration. He was debating a direct challenge of the young woman's
veracity.

What would she say if told that the caller meant to wait right
there until Mr. Baird should convalesce? He managed some appraising
side-glances at her as she bent over her machine. She seemed to believe
he had already gone.

Then he did go. No good talking that way to a girl. If it had been a
man, now--"You tell Mr. Baird that Mr. Gill's got to see him as soon as
possible about something important," he directed from the open door.

The young woman raised her serious eyes to his and nodded. She resumed
her work. The door closed. Upon its closing the door of Baird's private
office opened noiselessly to a crack that sufficed for the speaking
voice at very moderate pitch to issue.

"Get Miss Montague on the 'phone," directed the voice. The door closed
noiselessly. Beyond it Mr. Baird was presently speaking in low, sweet
tones.

"'Lo, Sister! Listen; that squirrel just boiled in here, and I ducked
him. I told the girl I wasn't to be in unless he was laughing all over,
and he wasn't doing the least little thing that was anywheres near
laughing. See what I mean? It's up to you now. You started it; you got
to finish it. I've irised out. Get me?"

On the steps outside the rebuffed Merton Gill glanced at his own natty
wrist-watch, bought with some of the later wages of his shame. It was
the luncheon hour; mechanically he made his way to the cafeteria. He
had ceased to rehearse the speech a doughtier Baird would now have been
hearing.

Instead he roughly drafted one that Sarah Nevada Montague could not
long evade. Even on her dying bed she would be compelled to listen. The
practising orator with bent head mumbled as he walked. He still mumbled
as he indicated a choice of foods at the cafeteria counter; he continued
to be thus absorbed as he found a table near the centre of the room.

He arranged his assortment of viands. "Yo