e caustic colonel.

But the reporter from "Town Gossip" smiled and did not reply; and the
three disappeared into the reception-room. The young gentleman,
very politely, half pushed, half followed the stout woman out of the
reception-room's range of vision.

"Just leaving, I suppose," he remarked with pleasant
matter-of-factness.

"Yes, sir. My bags are down at the basement door. When I heard the
ring, I just happened--"

"I understand. You wouldn't have answered the door, if almost all the
regular servants had not been gone. Now, I'd say," smiling engagingly,
"that you might be the cook, and a mighty good cook, too."

He had such an "air," did this young man,--the human air of the real
gentleman,--that, despite the unexpectedness of his overture, the
stout woman, instead of taking offense, flushed with pleasure.

"I ought to be a good one, sir; that's what I'm paid for."

"Seventy-five a month?" estimated the young gentleman.

"Eighty," corrected the cook.

"That's mighty good--twenty dollars a week. But, Mrs. Cook,"--again
with his open, engaging smile,--"pardon me for not knowing your proper
name,--could I induce you to enter my employment--at, say, twenty
dollars a minute?"

"What--what--"

"For only a limited period," continued the young gentleman--"to
be exact, say one minute. Light work," he added with a certain
whimsicality, "short hours, seven days out--unusual opportunity."

"But what--what am I to do?" gasped the cook, and before she could
gasp again one surprised black glove was clutching two ten-dollar
bills.

"Arrange for me to see Miss Gardner--alone. It's all right. She and I
are old friends."

"But--but how?" helplessly inquired this mistress of all
non-intrigantes.

"Isn't there some room where nobody will come in?"

"The library might be best, sir," pointing up the stairway at a door.

"The library, then! And arrange matters so that no one will know we're
meeting."

"But, sir, I don't see how--"

"Most simple, Mrs. Cook. Before you go, you, of course, want to bid
Miss Gardner good-bye. Just request the lady in black in there with
the reporters to tell Miss Gardner that you want to speak to her and
will be waiting in the library. When you've said that, you've earned
the money. Then just watch your chance until the somber lady isn't
looking, and continue with your original plan of leaving the house."

"Perhaps it will work," hesitated the cook. But with a gesture in
which ther