than the usual sort of thing. No
specialities required. He said it was an effort to restore the Gilbert
and Sullivan tradition. Say, who are these Gilbert and Sullivan guys,
anyway? They get written up in the papers all the time and I never met
any one who'd run across them. If you want my opinion, that show down
there is a comic opera!"

"For heaven's sake!" Nelly had the musical comedy performer's horror
of the older-established form of entertainment. "Why, comic opera died
in the year one!"

"Well, these guys are going to dig it up. That's the way it looks to
me." He lowered his voice. "Say, I saw Clarice last night," he said in
a confidential undertone. "It's all right."

"It is?"

"We've made it up. It was like this...."

His conversation took an intimate turn. He expounded for Nelly's
benefit the inner history, with all its ramifications, of a recent
unfortunate rift between himself and "the best little girl in
Flatbush"--what he had said, what she had said, what her sister had
said, and how it all came right in the end. Jill might have felt a
little excluded, but for the fact that a sudden and exciting idea had
come to her. She sat back, thinking.... After all, what else was she
to do? She must do something....

She bent forward and interrupted Mr. Brown in his description of a
brisk passage of arms between himself and the best little girl's
sister, who seemed to be an unpleasant sort of person in every way.

"Mr. Brown."

"Hello?"

"Do you think there would be any chance for me if I asked for work at
Goble and Cohn's?"

"You're joking!" cried Nelly.

"I'm not at all."

"But what do you want with work?"

"I've got to find some. And right away, too."

"I don't understand."

Jill hesitated. She disliked discussing her private affairs, but there
was obviously no way of avoiding it. Nelly was round-eyed and
mystified, and Mr. Brown had manifestly no intention whatever of
withdrawing tactfully. He wanted to hear all.

"I've lost my money," said Jill.

"Lost your money! Do you mean...?"

"I've lost it all. Every penny I had in the world."

"Tough!" interpolated Mr. Brown judicially. "I was broke once way out
in a tank-town in Oklahoma. The manager skipped with our salaries.
Last we saw of him he was doing the trip to Canada in nothing flat."

"But how?" gasped Nelly.

"It happened about the time we met in London. Do you remember Freddie
Rooke, who was at our house that afternoon?"

A dre