Have you one who is inside the
houses of the wealthy, at their very dinner-tables, instead of being
on the front step, trying to hold the door open with his foot? That is
the point you have to consider.' They saw the idea at once. We
arranged terms--not as generous as I could wish, perhaps, but quite
ample. I receive a tolerably satisfactory salary each week, and in
return I spread the good word about Nervino in the gilded palaces of
the rich. Those are the people to go for, Jill. They have been so
busy wrenching money away from the widow and the orphan that they
haven't had time to look after their health. You catch one of them
after dinner, just as he is wondering if he was really wise in taking
two helpings of the lobster Newburg, and he is clay in your hands. I
draw my chair up to his and become sympathetic and say that I had
precisely the same trouble myself until recently, and mention a dear
old friend of mine who died of indigestion, and gradually lead the
conversation round to Nervino. I don't force it on them. I don't even
ask them, to try it. I merely point to myself, rosy with health, and
say that I owe everything to it, and the thing is done. They thank me
profusely and scribble the name down on their shirt-cuffs. And there
you are! I don't suppose," said Uncle Chris philosophically, "that the
stuff can do them any actual harm."

They had come to the corner of Forty-first Street. Uncle Chris felt in
his pocket and produced a key.

"If you want to go and take a look at my little nest, you can let
yourself in. It's on the twenty-second floor. Don't fail to go out on
the roof and look at the view. It's worth seeing. It will give you
some idea of the size of the city. A wonderful, amazing city, my dear,
full of people who need Nervino. I shall go on and drop in at the club
for half an hour. They have given me a fortnight's card at the Avenue.
Capital place. Here's the key."

Jill turned down Forty-first Street, and came to a mammoth structure
of steel and stone which dwarfed the modest brown houses beside it
into nothingness. It was curious to think of a private flat nestling
on the summit of this mountain. She went in, and the lift shot her
giddily upwards to the twenty-second floor. She found herself facing a
short flight of stone steps, ending in a door. She mounted the steps,
tried the key, and, turning it, entered a hall-way. Proceeding down
the passage, she reached a sitting-room.

It was a small roo