les the person to be seen?"

"Yes. No--wait a minute." She had halted in her progress to the door;
her mind's eye conjured up a probable interview between the Colonel and
the scientist, and she hardly had the heart to let it go at that.
Moreover, she earnestly wished, for Mrs. Paynter's reasons, that the
tenant of the third hall back should become associated with the
pay-envelope system of the city. "Listen," she went on. "I know one of
the directors of the _Post_, and shall be glad to speak to him in your
behalf. Then, if there is an opening, I'll send you, through my aunt, a
card of introduction to him and you can go to see him."

"Couldn't he come to see me? I am enormously busy."

"So is he. I doubt if you could expect him to--"

"H'm. Very well. I am obliged to you for your suggestion. Of course I
shall take no step in the matter until I hear from you."

"Good-evening," said the agent, icily.

He bowed slightly in answer to the salute, uttering no further word; for
him the interview ended right there, cleanly and satisfactorily. From
the door the girl glanced back. Mr. Queed had drawn his heavy book
before him, pencil in hand, and was once more engrossed in the study and
annotation of "Man's Duty to His Neighbors."

In the hail Sharlee met Fifi, who was tipping toward the dining-room to
discover, by the frank method of ear and keyhole, how the grim and
resolute collector was faring.

"You're still alive, Sharlee! Any luck?"

"The finest in the world, darling! Twenty dollars in the hand and a
remunerative job for him in the bush."

Fifi did a few steps of a minuet. "Hooray!" said she in her weak little
voice.

Sharlee put her arms around the child's neck and said in her ear: "Fifi,
be very gentle with that young man. He's the most pitiful little
creature I ever saw."

"Why," said Fifi, "I don't think he feels that way at all--"

"Don't you see that's just what makes him so infinitely pathetic? He's
the saddest little man in the world, and it has never dawned on him."

It was not till some hours later, when she was making ready for bed in
her own room, that it occurred to Sharlee that there was something odd
in this advice to her little cousin. For she had started out with the
intention to tell Mr. Queed that he must be very gentle with Fifi.

IV

_Relating how Two Stars in their Courses fought for Mr. Queed; and
how he accepted Remunerative Employment under Colonel Cowles, the