repartee with
that financial genius of the "Mercantile Agency," with whose workings
the reader may have a slight familiarity, located on the floor below of
the same Fifth Avenue building.

"Yes, dearie, during business hours I'm as hard as nails, but when I
shut up my desk I'm just as good a fellow as the next one. All work
and no play gathers no moss," remarked Mr. John Clemm.

"You're a comical fellow, Mr. Clemm. I'd just love to go out to-night,
as you suggest. And if you've got a gent acquaintance who is like you,
I have the swellest little lady friend you ever seen. Her name is
Clarice, and she is a manicure girl at the Astor. We might have a
foursome, you know."

"That's right, girlie," responded Clemm, as he ingratiatingly placed an
arm about her wasp-like waist. "But two's company, and four's too much
of a corporation for me."

"Oh, Mr. Clemm--nix on this in here--Mr. Trubus is in his office, and
he'll get wise...."

As she spoke, not Mr. Trubus, but his estimable wife interrupted the
progress of the courtship. She walked into the doorway, from the
elevator corridor, holding Mary's arm.

As she saw the lover-like attitude of the plump Mr. Clemm, she gasped,
and then burst out in righteous indignation.

"Why, you shameless girl, what do you mean by such actions in the
office of the Purity League? I shall tell my husband at once!"

Miss Emerson sprang away from the amorous entanglement with Mr. Clemm
and tried to say something. She could think of nothing which befitted
the occasion; all her glib eloquence was temporarily asphyxiated. Mr.
Clemm stammered and looked about for some hole in which to conceal
himself. He, too, seemed far different from the pugnacious,
self-confident dictator who reigned supreme on the floor below.

"William! William Trubus!" called the philanthropist's wife angrily.
Her husband heard from within, and he opened the door with a thoroughly
startled look.

"My dear wife!" he began, purring and somewhat uncertain as to the
cause of the trouble. Mary, nervous as she was, observed a curious
interchange of glances between the two men.

"William, I find this brazen creature standing here hugging this man,
as though your office, the Purity League's headquarters, were some
Lover's Lane! It is disgusting."

"Well, well, my dear," stammered Trubus. "Don't be too harsh."

"I am not harsh, but I have too much respect for you and the high
ideals for which I know you bat