s amused gray eyes darkened and he glanced leisurely
around the room, where a dozen or more assorted people sat waiting their
turns to interview Mr. Keen: all sorts and conditions of people--smartly
gowned women, an anxious-browed business man or two, a fat German truck
driver, his greasy cap on his knees, a surly policeman, and an old
Irishwoman, wearing a shawl and an ancient straw bonnet. Harren's eyes
reverted to the darky.

"You will explain to Mr. Keen," he said, "that I am an army officer on
leave, and that I am obliged to start for Manila to-morrow. This is my
excuse for asking an immediate interview; and if it's not a good enough
excuse I must cancel this appointment, that is all."

The darky stood, irresolute, inclined to argue, but something in the
steel-gray eyes of the man set him in involuntary motion, and he went
away once more with the young man's message. Harren turned and walked
back to his seat. The old woman with the faded shawl was explaining
volubly to a handsomely gowned woman beside her that she was looking for
her boy, Danny; that her name was Mrs. Regan, and that she washed for
the aristocracy of Hunter's Point at a liberal price per dozen, using no
deleterious substances in the suds as Heaven was her witness.

The German truck driver, moved by this confidence, was stirred to begin
an endless account of his domestic misfortunes, and old Mrs. Regan,
becoming impatient, had already begun to interrupt with an account of
Regan's recent hoisting on the wings of a premature petard, when the
dark servant reappeared.

"Mistuh Keen will receive you, suh," he whispered, leading the way into
a large room where dozens of attractive young girls sat very busily
engaged at typewriting machines. Door after door they passed, all
numbered on the ground-glass panes, then swung to the right, where the
darky bowed him into a big, handsomely furnished room flooded with the
morning sun. A tall, gray man, faultlessly dressed in a gray frock suit
and wearing white spats, turned from the breezy, open window to inspect
him; the lean, well groomed, rather lank type of gentleman suggesting a
retired colonel of cavalry; unmistakably well bred from the ends of his
drooping gray mustache to the last button on his immaculate spats.

"Captain Harren?" he said pleasantly.

"Mr. Keen?"

They bowed. Young Harren drew from his pocket a card. It was the
business card of Keen & Co., and, glancing up at Mr. Keen, he read it
al