Scorch O'Brien--just little
notes thanking him for remembering her.

By the way, the twenty dollars that had been lent to Cora Rathmore to
pay for the famous supper in Number 30 when Nancy had been frozen out,
had never been returned, either completely, or in part. Cora Rathmore
seemed to have forgotten her debt to Nancy when she returned from her
holiday at Christmas time.

Corinne suspected that Nancy had not been repaid; but nobody else really
knew anything about it--not even Jennie. Nancy would not talk about it
when some of the girls became curious.

She had not needed the money for anything. At New Year's Mr. Gordon had
sent her a ten-dollar note, but through Madame Schakael. When she asked
him if she could go home with Jennie Bruce over Easter, he sent her at
once another twenty dollars and his permission--the latter just as short
as it could be written.

Scorch evidently watched the mail basket on Mr. Gordon's desk with the
eye of an eagle. A second letter with the card of the law firm upon it
was put into Nancy's hand almost in the same mail with Mr. Gordon's
letter. Such letters passed through the Madame's hands without being
opened. It was a secret that troubled Nancy sometimes; yet she could not
"give Scorch away." This was Scorch's letter:

"Dear Miss Nancy:

"I see Old Gordon has risked another perfectly good yellow-back
in the mail. He'll ruin the morals of the mail clerks (I rote
that word 'mail' wrong before) if he keeps on. Know how I seen
the yellow-back in the letter? I punched a hole with a pin in
the crease of the envelope at each end. Squeeze the sides of the
envelope together a little and then squint through from one hole
to the other. That's an old one.

I want you to know I'm on the job. That Jennie girl you sent to
me is some peach; but she ain't in your class for looks, just
the same. Her brother is a pretty good feller, too; but we
couldn't get together on any scheme for jolting what you want to
know out of Old Gordon. The time will come, just the same. When
it does, I'm little Johnny On-the-Spot--don't forget that.

So no more at present, from

"Yours very respectfully,
"Scorch O'Brien."

There was not time to answer Scorch at once; but when Nancy was at
Jennie's home the girls wrote to the office boy of Ambrose, Necker &
Boles and