clerk laughed tolerantly.

That afternoon as Miss Kalski was leaving the office at 5:15, on her
way down the corridor she heard a typewriter clicking away in the
empty, echoing editorial offices. She looked in, and found Becky
bending forward over the machine as if she were about to swallow it.

"Hello, kid. Do you sleep with that?" she called. She walked up to
Becky and glanced at her copy. "What do you let 'em keep you up
nights over that stuff for?" she asked contemptuously. "The world
wouldn't suffer if that stuff never got printed."

Rebecca looked up wildly. Not even Miss Kalski's French pansy hat or
her ear-rings and landscape veil could loosen Becky's tenacious mind
from Mr. Gerrard's article on water power. She scarcely knew what
Miss Kalski had said to her, certainly not what she meant.

"But I must make progress already, Miss Kalski," she panted.

Miss Kalski gave her low, siren laugh.

"I should say you must!" she ejaculated.

* * * * *

Ardessa decided to take her vacation in June, and she arranged that
Miss Milligan should do O'Mally's work while she was away. Miss
Milligan was blunt and noisy, rapid and inaccurate. It would be just
as well for O'Mally to work with a coarse instrument for a time; he
would be more appreciative, perhaps, of certain qualities to which
he had seemed insensible of late. Ardessa was to leave for East
Hampton on Sunday, and she spent Saturday morning instructing her
substitute as to the state of the correspondence. At noon O'Mally
burst into her room. All the morning he had been closeted with a new
writer of mystery-stories just over from England.

"Can you stay and take my letters this afternoon, Miss Devine? You
're not leaving until to-morrow."

Ardessa pouted, and tilted her head at the angle he was tired of.

"I'm sorry, Mr. O'Mally, but I've left all my shopping for this
afternoon. I think Becky Tietelbaum could do them for you. I will
tell her to be careful."

"Oh, all right." O'Mally bounced out with a reflection of Ardessa's
disdainful expression on his face. Saturday afternoon was always a
half-holiday, to be sure, but since she had weeks of freedom when he
was away--However--

At two o'clock Becky Tietelbaum appeared at his door, clad in the
sober office suit which Miss Devine insisted she should wear, her
note-book in her hand, and so frightened that her fingers were cold
and her lips were pale. She had never taken dicta