iness Telephone
Directory the address of a milliner not down on his lists, who did work
for wholesale as well as retail trade, went up the steps of a really
handsome house, and rang the bell. He did so reluctantly, for there was
no plate on the door, and he did not wish to annoy strangers. But the
address seemed straight enough.

The door was opened by a becapped maid, and Hamilton was shown into a
handsomely furnished drawing room. On a table in the corner, the boy
caught sight of a pile of fashion magazines, and he was sure that he was
on the right track. After a few moments' delay, a richly dressed little
Frenchwoman bustled in. She seemed surprised to see the boy, and halted
on the threshold. Hamilton rose.

"I understand, Madame," he said, "that you are an 'exclusive' milliner?"

The woman looked bewildered.

"You make hats?" Hamilton continued, perceiving at a glance that the
woman was foreign-born.

"Is it a hatter zat you want?" she asked.

"No, no," the boy replied, "I just want to know if you are a milliner?"

The Frenchwoman, not at all enlightened by this explanation, answered:

"I do not make ze hats; I design zem, and ze ozzers make zem."

"Oh, I thought you were the proprietor," said Hamilton; "then you don't
own this place!"

"I am ze proprietor, but I do not own ze house," she said; "I pay ze
rent. But why you ask? I pay my rent!"

"Oh, of course," answered Hamilton, "but that has nothing to do with it.
I did not wish to trouble you that way. I come from the census, and
wanted to make sure that this was the place I was looking for."

"What is zat--ze census?"

"That is the way the government finds out about all the people in the
country," explained Hamilton, "their names and how old they are, what
they work at and how many people they employ, the wages they pay or are
paid, and all sorts of things."

The Frenchwoman's eyes had been getting bigger and rounder at every
sentence, and when Hamilton had finished, she said with an air of
regretful surprise:

"An' they tol' me zere was no police spy in America!"

"There isn't, so far as I know," the boy answered.

"But you--"

"I'm not a police spy," the boy said, a little nettled at being
misunderstood.

"No? Zen zat is all ze more strange. In my country zose are ze questions
ze gendarmes ask. An' if you are not policeman, why do you wear badge?"
she queried, pointing to the little census shield on Hamilton's coat.

"That has nothing