uld do
just a little, Joan presumed--caused her heart to sink. Finding work was
not going to be as easy as she had first supposed.

She roamed from office to office after that for several days, to be met
everywhere with the same slight encouragement and frail promises to
help. Finally, thoroughly discouraged, she bought papers instead, and
turned to a strict perusal of their various advertisements.

One in particular caught her eye.

"Wanted a pupil shorthand typist. Tuition in return for services.--Apply
Miss Bacon, 2, Baker Street, W."

It was late in the afternoon of the day before Joan found her way to
Baker Street, for she had had several other places to call at and she
was in addition very tired. Going from place to place in search of work
had reduced her to a painful knowledge of her own absolute incompetency
and the general uselessness of life. A brass plate on the door of No. 2
conveyed the information: "Miss Bacon. Fourth floor. Shorthand and
Typing. Please ring and walk up."

Joan rang and followed the instructions. On the very top landing a girl
stood, holding a candle in her hand, for up here there was no light of
any sort. The grease dripped down her skirt and on to the floor.

"Do you want Miss Bacon?" she asked.

Joan nodded, too breathless to say anything.

The girl turned into the dim interior and threw open a door, snuffing
the candle at the same time.

"If you will wait here," she said, "Miss Bacon will be with you in a
minute."

Joan looked round on a moderately large, dust-smothered room. Dust, that
is to say, was the first thing to strike the eye of the beholder. The
windows were thick in dust, it lay on tables and chairs and on the two
typewriters standing unused in a corner of the room. The room gave one
the impression of being singularly uninhabited. Then the door opened and
shut again, and Joan turned to face the owner.

Miss Bacon's figure, like her furniture, seemed to have taken on a
coating of dust. Timid eyes looked out at Joan from behind pince-nez set
rather crookedly on a thin nose. One side of her face, from eye to chin,
was disfigured by an unsightly bruise. Miss Bacon dabbed a handkerchief
to it continually and started explaining its presence at once.

"You may be surprised at my face"--her voice, like her eyes, was
timid--"but I am short-sighted and last night stumbled on the stairs,
hitting my face against the top step. It was exceedingly painful, but it
is better n