same way?"

"No."

Winifred was aware that the other girls were watching her furtively and
exchanging meaning looks.

"You take the Third Avenue L, I suppose?" persisted Fowle. Then Winifred
faced him squarely. For some reason her temper got the better of her.

"It is a house rule, Mr. Fowle," she said, "that the girls are forbidden
to talk during working hours."

"Nonsense," laughed Fowle. "I'm in charge here, an' what I say goes."

He left her, however, and busied himself elsewhere. Apparently, he was
even forgiving enough to call Miss Sugg out of the room and detain her
all the rest of the morning.

Winifred was promptly rallied by some of her companions.

"I must say this for you, Winnie Bartlett, you don't think you're the
whole shootin' match," said a stout, red-faced creature, who would have
been more at home on a farm than in a New York warehouse, "but it gets
my goat when you hand the mustard to Fowle in that way. If he made
goo-goo eyes at me, I'd play, too."

"I wish little Carlotta was a blue-eyed, golden-haired queen," sighed
another, a squat Neapolitan with the complexion of a Moor. "She's give
Fowle a chance to dig into his pocketbook, believe me."

The youthful philosopher won a chorus of approval. All the girls liked
Winifred. They even tacitly admitted that she belonged to a different
order, and seldom teased her. Fowle's obvious admiration, however,
imposed too severe a strain, and their tongues ran freely.

The luncheon-hour came, and Winifred hurried out with the others. They
patronized a restaurant in Fourteenth Street. At a news-stand she
purchased an evening paper, a rare event, since she had to account for
every cent of expenditure. Though allowed books, she was absolutely
forbidden newspapers!

But this forlorn girl, who knew so little of the great city in whose
life she was such an insignificant item, felt oddly concerned in "The
Yacht Mystery." It was the first noteworthy event of which she had even
a remote first-hand knowledge. That empty launch, its very abandonment
suggesting eeriness and fatality, was a tangible thing. Was she not one
of the few who had literally seen it? So she invested her penny, and
after reading of the discovery of the boat--it was found moored to a
wharf at the foot of Fort Lee--breathlessly read:

As the outcome of information given by a well-known Senator,
the police have obtained an important clue which leads
straight to a house in