d, she was obviously in distress.

Another sniff decided him.

"I say, you know," he said.

The girl looked at him. She was small, and at the present moment had
that air of the floweret surprized while shrinking, which adds a good
thirty-three per cent. to a girl's attractions. Her nose, he noted, was
delicately tip-tilted. A certain pallor added to her beauty. Roland's
heart executed the opening steps of a buck-and-wing dance.

"Pardon me," he went on, "but you appear to be in trouble. Is there
anything I can do for you?"

She looked at him again--a keen look which seemed to get into Roland's
soul and walk about it with a searchlight. Then, as if satisfied by the
inspection, she spoke.

"No, I don't think there is," she said. "Unless you happen to be the
proprietor of a weekly paper with a Woman's Page, and need an editress
for it."

"I don't understand."

"Well, that's all any one could do for me--give me back my work or give
me something else of the same sort."

"Oh, have you lost your job?"

"I have. So would you mind going away, because I want to go on crying,
and I do it better alone. You won't mind my turning you out, I hope, but
I was here first, and there are heaps of other benches."

"No, but wait a minute. I want to hear about this. I might be able--what
I mean is--think of something. Tell me all about it."

There is no doubt that the possession of two hundred and fifty thousand
pounds tones down a diffident man's diffidence. Roland began to feel
almost masterful.

"Why should I?"

"Why shouldn't you?"

"There's something in that," said the girl reflectively. "After all,
you might know somebody. Well, as you want to know, I have just been
discharged from a paper called 'Squibs.' I used to edit the Woman's
Page."

"By Jove, did you write that article on 'Men Who Speak----'?"

The hard manner in which she had wrapped herself as in a garment
vanished instantly. Her eyes softened. She even blushed. Just a becoming
pink, you know!

"You don't mean to say you read it? I didn't think that any one ever
really read 'Squibs.'"

"Read it!" cried Roland, recklessly abandoning truth. "I should jolly
well think so. I know it by heart. Do you mean to say that, after
an article like that, they actually sacked you? Threw you out as a
failure?"

"Oh, they didn't send me away for incompetence. It was simply because
they couldn't afford to keep me on. Mr. Petheram was very nice about
it."

"Who's M