own name. I found that
there was no getting out of this. They said that the whole matter was
strictly in confidence. They required references, and I had taken the
precaution to bring several letters of recommendation from well-known
business men--letters that had been given to me a short while before
when I was trying to get a situation in a business house down town.
These were satisfactory as to my character.

I have put the halter around my own neck now.

N.B.--Suppose Morton were to find this out!

_January 20th._--I have had my first experience in my new character. I
had been told to be ready every afternoon by five o'clock for orders.
Yesterday, about six in the afternoon, I received a message from the
Globe, directing me to go to a house in East Seventy-fourth Street,
near Fifth Avenue, at nine o'clock that evening, and submit myself to
the orders of Mr. Q. K. Slater. It was a consoling thought that I had
never heard of Mr. Q. K. Slater, and that East Seventy-fourth Street
was an unknown region to me.

Punctually at nine that evening I found myself in the large parlor of
a house in Seventy-fourth Street, brightly lighted, and filled with
people. The centre of the room was cleared, and several people were
dancing to the strains of a band. Near the door stood a tall imposing
gentleman with gray whiskers, and a lady in full evening dress.
Doubtless my hosts, or rather my proprietors.

What was I to do? How were they to know who and what I was? As I
stood hesitating, I found that their eyes were fixed upon me with a
significant glance. I immediately went toward them. To my astonishment
the lady greeted me by my name with the utmost suavity.

"Good-evening, Mr. Valentine," she said. "I am delighted to see you."

Mr. Slater murmured something that sounded like "How do you do?"

I said that I was delighted to meet--see them. Mrs. Slater turned to
another lady standing near her.

"Mrs. Raggles, _do_ let me introduce Mr. Valentine. We were so afraid
that he would not be able to come."

While I talked as well as I could to Mrs. Raggles, I surreptitiously
observed my host and hostess. Mr. Slater looked uncomfortable. There
was a consciousness in his uneasy manner that if I was a sham, so was
he. I feared that he might give us both away before the evening was
over. Mrs. Slater, on the contrary, soared above any feeling of this
sort. Her party was to be a success; that was evidently her principal
object. What a com