. I got to get out some publicity on
the Governor's good-roads article we're going to publish; want to send
it out to forty papers in advance, and I can't get only a dozen proofs.
And it's got to go off to-night. Can you make me some copies? You can
use onion-skin paper and carbon 'em and make anyway five copies at a
whack. But prob'ly you'd have to stay late. Got anything on to-night?
Could you do it? Could you do it? Could you?"

"Surely."

"Well, here's the stuff. Just single-space that introductory spiel at
the top, will you?"

Una rudely turned out of her typewriter a form-letter which she was
writing for S. Herbert Ross, and began to type Walter's publicity, her
shoulders bent, her eyes intent, oblivious to the steady stream of
gossip which flowed from stenographer to stenographer, no matter how
busy they were. He needed her! She would have stayed till midnight.
While the keys burred under her fingers she was unconsciously telling
herself a story of how she would be working half the night, with the
office still and shadowy, of how a dead-white face would peer through
the window near her desk (difficult of accomplishment, as the window was
eight stories up in air), of how she was to be pursued by a man on the
way home; and how, when she got there, her mother would say, "I just
don't see how you could neglect me like this all evening." All the while
she felt herself in touch with large affairs--an article by the Governor
of the State; these very sheets that she was typing to go to famous
newspapers, to the "thundering presses" of which she had read in
fiction; urgency, affairs, and--doing something for Walter Babson.

She was still typing swiftly at five-thirty, the closing hour. The
article was long; she had at least two hours of work ahead. Miss
Moynihan came stockily to say good-night. The other stenographers
fluttered out to the elevators. Their corner became oppressively quiet.
The office-manager gently puttered about, bade her good-night, drifted
away. S. Herbert Ross boomed out of his office, explaining the theory of
advertising to a gasoleny man in a pin-checked suit as they waddled to
the elevator. The telephone-girl hurried back to connect up a last call,
frowned while she waited, yanked out the plug, and scuttled away--a
creamy, roe-eyed girl, pretty and unhappy at her harassing job of
connecting nervous talkers all day. Four men, editors and
advertising-men, shouldered out, bawling over a rather feeb