people are saying: always go straight for that."

He gave her a commission then and there for a heart to heart talk with a
gentleman whom the editor of the Home News Department of the _Daily
Dispatch_ would have referred to as a "Leading Literary Luminary," and
who had just invented a new world in two volumes. She had asked him
childish questions and had listened with wide-open eyes while he, sitting
over against her, and smiling benevolently, had laid bare to her all the
seeming intricacies of creation, and had explained to her in simple
language the necessary alterations and improvements he was hoping to
bring about in human nature. He had the sensation that his hair must be
standing on end the next morning after having read in cold print what he
had said. Expanding oneself before the admiring gaze of innocent
simplicity and addressing the easily amused ear of an unsympathetic
public are not the same thing. He ought to have thought of that.

It consoled him, later, that he was not the only victim. The _Daily
Dispatch_ became famous for its piquant interviews; especially with
elderly celebrities of the masculine gender.

"It's dirty work," Flossie confided one day to Madge Singleton. "I trade
on my silly face. Don't see that I'm much different to any of these poor
devils." They were walking home in the evening from a theatre. "If I
hadn't been stony broke I'd never have taken it up. I shall get out of
it as soon as I can afford to."

"I should make it a bit sooner than that," suggested the elder woman.
"One can't always stop oneself just where one wants to when sliding down
a slope. It has a knack of getting steeper and steeper as one goes on."

Madge had asked Joan to come a little earlier so that they could have a
chat together before the others arrived.

"I've only asked a few," she explained, as she led Joan into the restful
white-panelled sitting-room that looked out upon the gardens. Madge
shared a set of chambers in Gray's Inn with her brother who was an actor.
"But I have chosen them with care."

Joan murmured her thanks.

"I haven't asked any men," she added, as she fixed Joan in an easy chair
before the fire. "I was afraid of its introducing the wrong element."

"Tell me," asked Joan, "am I likely to meet with much of that sort of
thing?"

"Oh, about as much as there always is wherever men and women work
together," answered Madge. "It's a nuisance, but it has to be faced."

"Nature