"Yes.... Do I understand that you--derive your living from these social laws that you write up for others to practice?"
"Oh, no--impossible! There is no living to be made there. When my book comes out there may be a different story, but that is two years and ten months off. Every minute taken from it for the making of money is, as you may now understand, decidedly unfortunate. Still," he added depressedly, "I must arrange to earn something, I suppose, since my father"s a.s.sistance is so problematical. I worked for money in New York, for awhile."
"Oh--did you?"
"Yes, I helped a lady write a thesaurus."
"Oh...."
"It was a mere fad with her. I virtually wrote the work for her and charged her five dollars an hour." He looked at her narrowly. "Do you happen to know of any one here who wants work of that sort done?"
The agent did not answer. By a series of covert glances she had been trying to learn, upside down, what it was that Mr. Queed was reading.
"Sociology," she had easily picked out, but the chapter heading, on the opposite page, was more troublesome, and, deeply absorbed, she had now just succeeded in deciphering it. The particular division of his subject in which Mr. Queed was so much engrossed was called "Man"s Duty to His Neighbors."
Struck by the silence, Sharlee looked up with a small start, and the faintest possible blush. "I beg your pardon?"
"I asked if you knew of any lady here, a wealthy one, who would like to write a thesaurus as a fad."
The girl was obliged to admit that, at the moment, she could think of no such person. But her mind fastened at once on the vulgar, hopeful fact that the unsocial sociolologist wanted a job.
"That"s unfortunate," said Mr. Queed. "I suppose I must accept a little regular, very remunerative work--to settle this board question once and for all. An hour or two a day, at most. However, it is not easy to lay one"s hand on such work in a strange city."
"Perhaps," said Miss Weyland slowly, "I can help you."
"I"m sure I hope so," said he with another flying glance at his watch.
"That is what I have been approaching for seven minutes."
"Don"t you always find it an unnecessary waste of time not to be direct?"
He sat, slightly frowning, impatiently fingering the pages of his book.
The hit bounded off him like a rubber ball thrown against the Great Wall of China.
"Well?" he demanded. "What have you to propose?"
The agent sat down in a chair across the table, William Klinker"s chair, and rested her chin upon her shapely little hand. The other shapely little hand toyed with the crisp twenty dollar bill, employing it to trace geometric designs upon the colored table-cloth. Mr. Queed had occasion to consult his watch again before she raised her head.
"I propose," she said, "that you apply for some special editorial work on the _Post_."
"The _Post_? The _Post_? The morning newspaper here?"
"One of them."
He laughed, actually laughed. It was a curious, slow laugh, betraying that the muscles which accomplished it were flabby for want of exercise.
"And who writes the editorials on the _Post_ now?"
"A gentleman named Colonel Cowles--"
"Ah! His articles on taxation read as if they might have been written by a military man. I happened to read one the day before yesterday. It was most amusing--"
"Excuse me. Colonel Cowles is a friend of mine--"
"What has that got to do with his political economy? If he is your friend, then I should say that you have a most amusing friend."
Sharlee rose, decidedly irritated. "Well--that is my suggestion. I believe you will find it worth thinking over, Good-night."
"The _Post_ pays its contributors well, I suppose?"
"That you would have to take up with its owners."
"Clearly the paper needs the services of an expert--though, of course, I could not give it much time, only enough to pay for my keep. The suggestion is not a bad one--not at all. As to applying, as you call it, is this amiable Colonel Cowles the person to be seen?"
"Yes. No--wait a minute." She had halted in her progress to the door; her mind"s eye conjured up a probable interview between the Colonel and the scientist, and she hardly had the heart to let it go at that.
Moreover, she earnestly wished, for Mrs. Paynter"s reasons, that the tenant of the third hall back should become a.s.sociated with the pay-envelope system of the city. "Listen," she went on. "I know one of the directors of the _Post_, and shall be glad to speak to him in your behalf. Then, if there is an opening, I"ll send you, through my aunt, a card of introduction to him and you can go to see him."
"Couldn"t he come to see me? I am enormously busy."
"So is he. I doubt if you could expect him to--"
"H"m. Very well. I am obliged to you for your suggestion. Of course I shall take no step in the matter until I hear from you."
"Good-evening," said the agent, icily.
He bowed slightly in answer to the salute, uttering no further word; for him the interview ended right there, cleanly and satisfactorily. From the door the girl glanced back. Mr. Queed had drawn his heavy book before him, pencil in hand, and was once more engrossed in the study and annotation of "Man"s Duty to His Neighbors."
In the hail Sharlee met Fifi, who was tipping toward the dining-room to discover, by the frank method of ear and keyhole, how the grim and resolute collector was faring.
"You"re still alive, Sharlee! Any luck?"
"The finest in the world, darling! Twenty dollars in the hand and a remunerative job for him in the bush."
Fifi did a few steps of a minuet. "Hooray!" said she in her weak little voice.
Sharlee put her arms around the child"s neck and said in her ear: "Fifi, be very gentle with that young man. He"s the most pitiful little creature I ever saw."
"Why," said Fifi, "I don"t think he feels that way at all--"
"Don"t you see that"s just what makes him so infinitely pathetic? He"s the saddest little man in the world, and it has never dawned on him."
It was not till some hours later, when she was making ready for bed in her own room, that it occurred to Sharlee that there was something odd in this advice to her little cousin. For she had started out with the intention to tell Mr. Queed that he must be very gentle with Fifi.
IV
_Relating how Two Stars in their Courses fought for Mr. Queed; and how he accepted Remunerative Employment under Colonel Cowles, the Military Political Economist._