"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."