"Are you?" she crashes in crisp. "Well, say, you fresh agents are
goin' to overwork this comedy cut-up act with our bell one of these
times. Go on. Shoot it. What you want to wish on us--instalment
player-piano, electric dish-washer, magazine subscriptions, or--"

"Excuse me," I cuts in, producin' the letter; "but, while you're a
grand little guesser, your start is all wrong. I came to see Mrs.
Bagstock about this. Lives here, don't she?"

"Oh, Auntie?" says the young party in the boudoir cap. "Then I guess
you can come in. Now, lemme see. What's this all about? H-m-m-m!
Stocks, eh? Just a jiffy while I go through this."

Durin' which I've been shooed into the parlor. Some parlor it is, too.
I don't know when I've seen a room that came so near whinin' about
better days gone by. Every piece of furniture, from the threadbare
sofa to the rickety center table, seems kind of sad and sobby.

Nothing old-timey about this young female that's studyin' out Mrs.
Bagstock's letter. Barrin' the floppy cap, she's costumed zippy enough
in what I should judge was a last fall's tango dress. As she reads she
yanks gum industrious.

"Say," she breaks out, "this is all Dutch to me. Who's bein' called
down, anyway?"

"We are," says I. "The Corrugated Trust. I'm private sec. there.
I've come around to show Mrs. Bagstock where she's sized us up wrong,
and if I could have five minutes' talk with her--"