"Urticaria frequently needs--er--thinning," he announced
decisively.

"Needs scratching you mean!" Miss Cornelia rose with a snort of
disdain and faced him. "Young man, urticaria is hives, rubeola
is measles, and alopecia is baldness!" she thundered. She waited
a moment for his defense. None came.

"Why did you tell me you were a professional gardener?" she went
on accusingly. "Why have you come here at this hour of night
pretending to be something you're not?"

By all standards of drama the young man should have wilted before
her wrath, Instead he suddenly smiled at her, boyishly, and threw
up his hands in a gesture of defeat.

"I know I shouldn't have done it!" he confessed with appealing
frankness. "You'd have found me out anyhow! I don't know anything
about gardening. The truth is," his tone grew somber, "I was desperate!
I HAD to have work!"

The candor of his smile would have disarmed a stonier-hearted person
than Miss Cornelia. But her suspicions were still awake.

"'That's all, is it?"

"That's enough when you're down and out." His words had an
unmistakable accent of finality. She couldn't help wanting to
believe him, and yet, he wasn't what he had pretended to be--and