Mrs. Parker gave her the incredulous, pitying, sneering, icy stare that
she kept for those who failed to qualify as doctors or dentists, and led
the way to the second floor back.

"Eight dollars?" said Miss Leeson. "Dear me! I'm not Hetty if I do look
green. I'm just a poor little working girl. Show me something higher and
lower."

Mr. Skidder jumped and strewed the floor with cigarette stubs at the rap
on his door.

"Excuse me, Mr. Skidder," said Mrs. Parker, with her demon's smile at
his pale looks. "I didn't know you were in. I asked the lady to have a
look at your lambrequins."

"They're too lovely for anything," said Miss Leeson, smiling in exactly
the way the angels do.

After they had gone Mr. Skidder got very busy erasing the tall,
black-haired heroine from his latest (unproduced) play and inserting a
small, roguish one with heavy, bright hair and vivacious features.

"Anna Held'll jump at it," said Mr. Skidder to himself, putting his feet
up against the lambrequins and disappearing in a cloud of smoke like an
aerial cuttlefish.

Presently the tocsin call of "Clara!" sounded to the world the state
of Miss Leeson's purse. A dark goblin seized her, mounted a Stygian
stairway, thrust her into a vault with a glimmer of light in its top