No. 13 Washington Square | Page 6

the door and entered.

CHAPTER II
ENTER AN AMIABLE YOUNG GENTLEMAN
Half an hour earlier, across in Washington Square, a young gentleman
was sauntering about taking the crisp May air. He was fashionably but
quietly dressed, and in his chamois-gloved hand he swung a jaunty
wand of a cane; a slender, lithe young gentleman, with a keen face that
had an oddly wide but yet attractive mouth: a young man emanating an
essence of lightness both of body and of spirit. He might have been the
very person of agreeable, irresponsible Spring, if Spring is ever of the
male gender, out for a promenade.
It seemed most casual, the saunter of this pleasant idler; the keenest
observer would never have guessed purpose in his stroll. But never for
longer than an instant were the frank gray eyes of this young gentleman
away from the splendid stone steps, with their carved balustrade, and
the fine old doorway of Mrs. De Peyster's house at No. 13 Washington
Square.
Presently he noted three men turn up Mrs. De Peyster's steps. Swiftly,
but without noticeable haste, he was across the street. The trio had no
more than touched the bell when he was beside them.
"What papers are you boys with?" he inquired easily, merging himself
at once with the party.
One man told him--and looked him up and down. "Thought I knew all
the fellows," added the speaker, a middle-aged man, "but never ran into
you before. What's your rag?"
"'Town Gossip,'" replied the agreeable young gentleman.

"'Town Gossip'!" The old reporter gave a grunt of contempt. "And
you've come to interview Mrs. De Peyster?"
"Yes."
"First time I ever knew that leprous scandal-scavenger and
black-hander to send a man out in the open to get a story." Evidently
the old reporter, whom the others addressed as "colonel," had by his
long service acquired the privilege of surly out-spokenness. "Thought
'Town Gossip' specialized in butlers and ladies' maids and such--or
faked up its dope in the office."
"This is something special." The young gentleman's smiling but
unpresuming camaraderie seemed unruffled by the colonel's blunt
contempt, and though they all drew apart from him he seemed to be
untroubled by his journalistic ostracism.
The next moment the door was opened by a stout, short-breathed
woman, hat, jacket, and black gloves on. All stepped in. The three
late-arriving reporters, seeing in the reception-room beyond a group of
newspapermen about a servant,--Matilda making her first futile effort
to rid the house of this pestilential horde, generaled by Mr.
Mayfair,--started quickly toward the members of their fraternity. But
the young gentleman remained behind with their stout admitter.
"Huh--thought that was really your size--tackling a servant!"
commented the caustic colonel.
But the reporter from "Town Gossip" smiled and did not reply; and the
three disappeared into the reception-room. The young gentleman, very
politely, half pushed, half followed the stout woman out of the
reception-room's range of vision.
"Just leaving, I suppose," he remarked with pleasant matter-of-factness.
"Yes, sir. My bags are down at the basement door. When I heard the
ring, I just happened--"

"I understand. You wouldn't have answered the door, if almost all the
regular servants had not been gone. Now, I'd say," smiling engagingly,
"that you might be the cook, and a mighty good cook, too."
He had such an "air," did this young man,--the human air of the real
gentleman,--that, despite the unexpectedness of his overture, the stout
woman, instead of taking offense, flushed with pleasure.
"I ought to be a good one, sir; that's what I'm paid for."
"Seventy-five a month?" estimated the young gentleman.
"Eighty," corrected the cook.
"That's mighty good--twenty dollars a week. But, Mrs. Cook,"--again
with his open, engaging smile,--"pardon me for not knowing your
proper name,--could I induce you to enter my employment--at, say,
twenty dollars a minute?"
"What--what--"
"For only a limited period," continued the young gentleman--"to be
exact, say one minute. Light work," he added with a certain
whimsicality, "short hours, seven days out--unusual opportunity."
"But what--what am I to do?" gasped the cook, and before she could
gasp again one surprised black glove was clutching two ten-dollar bills.
"Arrange for me to see Miss Gardner--alone. It's all right. She and I are
old friends."
"But--but how?" helplessly inquired this mistress of all non-intrigantes.
"Isn't there some room where nobody will come in?"
"The library might be best, sir," pointing up the stairway at a door.
"The library, then! And arrange matters so that no one will know we're
meeting."

"But, sir, I don't see how--"
"Most simple, Mrs. Cook. Before you go, you, of course, want to bid
Miss Gardner good-bye. Just request the lady in black in there with the
reporters to tell Miss Gardner that you want to speak to her and will be
waiting in