No. 13 Washington Square | Page 6

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 the library. When you've said that, you've earned the money. Then just watch your chance until the somber lady isn't looking, and continue with your original plan of leaving the house."
"Perhaps it will work," hesitated the cook. But with a gesture in which there was no hesitation she slipped her minute's pay between the buttons of her waist.
The young gentleman went lightly and swiftly up the stairs and through the mahogany door that had been pointed out to him. Curiously he looked about the spacious, dark-toned room of splendid dignity. He had the ease of the man to whom the world is home, and seemed not one whit abashed by the exclusive grandeur of the great chamber. With a watchful eye on the door, he glanced at the rows and rows of volumes: well-bred authors whom time had elevated to a place among literary "old families." Also he examined some old Chinese ivory carvings with a critical, valuating, meditative eye. Also in passing--and this he did absently, as one might do from habit--he tried the knob of a big safe, but it was locked.
The next moment there was a sound at the door. Instantly he was out of sight behind the