The Argosy, Vol. 76, No. 3 — page 236: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

706 was set before her. ‘“‘ To rent, per- chance to sell!’ she soliloquized jubi- lantly, and already she paraded in her own mind’s eye clothed not at all like Solomon in all his glory, but with quite a striking likeness to Mrs. Ronald Charteris. Even “ live wires ” have their feminine sparks. “The very best East Side loca- tion?” she inquired briskly. “ About what rental are you willing to pay, Mrs. Charteris? The upper East Side will, of course, be expensive.” Mrs. Charteris looked helpless. “Oh, of course,” she agreed. “I don’t know anything about business, but I expect to pay what is right. Four or five hundred a month, I suppose? More, of course, if I. have to, Miss— er—” She hesitated prettily. “Reynolds,” supplied Sally in a tone that hinted at her favorite joke, “my middle name’s Missouri.” Mrs. Charteris caught the inflec- tion. “I ought to have given you my attorney’s letter first,” she apologized. ‘I’m so unbusinesslike,” and, fumbling in a faultless wrist-bag, she produced a sheet of paper on which one of Gotham’s well-known legal firms stated in sufficiently ex- plicit language that Mrs. Ronald Charteris could be relied upon to pay any bills that she might incur. Sally flushed scarlet, but Mrs. Char-: teris apparently bore no ill will. “So that’s all right now, isn’t it?” she smiled. “I shall stay at the Cherokee for a few days till we get the matter settled. You call me up there when you get what you think [’ll like and I'll come for you in a taxt- cab. You'll do your very best for me, won't you?” she pleaded, extending a slim and dainty hand as she rose to go. “The commission,” stated Sally succinctly to the office-girl, as the door closed, “will be one-fourth of the month’s rent. Do you catch that, Miss O’Hara? I’m a convert to the horse- shoe pins, all right.” But the office-girl’s mind was lifted above such sordid considerations. THE ARGOSY. “Gee! I never knew just what angel- face meant before, Miss Reynolds,” she breathed, awestruck. ‘‘ She looks just like a Madonna in church, don’t she? ” But Sally had recovered her bal- ance. “In a shrine of solid eighteen carat gold,” she returned gaily, “which is better still. Your signs are all right, Miss O’Hara.- Cross my back, please, and catch three black cats to let loose while I do a little imitation of Daniel trying to rent the lions’ dens. I wager real lions are easier to manage than social ones!” Miss O’Hara must have failed to catch the black cats, for none of the social lions were in a renting mood, though dauntless little Sally thrust herself recklessly into “den” after “den”; first the list she had marked “possible,” then the “barely pos- sibles,’ then the “highly improb- ables,” ending at last in a burst of bravado with the “entirely out of the question ”’! None of the jaws snapped, though, for there was something about Sally’s five feet of business ability, concealed under a curly blond exterior, that widened them into a grin instead; but Sally objected seriously to being taken as a joke, and she got frightfully weary of hearing: ‘“ Why, really, my dear Miss Reynolds—I couldn’t think of letting a perfect stranger into my house, but I shall be awfully inter- ested to know whether you do find a place for her.”’ “They don’t believe I will,” cried Sally bitterly, as she rehearsed her third ‘day’s experiences to her faithful “pal,” Pauline, “but I shall, just the same, and don’t you forget it. They talk as if five hundred dollars a month was a mere ‘bag o’ shells,’ Pauline, but among them all there must be one that won’t look at it that way, believe me, and I’m going to find her! Mrs. Char- teris cried to-day when I told her I hadn’t found a place yet. I felt cheaper than a bargain basement.” In the middle of the night Pauline COMicdoo S CO@