This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

PEGGY-IN-THE-RAIN



Ames! She's a smart girl and she'd have turned you inside out if she'd wanted to. Why she backed down I don't savvy, because you ought to be good for a full column to her. How do you like Chicago?"

"Perhaps you'd better tell me the young lady's name so I can be on my guard if I ever run across her," said Gordon carelessly.

"That wouldn't do; it would be queering her game; see? What do you think of our new hotel?"

"I used to know—or, rather, I once met a young lady in New York who was on one of the papers. I wonder if it can be the same one? Youngish, is she?"

"About twenty-four or five, maybe. I don't know much about her. She's been with the S.-C. only a month or so. She's smart, though. I suppose you have a good many friends in Chicago?"

"That sounds like the lady I had in mind," pursued Gordon. "Rather dark blue eyes?"

The reporter looked at him quizzically. "We're never going to get anywhere at this rate," he said. "You'd better stop interviewing me, Mr. Ames, and let me fire the questions."

216