The girl was obliged to admit that, at the moment, she could think of no such person.  But her mind fastened at once on the vulgar, hopeful fact that the unsocial sociolologist wanted a job.

“That’s unfortunate,” said Mr. Queed.  “I suppose I must accept a little regular, very remunerative work—­to settle this board question once and for all.  An hour or two a day, at most.  However, it is not easy to lay one’s hand on such work in a strange city.”

“Perhaps,” said Miss Weyland slowly, “I can help you.”

“I’m sure I hope so,” said he with another flying glance at his watch.  “That is what I have been approaching for seven minutes.”

“Don’t you always find it an unnecessary waste of time not to be direct?”

He sat, slightly frowning, impatiently fingering the pages of his book.  The hit bounded off him like a rubber ball thrown against the Great Wall of China.

“Well?” he demanded.  “What have you to propose?”

The agent sat down in a chair across the table, William Klinker’s chair, and rested her chin upon her shapely little hand.  The other shapely little hand toyed with the crisp twenty dollar bill, employing it to trace geometric designs upon the colored table-cloth.  Mr. Queed had occasion to consult his watch again before she raised her head.

“I propose,” she said, “that you apply for some special editorial work on the Post.”

“The Post?  The Post?  The morning newspaper here?”

“One of them.”

He laughed, actually laughed.  It was a curious, slow laugh, betraying that the muscles which accomplished it were flabby for want of exercise.

“And who writes the editorials on the Post now?”

“A gentleman named Colonel Cowles—­”

“Ah!  His articles on taxation read as if they might have been written by a military man.  I happened to read one the day before yesterday.  It was most amusing—­”

“Excuse me.  Colonel Cowles is a friend of mine—­”

“What has that got to do with his political economy?  If he is your friend, then I should say that you have a most amusing friend.”

Sharlee rose, decidedly irritated.  “Well—­that is my suggestion.  I believe you will find it worth thinking over, Good-night.”

“The Post pays its contributors well, I suppose?”

“That you would have to take up with its owners.”

“Clearly the paper needs the services of an expert—­though, of course, I could not give it much time, only enough to pay for my keep.  The suggestion is not a bad one—­not at all.  As to applying, as you call it, is this amiable Colonel Cowles the person to be seen?”

“Yes.  No—­wait a minute.”  She had halted in her progress to the door; her mind’s eye conjured up a probable interview between the Colonel and the scientist, and she hardly had the heart to let it go at that.  Moreover, she earnestly wished, for Mrs. Paynter’s reasons, that the tenant of the third hall back should become associated with the pay-envelope system of the city.  “Listen,” she went on.  “I know one of the directors of the Post, and shall be glad to speak to him in your behalf.  Then, if there is an opening, I’ll send you, through my aunt, a card of introduction to him and you can go to see him.”