“Listen!  Didn’t I and Herbert tell you to keep out o’ here?” he said.  “Look at her, Herbert!  She’s back again!”

“You get out o’ here, Florence,” said Herbert, abandoning his task with a look of pain.  “How often we got to tell you we don’t want you around here when we’re in our office like this?”

“For Heaven’s sake!” Henry Rooter thought fit to add.  “Can’t you quit runnin’ up and down our office stairs once in a while, long enough for us to get our newspaper work done?  Can’t you give us a little peace?”

The pinkiness of Florence’s altering complexion was justified; she had not been within a thousand miles of their old office for four days.  With some heat she stated this to be the fact, adding, “And I only came then because I knew somebody ought to see that this stable isn’t ruined.  It’s my own uncle and aunt’s stable, I guess, isn’t it?  Answer me that, if you’ll kindly please to do so!”

“It’s my father and mother’s stable,” Herbert asserted.  “Haven’t I got a right to say who’s allowed in my own father and mother’s stable?”

“You have not,” the prompt Florence replied.  “It’s my own uncle and aunt’s stable, and I got as much right here as anybody.”

“You have not!” Henry Rooter protested hotly.  “This isn’t either your ole aunt and uncle’s stable.”

“It isn’t?”

“No, it is not!  This isn’t anybody’s stable.  It’s my and Herbert’s Newspaper Building, and I guess you haven’t got the face to stand there and claim you got a right to go in a Newspaper Building and say you got a right there when everybody tells you to stay outside of it, I guess!”

“Oh, haven’t I?”

“No, you ’haven’t—­I’!” Mr. Rooter maintained bitterly.  “You just walk down town and go in any Newspaper Buildings down there and tell ’em you got a right to stay there all day long when they tell you to get out o’ there!  Just try it!  That’s all I ask!”

Florence uttered a cry of derision.  “And pray, whoever told you I was bound to do everything you ask me to, Mister Henry Rooter?” And she concluded by reverting to that hostile impulse, so ancient, which, in despair of touching an antagonist effectively, reflects upon his ancestors.  “If you got anything you want to ask, you go ask your grandmother!”

“Here!” Herbert sprang to his feet.  “You try and behave like a lady!”

“Who’ll make me?” she inquired.

“You got to behave like a lady as long as you’re in our Newspaper Building, anyway,” Herbert said ominously.  “If you expect to come up here after you been told five dozen times to keep out——­”

“For Heaven’s sakes!” his partner interposed.  “When we goin’ to get our newspaper work done?  She’s your cousin; I should think you could get her out!”

“Well, I’m goin’ to, ain’t I?” Herbert protested plaintively.  “I expect to get her out, don’t I?”

“Oh, do you?” Miss Atwater inquired, with severe mockery.  “Pray, how would you expect to accomplish it, pray?”