“Um!” grunted Ryder, “you’re a curious girl; upon my word you interest me!” He took the mass of papers lying at his elbow and pushed them over to her.  “Here,” he said, “I want you to make as clever a book out of this chaos as you did out of your own imagination.”

Shirley turned the papers over carelessly.

“So you think your life is a good example to follow?” she asked with a tinge of irony.

“Isn’t it?” he demanded.

The girl looked him square in the face.

“Suppose,” she said, “we all wanted to follow it, suppose we all wanted to be the richest, the most powerful personage in the world?”

“Well—­what then?” he demanded.

“I think it would postpone the era of the Brotherhood of man indefinitely, don’t you?”

“I never thought of it from that point of view,” admitted the billionaire.  “Really,” he added, “you’re an extraordinary girl.  Why, you can’t be more than twenty—­or so.”

“I’m twenty-four—­or so,” smiled Shirley.

Ryder’s face expanded in a broad smile.  He admired this girl’s pluck and ready wit.  He grew more amiable and tried to gain her confidence.  In a coaxing tone he said: 

“Come, where did you get those details?  Take me into your confidence.”

“I have taken you into my confidence,” laughed Shirley, pointing at her book.  “It cost you $1.50!” Turning over the papers he had put before her she said presently:  “I don’t know about this.”

“You don’t think my life would make good reading?” he asked with some asperity.

“It might,” she replied slowly, as if unwilling to commit herself as to its commercial or literary value.  Then she said frankly:  “To tell you the honest truth, I don’t consider mere genius in money-making is sufficient provocation for rushing into print.  You see, unless you come to a bad end, it would have no moral.”

Ignoring the not very flattering insinuation contained in this last speech, the plutocrat continued to urge her: 

“You can name your own price if you will do the work,” he said.  “Two, three or even five thousand dollars.  It’s only a few months’ work.”

“Five thousand dollars?” echoed Shirley.  “That’s a lot of money.”  Smiling, she added:  “It appeals to my commercial sense.  But I’m afraid the subject does not arouse my enthusiasm from an artistic standpoint.”

Ryder seemed amused at the idea of any one hesitating to make five thousand dollars.  He knew that writers do not run across such opportunities every day.

“Upon my word,” he said, “I don’t know why I’m so anxious to get you to do the work.  I suppose it’s because you don’t want to.  You remind me of my son.  Ah, he’s a problem!”

Shirley started involuntarily when Ryder mentioned his son.  But he did not notice it.

“Why, is he wild?” she asked, as if only mildly interested.

“Oh, no, I wish he were,” said Ryder.