referred to in attached clipping reply by complying to
requirements enclosed--and mail answer by the evening of the day that
this communication is received.

"1st. Write a formal acceptance to a formal dinner.

2nd. Write a few words on suffrage appropriate to an older woman who is
mildly opposed.

3rd. Write a polite note of refusal to the treasurer of a charitable
institution in reply to a request to donate sum of money.

4th. Write a note of condolence to an acquaintance upon the death of a
relative.

5th. Write a note of congratulation to a debutante announcing her
engagement.

6th. Write an informal invitation to a house-party in the country.

7th. Acknowledge a gift of flowers sent to you during an illness."

I sat down with zest to this task. It was an original way to weed out
applicants. I spent the whole afternoon over it. It was late in the
evening before I had all my questions answered, neatly copied, sealed,
and dropped inside a green letter-box.

A day or two later I received in the same non-committal typewritten form
a brief summons to appear the following morning between twelve and one
o'clock at a certain uptown hotel, and to inquire at the desk for
Miss A. S. Armstrong.

It was a clear starry night. I pinned a towel over my suit, put it on a
coat-hanger, and hung it securely to the blind-catch outside my window.
I didn't know who Miss A. S. Armstrong was, but at any rate I would
offer up to the stars what I possessed of Mrs. Plummet's soup-stock.

CHAPTER XX

THE FIFTH WHEEL GAINS WINGS

Miss A. S. Armstrong proved to be a thin angular creature with no
eyelashes. She saw me come in through the revolving doors of the hotel
at sharp twelve o'clock. When I enquired for her at the desk, she was at
my elbow. She was not the lady I had come to be interviewed by; she was
merely her present private secretary; the lady herself, she explained,
was upstairs awaiting me.

"You're younger than we thought," she said, eyeing me critically. She
was a very precise person. Her accent was English. My hopes dimmed as I
looked upon her. If she had been selected as desirable, then there was
little chance for me. My short experience in employment offices had
proved to me the undesirability of possessing qualities that impress a
would-be employer as too attractive.

"Do you have young men callers?" "Do you like 'to go'?" "Do you want to
be out late?" Such inquiries were invariably made when I was tr