said Phyllis; and sent him upstairs with a note asking
for "Hugh Wynne" in the two-volume edition. She was used to translating
that small colored boy's demands. Last week he had described to her a
play he called "Eas' Limb", with the final comment, "But it wan't no
good. 'Twant no limb in it anywhar, ner no trees atall!"

"Do you have much of that?" Mr. De Guenther asked idly.

"Lots!" said Phyllis cheerfully. "You take special training in guesswork
at library school. They call them 'teasers'. They say they're good for
your intellect."

"Ah--yes," said Mr. De Guenther absently in the barside manner.

And then, sitting calmly with his silvery head against a Washington's
Birthday poster so that three scarlet cherries stuck above him in the
manner of a scalp-lock, he said something else remarkably real:

"I have--we have--a little matter of business to discuss with you
to-morrow night, my dear; an offer, I may say, of a different line of
work. And I want you to satisfy yourself thoroughly--thoroughly, my dear
child, of my reputableness. Mr. Johnstone, the chief of the city
library, whose office I believe to be in this branch, is one of my
oldest friends. I am, I think I may say, well known as a lawyer in this
my native city. I should be glad to have you satisfy yourself personally
on these points, because----" could it be that the eminently poised Mr.
De Guenther was embarrassed? "Because the line of work which I wish, or
rather my wife wishes, to lay before you is--is a very different line of
work!" ended the old gentleman inconclusively. There was no mistake
about it this time--he _was_ embarrassed.

"Oh, Mr. De Guenther!" cried Phyllis before she thought, out of the
fulness of her heart, catching his arm in her eagerness; "Oh, Mr. De
Guenther, _could_ the Very Different Line of Work have a--have a
_rose-garden_ attached to it anywhere?"

Before she was fairly finished she knew what a silly question she had
asked. How could any line of work she was qualified to do possibly have
rose-gardens attached to it? You can't catalogue roses on neat cards, or
improve their minds by the Newark Ladder System, or do anything at all
librarious to them, except pressing them in books to mummify; and the
Liberry Teacher didn't think that was at all a courteous thing to do to
roses. So Mr. De Guenther's reply quite surprised her.

"There--seems--to be--no good reason," he said, slowly and placidly,
as if he were dropping his words