she was almost startled.

"No. Of course not," she agreed.

"Yet that is what that mountain of brawn does during fourteen hours out
of the twenty-four. Nicotine is one of the deadliest poisons known to
science. Even when absorbed into the tissues in minute doses it corrodes
the brain and atrophies the intellect. Did you see how he grinned when
you described that vile weed as 'good tobacco'? Now, you don't know
good, meaning real, tobacco from bad, do you?"

"I know whether or not I like the scent of it," persisted Winifred. She
began to think that officialdom in Mulberry Street affected the methods
of the court circles frequented by Alice and the Mad Hatter.

"Don't mind him," put in Steingall genially. "He's a living example of
the close alliance between insanity and genius. On the tobacco question
he's simply cracked, and that is all there is to it. Now we're wasting
your time by this chatter. I'll come to serious business by asking a
question which you will not find embarrassing for a good many years yet
to come. How old are you?"

"Nineteen last birthday."

"When were you born?"

"On June 6, 1894."

"And where?"

Winifred reddened slightly.

"I don't know," she said.

"What?"

Steingall seemed to be immensely surprised, and Winifred proceeded
forthwith to throw light on this singular admission, which was exactly
what he meant her to do.

"That is a very odd statement, but it is quite true," she said
earnestly. "My aunt would never tell me where I was born. I believe it
was somewhere in the New England States, but I have only the vaguest
grounds for the opinion. What I mean is that aunty occasionally reveals
a close familiarity with Boston and Vermont."

"What is her full name?"

"Rachel Craik."

"She has never been married?"

Winifred's sense of humor was keen. She laughed at the idea of "Aunt
Rachel" having a husband.

"I don't think aunty will ever marry anybody now," she said. "She holds
the opposite sex in detestation. No man is ever admitted to our house."

"It is a small, old-fashioned residence, but very large for the
requirements of two women?" continued Steingall. He took no notes, and
might have been discussing the weather, now that the first whiff of
wonderment as to Winifred's lack of information about her birth-place
had passed.

"Yes. We have several rooms unoccupied."

"And unfurnished?"

"Say partly furnished."

"Ever had any boarders?"

"No."

"No servants, of co