seemed tremulous in rhythm with the ticking.

"Wide brims are in again," exclaimed the operator, "and wide hats are
awful on me; isn't that the luck?"

She went back to her key with the message in her hand, and Connor,
dropping his elbows on the counter, watched her send it with swift
almost imperceptible flections of her wrist.

Then she sat again with her hands folded in her lap, listening. Connor
turned his head and glanced through the door; by squinting he could look
over the roof just across the street and see the shadowy mountains
beyond; then he looked back again and watched the girl listening to the
voice of the outer world. The shock of the contrast soothed. He began to
forget about Ben Connor and think of her.

The girl turned in her chair and directly faced him, and he saw that she
moved her whole body just as she moved her hand, swiftly, but without a
jerk; she considered him gravely.

"Lonely?" she inquired. "Or worried?"

She spoke with such a commonplace intonation that one might have thought
it her business to attend to loneliness and worries.

"As a matter of fact," answered Ben Connor, instinctively dodging the
direct query, "I've been wondering how they happened to stick a
number-one artist on this wire.

"I'm not kidding," he explained hastily. "You see, I used to jerk
lightning myself."

For the first time she really smiled, and he discovered what a rare
thing a smile may be. Up to that point he had thought she lacked
something, just as the white dress lacked a touch of color.

"Oh," she nodded. "Been off the wire long?"

Ben Connor grinned. It began with his lips; last of all the dull gray
eyes lighted.

"Ever since a hot day in July at Aqueduct. The Lorrimer Handicap on the
11th of July, to be exact. I tossed up my job the next day."

"I see," she said, becoming aware of him again. "You played Tip-Top
Second."

"The deuce! Were you at Aqueduct that day?"

"I was here--on the wire." He restrained himself with an effort, for a
series of questions was Connor's idea of a dull conversation. He merely
rubbed his knuckles against his chin and looked at her wistfully.

"He nipped King Charles and Miss Lazy at the wire and squeezed home by a
nose--paid a fat price, I remember," went on the girl. "I suppose you
had something down on him?"

"Did a friend of yours play that race?"

"Oh, no; but I was new to the wire, then, and I used to cut in and
listen to everything that came by."