too."

"Isn't that nice?" says Vee, encouragin'.

Gradually we got the whole story. It seems Blake wasn't a captain any
more, but had an engineerin' job on one of the new tubes, so they had to
stick in New York. They had thought at first it would be thrilling, but
I gathered that most of the thrills had worn off. And along towards the
end Lucy Lee admits that she's awfully lonesome. You see, she'd been
used to spendin' about six months of the year with Daddy in Washington,
three more in flittin' around from one house party to the other, and
what was left of the year restin' up down on the big plantation, where
they knew all the neighbors for miles around.

"But here," says she, "we seem to know hardly anyone. Oh, yes, there are
a few people in town we've met, but somehow we never see them. They live
either in grand houses on Fifth Avenue, or in big hotels, or in
Brooklyn."

"Then you haven't gotten acquainted with anyone in the building here?"
asks Vee.

"Why," says Lucy Lee, "the janitor's wife is a Mrs. Biggs, I believe.
I've spoken to her several times--about the milk."

"You poor dear!" says Vee.

"It's so tiresome," goes on Lucy Lee, "wandering out at night to some
strange restaurant and eating dinner among total strangers. We go often
to one perfectly dreadful little place because there's a funny old
waiter that we call by his first name. He tells us about his married
daughter, whose husband is a steamfitter and has been out on strike for
nearly two months. But Hamilton always tips him more than he should, so
it makes our dinners quite expensive. We have to make up, next night, by
having fried eggs and bacon at home."

* * * * *

Well, it's a tale of woe, all right. Lucy Lee don't mean to complain,
but when she gets started on the subject she lets the whole thing out.
Life in the great city, if you have to spend twenty hours out of the
twenty-four in a four-and-bath apartment, ain't so allurin', the way she
sketches it out. Course, she ain't used to it, for one thing. She thinks
if she had some friends nearby it might not be so bad. As for Hamilton,
he listens to her with a puzzled, hopeless expression, like he didn't
understand.

Vee seems to be studyin' over something, but she don't appear to be
gettin' anywhere. So we sits around and talks for an hour or so. There
ain't room to do much else in a flat. And about 9:30 Mr. Blake has a
brilliant thought.

"I say, Lucy,"