is time findin' out for us whether or not the Blakes
are in. Finally he grunts something through the gum and waves us toward
the elevator. "Fourth," says he. And a slouchy young female in a dirty
khaki uniform takes us up, jerky, to turn us loose in a hallway with a
dozen doors openin' off.

There's such a dim light we could hardly read the cards in the door
plates, and we was pawin' around, dazed, when a husky bleached blonde
comes sailin' out of an apartment.

"Will you please tell me which is the Blakes' bell?" asks Vee.

"Blakes?" says the blonde. "Don't know 'em."

"Perhaps we're on the wrong floor," I suggests.

But about then a door opens and out peers Lucy Lee herself. "Why, there
you are!" says she. "We were just picking up a little. You know how
things get in an apartment. So good of you to hunt us up. Come right
in."

So we squeezes in between a fancy hall seat and the kitchen door, edges
down a three-foot hallway, and discovers Captain Blake just strugglin'
into his coat, at the same time kickin' some evenin' papers, dexterous,
under a davenport.

"Why, how comfy you are here, aren't you?" says Vee, gazin' around.

"Ye-e-es, aren't we?" says Lucy Lee, a bit draggy.

If you've ever made one of these flathouse first calls you can fill in
the rest for yourself. We are shown how, by leanin' out one of the front
windows, you can almost see the North River; what a cute little dinin'
room there is, with a built-in china closet and all; and how convenient
the bathroom is wedged between the two sleeping rooms.

"But really," says Lucy Lee, "the kitchen is the nicest. Do you know,
the sun actually comes in for nearly an hour every afternoon. And isn't
everything so handy?"

Yes, it was. You could stand in the middle and reach the gas stove with
one hand and the sink with the other, and if you didn't want to use the
washtub you could rest a loaf of bread on it. Then there was the
dumbwaiter door just beside the ice-box, and overhead a shelf where you
could store a whole dollar's worth of groceries, if you happened to have
that much on hand at once. It was all as handy as an upper berth.

"You see," explains Lucy Lee, "we have no room for a maid, and couldn't
possibly get one if we did have room, so I am doing my own work; that
is, we are. Hamilton is really quite a wonderful cook; aren't you,
Hammy, dear? Of course, I knew how to make fudge, and I am learning to
scramble eggs. We go out for dinner a lot,