“Story writer?” she enquired.

“I am only a beginner,” he told her.  “This work I am going to give you is a play.”

She looked at him with a shade of commiseration in her face.

“Sickening job, ain’t it, writing for the stage unless you’ve got some sort of pull?”

“This is my first effort,” he explained.

“Well, it’s none of my business,” she said gloomily.  “All I want is the typing of it, only you should see some of the truck I’ve had!  I’ve hated to send in the bill.  Waste of good time and paper!  I don’t suppose yours is like that, but there ain’t much written that’s any good, anyway.”

“You’re a hopeful young person, aren’t you?” he remarked, taking a cigarette from the mantelpiece and lighting it.  “Have one?”

“No, thank you!” she replied, rising briskly to her feet.  “I’m not that sort that sits about and smokes cigarettes with strange young men.  If you’ll let me know when that work’s going to be ready, I’ll send the janitor up for it.”

He smiled deprecatingly.

“You’re not afraid of me, by any chance, are you?” he asked.

Her eyes glowed with contempt as she looked him up and down.

“Afraid of you, sir!” she repeated.  “I should say not!  I’ve met all sorts of men and I know something about them.”

“Then sit down again, please,” he begged.

She hesitated for a moment, then subsided once more unwillingly into the chair.

“Don’t know as I want to stay up here gossiping,” she remarked.  “You’d much better be getting on with your work.  Give me one of those cigarettes, anyway,” she added abruptly.

“Do you live in the building?” he enquired, as he obeyed her behest.

“Two flats below with pop,” she replied.  “He’s a bad actor, very seldom in work, and he drinks.  There are just the two of us.  Now you know as much as is good for you.  You’re English, ain’t you?”

“I am,” Philip admitted.

“Just out, too, by the way you talk.”

“I have been living in Jamaica,” he told her, “for many years—­clerk in an office there.”

“Better have stayed where you were, I should think, if you’ve come here hoping to make a living by that sort of stuff.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” he agreed, “but you see I am here—­been here a week or two, in fact.”

“Done much visiting around?” she enquired.

“I’ve scarcely been out,” he confessed.  “You see, I don’t know the city except from my windows.  It’s wonderful from here after twilight.”

“Think so,” she replied dully.  “It’s a hard, hammering, brazen sort of place when you’re living in it from hand to mouth.  Not but what we don’t get along all right,” she added, a little defiantly.  “I’m not grumbling.”

“I am sure you’re not,” he assented soothingly.  “Tell me—­to-night I am a little tired of work.  I thought of going out.  Be a Good Samaritan and tell me where to find a restaurant in Broadway, somewhere where crowds of people go but not what they call a fashionable place.  I want to get some dinner—­I haven’t had anything decent to eat for I don’t know how long—­and I want to breathe the same atmosphere as other people.”