CHAPTER I
THE GIRL WITH THE LETTER
Brightening continued to be fun. As time went on I brightened charming people, queer people, people with their hearts in the right place and their "H's" in the wrong one. I was an expensive luxury, but it paid to have me, as it pays to get a good doctor or the best quality in boots.
After several successful operations and some lurid adventures, I was doing so well on the whole that I felt the need of a secretary. How to hit on the right person was the problem, for I wanted her young, but not too young; pretty, but not too pretty; lively, not giddy; sensible, yet never a bore; a lady, but not a howling swell; accomplished, but not overwhelming; in fact, perfection.
This time I didn't hide my light under a bushel of initials, nor in a box at a newspaper office. I announced that the "Princess di Miramare requires immediately the services of a gentlewoman (aged from twenty-one to thirty) for secretarial work four or five hours six days of the week. Must be intelligent and experienced typist-stenographer. Salary, three guineas a week. Apply personally, between 9:30 and 11:30 A. M. No letters considered."
I gave the address of my own flat and awaited developments with high hope; for I conceitedly expected an "ad." under my own name to attract a good class of applicants.
It appeared in several London dailies and succeeded like a July sale. I wouldn't have believed that there were such crowds of pretty typists on earth! Luckily, the lift boy was young, so he enjoyed the rush.
As for me, I felt like a spider that has got religion and pities its flies; there were so many flies—I mean girls—and each in one way or other was more desirable than the rest! I might have been reduced to tossing up a copper or having the applicants draw lots, if something very special hadn't happened.
The twenty-sixth girl brought a letter of introduction from Robert Lorillard.