"One twenty," said the clerk, to me. "Business Personals, of course. I will write the word 'Lady' before 'Typewriter,' if that is what you mean. It may save annoyance. Sunday? Very well."
He gave me my change and I withdrew to make room for others, who were already crowding for recognition.
It was only Thursday, but it was something to have done the thing. After months of insomnia it is hard to make up one's mind. Delighted that I had taken the first step, I bought a paper from one of the boys at the door and went home to study the steamship routes.
CHAPTER II.
OUTLINING THE SCHEME.
The most intimate masculine friend I had in the world was Statia's brother, Tom Barton. We seemed to have become attached for the reason that a story reminded some one of an event—because we were so different. Tom was not the kind of chap, however, to trust with such a plan as I had just been maturing. Not only was he virtuous—which may be forgiven in a young man of good qualities—but he would never have liked me had he suspected a thousandth part of the peccadilloes of which I had been guilty. Tom was my friend, but never my confidant. For a fellow to share the present secret, there was no one like Harvey Hume.
I was reasonably sure that Harvey would tell me I was contemplating a ridiculous move; indeed I more than half suspected that to be the case. But he would content himself with pointing out the silliness of the plan, leaving it to my own judgment what to do afterward. Tom, on the contrary, would have told Statia all about it, not imagining, of course, that I had done so; then he would have gone to my Uncle Dugald and set him on my track. If these means failed to bring me to my senses, I am not sure but he would have applied for an inquirendo to determine my sanity; all with the best intentions in the world and a sincere desire to promote my moral welfare.
Tom is a fellow who would jump off a steamer in mid-ocean to save me, should I fall overboard while in his company, and never think, until he found himself on the way to the bottom, that I could swim, while he could not even float a little bit. He is as decent a chap as it has ever been my privilege to know, and as much to be avoided on certain occasions as a fer-de-lance. At any rate, my recent tilt with his sister did not make me particularly anxious to see any person who bore her family name. So I went to Harvey Hume.
Harvey is, or professes to be, a lawyer. One of our mutual friends once got credit for a mot that really didn't amount to much, when a third party inquired if Harvey had yet been 'admitted to the bar,' by replying that he had been admitted to every bar in Greater New York, although he had always failed to pass. Whatever might be said of him, he was a thoroughbred. The Spanish Inquisition could not have drawn a secret out of him. The worst he would do if he disapproved of my scheme was to tell me so, and I had a wild anxiety to talk it over with some one.