"Mr. Littell telephoned half an hour ago," he told them, taking the envelope and running over the papers with a practised eye as he talked. "He hoped to catch you before you left here. I believe he wants to speak to his daughter. There's a booth right there, Miss Bobby."
Bobby had a brief conversation with her father and came out in a few minutes in evident haste.
"He wants us to do a couple more errands, Betty," she announced. "We'll have to hurry, for it's after three."
The architect had written a receipt for the papers, and Bobby now hurried Betty off, explaining as they went that they must take a car to Octagon House.
Octagon House proved to be the headquarters for the American Institute of Architects, and Bobby's errand had to do with one of the offices. Betty admired the fine woodwork and the handsome design of the house while waiting for her companion, and in less than fifteen minutes they were back on the street car bound for "the tallest office building in Washington," as Bobby described it.
"Dad wants an architectural magazine that's out of print, and he thinks I can get it there," she said. "Afterward, if we have time, we'll go to the top of the building. The root is arranged so that you can step out, and they say the view is really splendid. Not so extensive as from the Monument, of course, but not so reduced, either. I've always wanted to get up on the roof and see what I could see."
Finding the office her father had specified did not prove as easy a task as Bobby had anticipated, and she said frankly that if she had been alone she would have given up and taken another day for the search.
"But if you can keep a promise down to the last dot of the last letter, far be it from me to fall short," she remarked. "Oh, Betty, do you see any office that looks like Sherwood and David on this board?"
At last they found it under another name, which, as Bobby rather tactlessly told the elevator boy, was not her idea of efficiency. The copy of the magazine Mr. Littell especially wanted was wrapped up and placed safely in Bobby's hands.
"And now," declared that young person gaily, "as the reward of virtue, let's go up on the roof. It is after four, but we'll have time if we don't dawdle. We can get from here to the theater in fifteen minutes."