"She's sure to some time, but you never can tell when. These singing people are all more or less crazy."
"Yes? I should think you'd write and tell her you're here. That would surely bring her."
"Ah! You're teasing now, but—by Jove, that isn't a bad idea! I believe I will write to her."
"Shall I take it down for you?" She looked at him quite seriously and then put a fresh sheet in the machine as if awaiting his dictation.
"What? On the typewriter? What would Betty think?"
"That depends. Do you owe her a letter?"
"Owe her? It's the other way around. She owes me a whole bunch of letters."
"Well, then, I should think——" she began, but Bob interrupted with a burst of laughter. "Ha, ha, ha! I'll do it. I'll be very stiff and formal. It will puzzle her anyway, but—have you time?"
"Yes, Mr. Baxter," she said, with exceeding amiability. "I am ready."
Thus it came about that Betty's first duty as private secretary was to take down a letter to her own sweet self from a man who seemed to like Betty Thompson, not only as he remembered her eleven years ago, but as he saw her now without knowing it, which struck the fair secretary as decidedly amusing.