“Ah, cut it out! What’s the use whooping things up for nothing?” was his short ordering. “Nobody’s dead nor dyin’, but I want you to get down to the Arcade and get this job, see? Don’t come back here whinin’ that you can’t. You’re got to get it, or you can dust out o’ South Riveredge an’ your happy home. Now listen to what I’m tellin’ you: Don’t you let on who you are. If you do the jig’s up, for that high and mighty sprig down there ain’t got no sort o’ use for me. But I’ll tame her. I ain’t seen the girl yet I couldn’t tame. But I want you there ’cause I want to keep track of the revenue, do you see? and if your head’s worth half a muttonhead you can’t help gettin’ a good idea of what that business is worth, and that’s what I mean to know. She don’t know you from a hole in the ground, and you ain’t goin’ to let her——”
“But she will know my name, Lige.”
“How will she know your name if you don’t tell her your name? You’ve got a middle name, ain’t you? Well, what’s the matter with that? Katherine Boggs is all right, ain’t it? You haven’t got to tack on the Sniffins.”
“Oh, I’d forget, and people would know me, and I’d be scared to death to do it, Lige.”
“Now see here: You’ll be scared to death if you don’t do it, let me tell you, for I’ll scare you myself. Now get down there and do the job right up to the mark.”
About half an hour later a sweet-faced, timid girl presented herself at Constance’s Arch. She seemed unduly agitated, and her hands trembled as she rested them on the counter, to ask if Miss Carruth was to be seen.
“I think she can be,” answered Constance, smiling encouragingly at the perturbed little figure before her, for Constance was too much her mother’s child not to feel the deepest sympathy for such a girl.
“Is she in?” ventured her visitor.
“I am Miss Carruth. What can I do for you?”
“Oh! Why, you want a girl, a clerk?”