"How did you find out," said I, "that I had been—ah—canned?"
"I watched for you," he replied. "Began as soon as my promotion to the switchboard work made it so I could. After a couple of months' accumulation of data I ventured upon the generalization that the old man—"
"The who?"
"Mr. Blunt, I mean, of course," he amended, "had fired you for letting me in. Out of work long?"
"N-no," said I; "hardly a week."
"Where are you now?" he asked.
"I'm in a shop," I stammered, "in Michigan Avenue."
I looked about to see if any of the employees who knew me were present, but could see none except Miss Crowley, who wouldn't meet a man in the same office in a year, and a dynamo-man never, and who is near-sighted, anyhow. So I felt safe in permitting him to deceive himself. It is thus that the centuries of oppression which women have endured impress themselves on our more involuntary actions in little bits of disingenuousness against which we should ever struggle. At the time, though, to sit chatting with him in the informal manner of co-laborers at the noon intermission was great fun. It was then that I began to notice more fully what a really fine figure he had, and how brown and honest and respectful his eyes were, even when he said "Hello" to me; as if I were a telephone, and how thrilling was his voice.
"I'd like," said he, "to call on you—if I might."
I was as fluttered as the veriest little chit from the country.