"A little," said Mabel. "I have reported for the High School Clarion."
A smile flitted across Miss Gere's thin, eager face. She did not seem as deeply impressed as she might have been. Mabel hastened on.
"I write a good deal by myself," she said. "I can bring you some poems and sketches that I have done."
"It won't be necessary," said Miss Gere hastily, "although I am sure they are well worth reading. I will start you on something easy. You are to be my assistant, you know. All these men around here are reporters too, and that big man is our City Editor. Bring what you write to me because he doesn't want to know that you are on earth. I have a full day tomorrow and you may cover the business meeting at the Red Cross Rooms, and then you may call up the women on this list, and ask them to give you some details about the entertainments they are giving. Bring in a nice little story about all this, and I will give you further directions when I see you. You may call some of these ladies up tonight. Use all sorts of tact."
She passed a slip of paper to Mabel bearing a typewritten list of well-known names. Mabel took it, and guessing from Miss Gere's preoccupied manner that the interview was at an end reluctantly passed out.
Reaching the street, she dropped the humble air that she had worn in the office and, feeling like a conqueror, turned toward her new home. Her thoughts were all of Miss Gere. How gloriously, fascinatingly thin she was! Mabel unfastened her coat. Perhaps she would look thinner if her coat flopped.
Then she heard her name called.
A big car was crawling along the curb, and from the limousine Claire Maslin and Rosanna Horton called her name again. The car stopped and in response to a word from his young mistress the Chinaman stepped down and opened the door.
"Let us take you home," said Claire in her deep, drawling voice. Mabel entered and seated herself, smiling.
"I have just been down making arrangements to begin my newspaper career," she said. "I think every young writer should spend a certain time on newspaper work. It is such good practice, and one learns so much about Life."