"She means it; she actually means it!" said Rosanna in a hushed voice.
"Of course she means it!" laughed Claire. "Isn't she funny? I never saw a girl so conceited in my life. And really she isn't bright at all. She is just an ordinary girl with ordinary gifts. I think she is usually quite stupid when she talks, but perhaps that is because she is so awfully conceited that it bores you."
"I hate to hear you say such things about her," said the tender-hearted Rosanna.
When Mabel reached the office she went directly to the big shabby dictionary open on its stand, and looked up two words, Inflated, and ego. The result was not pleasing! She sat before the book, glooming over the unflattering result of her quest. So she had an "inflated ego," had she? As she sat there, the office boy, seeing her close to his letter-press and feeling himself capable of starting an acquaintance with any girl his own size, pulled his purple and gold necktie into place, seized a few sheets of paper, and sauntered up. Mabel continued to stare at the open page of the dictionary.
"Kiddin' me," thought the boy to himself. He put the papers in place, and commenced to whistle, one careful eye on Mabel. He whistled so far off the key that she looked up. Instantly he grinned.
"Great job, this!" he said cheerfully, twisting the lever with a vast show of effort. "I bet I work harder than any fellow in this office. I bet I work harder than the Chief himself." Mabel continued to look at him, but did not speak, and he continued, "Your name is Brewster; Mabel Brewster, isn't it? I saw it on some of the papers Miss Gere and the Chief threw in the waste basket. Say, what do you write such gobs of stuff for? They don't use it. Aren't you on to that yet? My name's Jesse Hart. Ain't that a peach of a name to give a fellow? Sounds like a sure-nuff girl's name—Jesse. And Hart means a deer. Fellows used to call me Jessie dear when I was a kid, but I knocked a couple of 'em out and they quit it." He grinned at Mabel more cheerfully than before. "Say, you don't wear yourself out talkin', do you, sis?"
Mabel flushed with anger. A couple of the reporters saw the two and smiled playfully. "Jessie dear" winked back and Mabel flushed.
"I don't want to talk to you," she said distinctly. "I wish you would go away."
"Suits me!" said Jesse. "Suits me all right, Miss High-Mighty." He gave a short laugh with a close imitation of the manner of Dalton Duplex, his movie star villain, and strutted off. Mabel noted that the rims of his ears were very red. She dismissed him angrily from her thoughts and went over to Miss Gere's desk.
The thin man pounded furiously on the next typewriter as usual, but he looked up as she passed him. "A new crush, Miss Mabel?" he asked mischievously.