"Then you'll give me back the papers?"
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry for taking them?"
"No, sorry for keeping them."
"You don't mean to say that you are going to keep them, Miss Smith?"
"I'm afraid I must. My duty forces me to deliver them to Professor Challis."
"But why does this terrible and strapping young lady desire to swipe the draft of this bill?"
"Because it contains the evidence of a wicked conspiracy between the Governor of New York, the Mayor of this city, and an abandoned legislature. The women of America ought to know what threatens them before this bill is perfected and introduced. And before they will permit it to be debated and passed they are determined to march on Albany, half a million strong, as did the heroines of Versailles!"
She stretched out her white gloved hand with an excited but graceful gesture; he eyed her moodily, swinging the chenille cat by its fluffy tail.
"What do they suspect is in that bill?" he said at last.