"Miss Neal is 'Kitty the Cutie,'" explained McGuire Ellis.
"Looks it, too," observed L.P. McQuiggan jauntily, addressing the upper far corner of the room.
Miss Neal looked at him, met a knowing and conscious smile, looked right through the smile, and looked away again, all with the air of one who gazes out into nothingness.
"Guess I'll go look up this Shearson person," said Mr. McQuiggan, a trifle less jauntily. "See you all later."
"I'd no notion you were the writer of the Cutie paragraphs, Milly," said Dr. Surtaine. "They're lively stuff."
"Nobody has. I'm keeping it dark. It's only a try-out. You did send for me, didn't you?" she added, turning to Hal.
"Yes. What I had in mind to say to you—that is, to the author—the writer of the paragraphs," stumbled Hal, "is that they're a little too—too—"
"Too flip?" queried his father. "That's what makes 'em go."
"If they could be done in a manner not quite so undignified," suggested the editor-in-chief.
Color rose in the girl's smooth cheek. "You think they're vulgar," she charged.