Ardessa decided to take her vacation in June, and she arranged that Miss Milligan should do O’Mally’s work while she was away. Miss Milligan was blunt and noisy, rapid and inaccurate. It would be just as well for O’Mally to work with a coarse instrument for a time; he would be more appreciative, perhaps, of certain qualities to which he had seemed insensible of late. Ardessa was to leave for East Hampton on Sunday, and she spent Saturday morning instructing her substitute as to the state of the correspondence. At noon O’Mally burst into her room. All the morning he had been closeted with a new writer of mystery-stories just over from England.
“Can you stay and take my letters this afternoon, Miss Devine? You’re not leaving until to-morrow.”
Ardessa pouted, and tilted her head at the angle he was tired of.
“I’m sorry, Mr. O’Mally, but I’ve left all my shopping for this afternoon. I think Becky Tietelbaum could do them for you. I will tell her to be careful.”
“Oh, all right.” O’Mally bounced out with a reflection of Ardessa’s disdainful expression on his face. Saturday afternoon was always a half-holiday, to be sure, but since she had weeks of freedom when he was away—However—
At two o’clock Becky Tietelbaum appeared at his door, clad in the sober office suit which Miss Devine insisted she should wear, her note-book in her hand, and so frightened that her fingers were cold and her lips were pale. She had never taken dictation from the editor before. It was a great and terrifying occasion.
“Sit down,” he said encouragingly. He began dictating while he shook from his bag the manuscripts he had snatched away from the amazed English author that morning. Presently he looked up.
“Do I go too fast?”
“No, sir,” Becky found strength to say.
At the end of an hour he told her to go and type as many of the letters as she could while he went over the bunch of stuff he had torn from the Englishman. He was with the Hindu detective in an opium den in Shanghai when Becky returned and placed a pile of papers on his desk.