"Yes. I'll see what can be done with these plans. In the meanwhile you try to keep the girls satisfied until the new foreman comes. By the way I expect you'd better stay on here to-night." Dan paused with his hand on the door-knob. "Yes, sir," he said in evident embarrassment, "but if you don't mind--I 'd like to get off for a couple of hours this afternoon." "Who's the girl, Dan?" asked Mac, but Dan did not stop to answer. As he hurried down the hall, a boy appeared from around the corner and beckoned to him with a mysterious grin. "Somebody's waiting for you down in the yard." "Who is he?" "'T ain't a he. It's the prettiest girl you ever seen!" Dan, whose thoughts for weeks had been completely filled with one feminine image, sprang to the window. But the tall, stylish person enveloped in a white veil, who was waiting below, in no remote way suggested Nance Molloy. A call from a lady was a new experience, and a lively curiosity seized him as he descended the steps, turning down his shirt sleeves as he went. As he stepped into the yard, the girl turned toward him with a quick, nervous movement. "Hello, Daniel!" she said, her full red lips curving into a smile. "Don't remember me, do you?" "Sure, I do. It's Birdie Smelts." "Good boy! Only now it's Birdie La Rue. That's my stage name, you know. I blew into town Thursday with 'The Rag Time Follies.' Say, Dan, you used to be a good friend of mine, didn't you?" Dan had no recollection of ever having been noticed by Birdie, except on that one occasion when he had taken her and Nance to the skating-rink. She was older than he by a couple of years, and infinitely wiser in the ways of the world. But it was beyond masculine human nature not to be flattered by her manner, and he hastened to assure her that he had been and was her friend. "Well, I wonder if you don't want to do me a favor?" she coaxed. "Find out if Mac Clarke's been here, or is going to be here. I got to see him on particular business." "He's up in the office now," said Dan; then he added bluntly "Where did you ever know Mac Clarke?" Birdie's large, white lids fluttered a moment. "I come to see him for a friend of mine," she said. A silence fell between them which she tried to break with a rather shame faced explanation. "This girl and Mac have had a quarrel. I'm trying to patch it up. Wish you'd get him down here a minute." "It would be a lot better for the girl," said Dan, slowly, "if you didn't patch it up." "What do you mean?" Dan looked troubled. "Clarke's a nice fellow all right," he said, "but when it comes to girls--" he broke off abruptly. "Do you know him?" "I've seen him round the theater," she said. "Then you ought to know what I mean." Birdie looked absently across the barren yard. "Men are all rotten," she said bitterly, then added with feminine inconsistency, "Go on, Dan, be a darling. Fix it so I can speak to him without the old man catching on."