"Who did you suppose would drive the horse-car, Bertha?" "Why, I had thought you would. I knew you were on their list for a driver's place at the Cosmopolitan office. And I thought, if you had your own car, you could be your own driver." "And who was to be conductor?" Then Bertha shut the window, for fear the little birds should hear. And she said that it had made so much fun at Christmas when she dressed up in Floyd's ulster, and that even Max's father had not known her, that she had been thinking that if they only made evening trips, when it was dark, if Max always drove she should not be afraid to be conductor herself. Oh, how Max screamed! He laughed, and he laughed, as if he had never laughed before. Then he stopped for a minute for breath, and then he laughed again. At first Bertha laughed, and then she was frightened, and then she was provoked. "Why should I not be conductor? If you laugh any more, I shall offer myself to the company to-morrow, and I will wear a crimson satin frock, and a hat with an ostrich feather. Then we will see which car is the fullest. Cannot I hand a gentleman in quite as well as this assiduous squinting man who hands me in? Can't I make change as fast as that man who gave you a fifteen-cent bill for a quarter? I will not be laughed at, though I am a woman." So Max stopped laughing for a minute. But he had laughed so much that they discussed no more details that day. Any allusion to fares or platforms or the rail was enough to make his face redden, and to compel him to crowd his handkerchief into his mouth. And Bertha would not encourage him by laughing when he did. CHAPTER III. A LODGMENT MADE. All the same a lodgment had been made. The idea had been suggested to Max, and the little seed Bertha had planted did not die. Poor fellow! his name was on the lists of all the railway companies, and so were the names of five thousand other fellows out of work. His name was also on the postmaster's list of applicants for the next vacancy among clerks or carriers. The postmaster was amazingly civil; asked Max to write the name himself, so that there need be no mistake. So Max observed that his name came at the bottom of the seventh long column of K's, there being so many men whose name began with K who needed employment. He calculated roughly, from the size of the book, that about seven thousand men had applied before him. Then he went to the mayor to see if he could not be a policeman, or a messenger at the City Hall. He had first-rate introductions. The mayor's clerk was very civil, but he said that they had about eight thousand people waiting there. So Max's chances of serving the public seemed but poor.