Daisy Nixon flung out of the door of the Imperial Hotel into an afternoon world of dust and din and ecstasy. It was the hour when stenographers, in offices, whose high open windows command the streets with their emancipated pedestrians, begin to rubber over-shoulder at the clock, and to make excursions into washrooms to veneer the fresh color of cheek and chin and forehead with cadaverous conventional powder. The "boys" have been educated to look for this make-up (it takes an educated taste to appreciate it!) and a girl would as soon think of leaving the office in her stocking-feet, as without a blue-white effect on chin and nose and forehead, and a smudge of strangulation purple blotting the cheek's own inimitable rose. Six o'clock would blow shortly from a hundred sirens; and the thrill of "quittin'-time" could already be discerned in the air. Down the street from the direction of the big transcontinental depot came a 'bus, three or four blocks away; and Daisy, with a habit of the countryside, identified this vehicle instantly by the team, whose markings she had instinctively remembered. It was the Imperial Hotel rig, returning from the station. No time, therefore, was to be lost, if she was to evade her self-appointed guardian, old Jim Hogle. A rank of jitneys was parked along the curb. Daisy approached a driver with a mop of black curly hair so abundant that it pushed his cap to one side. This driver half-turned his head in a formal "straight business, and don't waste my time" way; but the corners of mouth and eye twinkled companionably and humorously. "Could you", Daisy's eyes twinkled back, too, in spite of her trace of country-girl diffidence, "could you--" "I should say I _could_," the chauffeur's face was expressionless, but his accent was merry. "Could you", Daisy dimpled as she went on, "take me to here--see?" The young man hitched his chin forward in ostentatious scrutiny. Then, in a matter-of-course way, he took the scrap of paper from Daisy's fingers, brought it to his lips, handed it back, clicked open the tonneau door, and motioned inward with hospitable palm. "Thank a-you," he said, elaborately, as Daisy stepped in; then, without opening the fore-door, he vaulted into his own seat. There was the usual preliminary roar, proceeding by staccato jet and pit-a-pat to smooth pulsing motion, as the jitney glided out handily into the multifarious traffic of the street.