“There’s nothing we can do,” Miss Stafford told me. “Mrs. Scrimser, that’s the room-clerk’s name, is a special friend of Miss Diggs. Miss Diggs? She belongs to an old New York family, they say. She’s always very nice to me. She always speaks to me.” “Why!” I exclaimed. “Doesn’t she speak to every guest who has been here long enough for her to know them?” Miss Stafford shook her head. “That’s the reason we consider it worth mentioning when she does. You’ll have to wait and see for yourself. It’s a condition that can’t exactly be explained.” A very wise reply I found that to be before I left the Jane Leonard—a condition that cannot exactly be explained. At least it could not be explained with credit to the persons controlling the house, nor to the woman whom they employed to manage it. Because of that attack of erysipelas I was confined to my room for nearly a week. When I felt strong enough to go out, it was only in the evening to the roof-garden, or for a walk along the river’s edge. Even then I was compelled to wear a broad-brimmed hat and colored glasses to shield my eyes. When at last my eyes became strong enough for me to lay aside the glasses, it was a couple of weeks before I dared to read or do anything besides coarse knitting—sweaters for our soldiers. Lack of money forced me back to work. The last of the fifty dollars for which I had worked so hard, and skimped so carefully, had to be drawn from the savings-bank to pay my board. Fortunately the Y. W. would get me a job without first exacting a fee. On my explaining that I didn’t feel quite honest—taking a position and receiving the training, and then leaving within a couple of weeks—the woman in charge of the employment bureau advised me to take temporary positions. There was always quite a demand for such workers, she explained. Now that there was so much government work to be done, she found it hard to get any one to so much as consider a temporary job. “Have you anything temporary in the way of government work?” I asked. “I’d like to feel that I was helping the government if there is anything you think I could do.” “I wish all the girls sent out from here were as well equipped,” she told me while looking over her file. “I’ll give you a card to ex-State Senator Gallagher. He is organizing and setting in motion the working end of the District Board for the City of New York, down in the old Post-Office Building. There are plenty of other openings, but I’m quite sure he’ll take you.” CHAPTER XII JACKALS FIGHT TO KEEP FROM FIGHTING