"I tell you, ma--mark my word for it--if old man Brookes ever finds out I'm sister to any of the crowd that runs with Charley Cox and Willie Waxter and those boys whose fathers he's lawyer for, it'll queer me for life in that office--that's what it will. A girl that's been made confidential stenographer after only one year in an office to have to be afraid, like I am, to pick up the morning's paper." "Paula Krausnick's lunch was wrapped in the paper where Charley Cox got pinched for speedin'--speedin'--speedin'--" "Shut up, Genevieve! Just don't you let my business interfere with yours, Ida Bell. Brookes don't know you're on earth outside of your dictation-book. Take it from me, I bet he wouldn't know you if he met you on the street." "That's about all you know about it! If you found yourself confidential stenographer to the biggest lawyer in town, he'd know you, all right--by your loud dressing. A blind man could see you coming." "Ma, are you going to stand there and let her talk to me thataway? I notice she's willing to borrow my loud shirtwaists and my loud gloves and my loud collars." "If ma had more gumption with you, maybe things would be different." Mrs. Hassiebrock limped to the door, dangling a pail. "I 'ain't got no more strength against her. My ears won't hold no more. I'm taking this hot oil down to Mrs. Flint's scalds. She's, beyond my control, and the days when a slipper could make her mind. I wisht to God there was a father! I wisht to God!" Her voice trailed off and down a rear flight of stairs. "Yes _sir_," resumed Miss Hassiebrock, her voice twanging in her effort at suppression, "I notice you're pretty willing to borrow some of my loud dressing when you get a bid once in a blue moon to take a boat-ride up to Alton with that sad-faced Roy Brownell. If Charley didn't have a cent to his name and a harelip, he'd make Roy Brownell look like thirty cents." "If Roy Brownell was Charley Cox, I'd hate to leave him laying around loose where you could get your hands on him." "Genevieve, you run out and play." "If--if you keep running around till all hours of the night, with me and ma waiting up for you, kicking up rows and getting your name insinuated in the newspapers as 'the tall, handsome blonde,' I--I'm going to throw up my job, I am, and you can pay double your share for the running of this flat. Next thing we know, with that crowd that don't mean any good to you, this family is going to find itself with a girl in trouble on its hands." "You--" "And if you want to know it, and if I wasn't somebody's confidential stenographer, I could tell you that you're on the wrong scent. Boys like Charley Cox don't mean good by your kind of a girl. If you're not speedy, you look it, and that's almost the same as inviting those kind of boys to--" Miss Lola Hassiebrock sprang up then, her hand coming down in a small crash to the table. "You cut out that talk in front of that child!"