Elizabeth opened a drawer of vanity boxes and Josie crossed the room to inspect them with an exaggerated walk which reminded Mary Louise of a movie vamp. Again she was moved to laughter and had to pretend to sneeze. "I am afraid you have caught cold," said Mrs. Wright. "You must take five grains of aspirin and go to bed. Follow it up with a dose of aromatic spirits of ammonia and let your diet be light." Mary Louise listened politely and Josie made her escape with her suitcase without purchasing the vanity box. CHAPTER VII JOSIE GETS A JOB When Josie left the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop, after having hoodwinked Mrs. Wright, she made her way to a small hotel much favored by traveling men. It was the address given by a man who wished to employ a number of young women to travel in the South to introduce a line of household articles as well as some jewel novelties. "What experience have you had?" the man asked her. "Plenty of it," Josie answered with assurance. "I tell you, mister, I can sell anything from a baby's rattle to a tombstone. You can ask the girls who run the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop here in Dorfield. Ever hear of them?" "Sure!" "Well, I have a letter here from Miss Josie O'Gorman, who is chief cook and bottle washer 'round there and she will tell you that I am a winner. I tell you Mrs. Danny Dexter and Miss O'Gorman think old Sally Blossom is a peacherino." The man took the letter, which was written on Higgledy-Piggledy paper and in Josie's best handwriting. In it the cleverness of Miss Sally Blossom was lauded to the skies. Josie blushed through her paint as he read it aloud. "To think of my having the nerve to say all that about myself!" flashed through her mind. "But I bet it lands me my job." It did. Since she was the first to apply she was given her choice of a field of operations and she chose Atlanta. She gave her address as 126 East Centre and made an engagement with the man to see him the next day to receive instructions and literature concerning her wares. Samples were to be sent to her at Atlanta. "Now, having given my address as 126 East Centre, I must hurry over there and apply for board," said Josie to herself as she left the hotel. The group gathered on the porch at 126 East Centre was the same as it had been on the day that Josie had tracked the elusive Dink to her lair. The young men were tilted back in their chairs at the same angle, and the young women were equally taken up with their ear puffs and frizzes. The clientele of 126 was an ever-changing one, but the class characteristics were stationary. Josie tripped up the steps, assuming a kind of nonchalance as she calmly viewed the loafing boarders. They in turn gazed at her, some with interest and some with open disdain. With the boarders at 126 one must prove herself down to their standards before being accepted into their social order.