"Because it's a question that might have occurred to anybody." That puzzled Mary, too. "Perhaps Burdon has money beside his salary," she suggested. "He hasn't. I know he hasn't. He's in debt right now." They thought it over in silence. "I think if I were you, I'd tear it up," he said at last. She promptly tore it into shreds. "Now we'll forget that," he said. "I must confess, however, that it has raised another question to my mind. How long is it since your bookkeeping system was overhauled here?" She couldn't remember. "Just what I thought. It must need expert attention. Modern conditions call for modern methods, even in bookkeeping. I think I'll get a good firm of accountants to go over our present system, and make such changes as will keep you in closer touch with everything that is going on." Mary hardly knew what to think. "You're sure it has nothing to do with this?" she asked, indicating the fragments in the waste-basket. "Not the least connection! Besides," he argued, "you and I know very well--don't we?--that with all his faults, Burdon would never do anything like that--" "Of course he wouldn't!" "Very well. I think we ought to forget that part of it, and never refer to it again--or it might be said that we were fearing for him." This masculine logic took Mary's breath away, but though she thought it over many a time that day, she couldn't find the flaw in it. "Men are queer," she finally concluded. "But then I suppose they think women are queer, too. To me," she thought, "it almost seems insulting to Burdon to call accountants in now; but according to the judge it would be insulting to Burdon not to call them in--" She was still puzzling over it when Archey, that stormy petrel of bad news, came in and very soon took her mind from anonymous letters. "The finishers are getting ready to quit," he announced. "They had a vote this noon. It was close, but the strikers won." They both knew what a blow this would be. With each successive wave of the strike movement, it grew harder to fill the men's places with women. "If this keeps on, I don't know what we shall do," she thought. "By the time we have filled these empty places, we shall have as many women working here as we had during the war." Outwardly, however, she gave no signs of misgivings, but calmly set in motion the machinery which had filled the gaps before. "If you're going to put that advertisement in again," said Archey, "I think I'd add 'Nursery, Restaurant, Rest-room, Music'" She included the words in her copy, and after a moment's reflection she added "Laundry." "But we have no laundry," objected Archey, half laughing. "Are you forgetting a little detail like that?"