"I don't know," said Miss Billy dubiously. "I don't believe he has an office, and I hate to go inside that mouldy old shell across the street. I have my suspicions about his living there, anyway. He looks as though he slept in that old buggy of his." "You might advertise and arrange a meeting that way," suggested Theodore. "'Sprightly maiden of sixteen wishes to meet a scholarly and refined gentleman of sixty-five. Object, new sidewalk, and what may follow.'" "I've half a mind to tackle him to-day," said Miss Billy musingly. "The rent is due, and I might soften the blow with a generous bill. I believe I'll try it. Give me the rent money, Theodore. I'll get a promise out of him, or die in the attempt!" "Do you mean to say you're going to pay him the rent yourself, and express your sentiments then?" asked Theodore. "Yes, I do," returned Miss Billy stoutly. "What shall you say to him?" asked Beatrice, with a note of admiration in her usually even voice, for Miss Billy never looked prettier than when she stood in her face-the-world attitude, with eyes big and earnest and face aglow. "She will arm herself with the butcher-knife and the rent money," jeered Theodore, "and meet him at the door. And, withering him beneath her stern and forbidding glance, she will say: 'Move at the peril of your life. Mend the doorbell, put in the glass and fix the front walk before you speak a word. Stand and deliver.' And he will remark, like Riley's tree-toad, 'Don't shoot, I'll come down'; and ask, yea, beseech her to permit him to go for his tack hammer." "Well, we need the improvements badly enough," said Beatrice, "but I don't think you'd better try it, Wilhelmina. It seems so bold,--somehow. Besides, you won't get anything out of him." "Just you wait and see," said Miss Billy confidently. It was about an hour later that Mr. Schultzsky's thin horse stopped at the gate, and Mr. Schultzsky himself shuffled up the narrow walk to the front door. "Here comes your victim, Sisterling," announced Theodore cheerfully. "Do you feel that you need me for a witness, or to preserve the dignity of the occasion?" Billy took off her sweeping-cap, and slowly adjusted the safety pins at the back of her shirt-waist. "Just let him wait a while," she said. "That'll show him that the bell is out of order." But in spite of her savage words she met him at the door smilingly. "Good-morning, Mr. Schultzsky," she said cordially. "Will you come in?" For answer Mr. Schultzsky held out his monthly account. "Oh, the rent bill!" responded Miss Billy. "You're like the stork, Mr. Schultzsky, that always comes around with a big bill. But I want to talk with you a few minutes. Won't you come in?" The landlord ignored the feeble joke, and gave a stolid grunt, which Miss Billy interpreted as a refusal. "Well," she said, sitting down on the doorstep, "if you won't come in I suppose I can talk to you here. Mr. Schultzsky, perhaps you noticed that our doorbell is broken."