"But I tell you the Serial-Letter Co. _has_ 'gone broke'!" she persisted a trifle wistfully. "I guess--I guess it takes a man to really run a business with any sort of financial success, 'cause you see a man never puts anything except his head into his business. And of course if you only put your head into it, then you go right along giving always just a little wee bit less than 'value received'--and so you can't help, sir, making a profit. Why people would think you were plain, stark crazy if you gave them even one more pair of poor rubber boots than they'd paid for. But a woman! Well, you see my little business was a sort of a scheme to sell sympathy--perfectly good sympathy, you know--but to sell it to people who really needed it, instead of giving it away to people who didn't care anything about it at all. And you have to run that sort of business almost entirely with your heart--and you wouldn't feel decent at all, unless you delivered to everybody just a little tiny bit more sympathy than he paid for. Otherwise, you see you wouldn't be delivering perfectly good sympathy. So that's why--you understand now--that's why I had to send you my very own woolly blanket-wrapper, and my very own silver porringer, and my very own sling-shot that I fight city cats with,--because, you see, I had to use every single cent of your money right away to pay for the things that I'd already bought for other people." "For other people?" quizzed Stanton a bit resentfully. "Oh, yes," acknowledged the girl; "for several other people." Then, "Did you like the idea of the 'Rheumatic Nights Entertainment'?" she asked quite abruptly. "Did I like it?" cried Stanton. "Did I _like_ it?" With a little shrugging air of apology the girl straightened up very stiffly in her chair.