“Then, Miss Willard, you're employing Cyrus Murphy. Do you think I'll sculp up like a Murphy?” “I don't think you'll sculp up like a Murphy at all, and I've too many friends who are Murphys to believe that you are one. In fact, I could do you much better if I knew what you are.” “That's quite simple. I'm a suicide. I walked right spang over the edge of life and disappeared. Splash! Bubble-bubble! There goes nothing. The only difference between me and a real suicide is that I have to eat. At times it's difficult.” “Haven't you any trade? Can't you do _anything?_” With a sweep of her little hand she indicated the bustling activities with which the outer streets whirred. “Isn't there any place for you in all this?” He contemplated the world's work as exemplified around Our Square. His gaze came to rest upon a steam-roller, ponderously clanking over a railed-off portion of the street. “I suppose I could run that.” “Could you? That's a man's job at least. Have you ever run one?” “No, but I know I could. Any kind of machinery just eats out of my hand.” “Well, that's something. It's better than being a model. Be at my house tomorrow at nine please.” For an hour thereafter Cyrus the Gaunt sat on the bench musing upon a small, flower-like, almost absurdly efficient young person who had contracted, as he viewed it, to inject light and color into life at fifty cents an hour, and who had plainly intimated that, in her view, he was not a man. It was that precise opinion expressed by another and a very unlike person which was responsible for his being where he was. At that time it had made him furious. Now it made him thoughtful. Presently he went through his pockets, reckoned his assets, rose up from the bench, and made a trip to MacLachan's “Home of Fashion,” where he left his clothes to be pressed overnight. In the morning he reappeared again, shaved to the closest limit of human endurance, and thus addressed the Scot:-- “Have you got my clothes pressed?” “Aye,” said the tailor. “Well, unpress 'em again.” “Eh?” said the tailor. “Unpress'em. Sit on'em. Roll'em on the floor. Muss'em up. Put all the wrinkles back, just as they were.” “Mon, ye shud leave the whiskey be,” advised the tailor. Thereupon Cyrus caught up his neatly creased suit and proceeded to play football with it, after which he put it on and viewed himself with satisfaction. “And I almost forgot that she wouldn't have any use for me, improved,” he muttered as he wended his way to the little, old friendly house. “Lord, I might have lost my job!” Any expectation of social diversion at fifty cents an hour which Cyrus the Gaunt may have cherished was promptly quashed on his arrival. It was a very businesslike little sculptor who took him in hand. “Sit here, please--the right knee farther forward--let the chin drop a little--” and all that sort of thing.