The gist of her consultation with the Bonnie Lassie bore upon the point as to whether Our Square, which was already adopting her since she had rented a little room there, would regard the new basis as proper. “That old thing!” said the arbitress of destinies scornfully. “He's a hundred years old, and he'll be two hundred, I'm afraid,” she added ruefully, “before I get that check out of him.” Molly looked dubious. “I'm not sure he's so old,” she said. “And I'm sure he's not so mean as people think him. But I do need the money.” Behold, then, Mrs. Molly Dunstan, housekeeper, seated opposite Miles Morse, the Meanest Man in Our Square, with a coffee apparatus, a toaster, and a little centerpiece bright with flowers, both of them breakfasting in a dim and painful silence. But food is a great solvent of embarrassment, and breakfast coffee has powers beyond the spirit of grape, corn, or rye, to break down the barriers between human and human. So that, by the end of a week, Molly was chattering like a cheery bird with just enough instigation from her employer to keep her going. One subject was tacitly tabooed as a kill-joy; to wit, the devil as embodied by Mr. D. Wiggett and all his works. Not that Miles Morse had forgotten. Quite the contrary. But he was a calculating, careful, and meticulous person, prone to plan out every step before taking it. On a Monday morning some six weeks after Molly's installation as a breakfast fixture he spoke abruptly: “I've been up there.” “Where?” she asked. “To the place you thought you'd bought. It's a trap.” “I'm out of it, at least with my life.” “You are not the only one that's been caught. He's fleeced four others that I know of on that plant--all perfectly legal. I have a notion,” said Miles Morse with an effect of choosing his words, “that D. Wiggett & Co. was incorporated in hell, and the silent partner is his Satanic Majesty.” “Why did ye go up there?” “Curiosity.” “Not kindness--just a little bit?” “I wanted to see the work of a man meaner than the Meanest Man in Our Square,” he said with a sour grin. Molly Dunstan flushed. “I'd not be letting them call me that!” she declared. “And I'll not believe it true of ye.” This was, indeed, an advance upon the dim realm of personal relationship, but Molly's loyal Irish blood was up. “What ails ye at the world, at all!” she demanded. “I'll tell you since you ask,” he replied defiantly. “I'm getting even with it for treating me like a dog.” “So that's it.” There was a pause. “Would ye tell me about it!” she asked shyly. Much to his astonishment, Miles Morse discovered that he wanted to tell her about it. Quite to his chagrin, he found that it didn't seem a very convincing indictment, when he tried to formulate it. However, he did his best. “A man that I thought my friend cheated me out of the first ten thousand dollars that I made.” “Whish! Ye made more, didn't ye?” she replied calmly. “I wouldn't be hating the world for that.”