"I ’m going to find a telephone somewhere, Janey, if I have to ring at every door. No--I ’ll _tell_ them we are n’t the sort of people who borrow molasses and telephones and things all the time, but---- Why, I ’ll say it’s _very_ important--_anybody_ would understand about wall-paper not coming and the man waiting. No, I don’t suppose they have in such a little house, but it won’t do any harm to ask. Of course, across the street they’d have--but I don’t quite---- No, of course I won’t, but----" She ended an interview which evidently was not proceeding according to her satisfaction by closing the door and running down the steps into the street. Murray wanted very much to speak to her and offer the use of his telephone, but she whisked away so fast he had no time. He walked more slowly than ever, saw her turn away from two Gay Street doors, and then retraced his steps, and met her as she was preparing to ascend the third small porch. "I beg your pardon," he said, "but I thought I heard you say something about needing to use a telephone. Won’t you please come over and use ours--the house on the corner?" "Oh, thank you!" She looked relieved. "That’s good of you. We hate to bother anybody like this, and Jane--my sister--did n’t want me to, but the paper man is waiting, and he ’s getting very cross, and we do want to get the dining-room done before night. I ’ll go and tell Jane. She ’ll have to telephone. I can’t--I don’t know how!" She ran into the house, and a moment later the elder sister emerged, and came down to Murray to accept his courtesy. "It’s very kind of you," she said, as he accompanied her across the street and in at the hedge gate. "To-morrow happens to be a legal holiday, you know, and the paperer says if he does n’t have the right paper this afternoon it will be three days before he can finish." "That would be an awful bother," Murray declared, "just as you ’re getting settled. I ’m glad we ’re so near. Come in. This way, please. Take this chair here by the desk. I ’ll just wait in the hall and show you the way out." As he waited, Murray could not help hearing. The business did not seem to be easily accomplished. When his visitor had succeeded in getting the paper house on the telephone she had a very bad time making the man at the other end of the line understand about the mistake in the paper, and when it became plain that he did understand, Jane’s surprised little sentences showed that he was a most unaccommodating person, and would not do what she requested. "You can’t do it?" she asked, and Murray observed that with all the trouble she was having her voice did not lose its courteous intonations. "Not this afternoon _at all_? We are very anxious to get the room settled and the paperer says---- Yes, I know, but it surely was n’t our mistake. I beg your pardon--it ’s only three o’clock, I think, not four. He says there ’s plenty of time if---- No, I ’ve nobody to send."