"Better skip this part if you read extracts to Phil; he'll brood. But perhaps you'd better begin disillusioning him at once, for I'm discovering dreadful possibilities in my nature--now the Hillhouse inhibitions seem remote. New York, one sees overnight, is no place for a romantic idealist--Maltby's phrase, not mine, bless Phil's heart!--but luckily I've never been one. Birch Street is going to stand me in good stead down here. New York _is_ Birch Street on a slightly exaggerated scale; Hillhouse Avenue is something entirely different. Finer too, perhaps; but the world's future has its roots in New Birch Street. I began to feel that yesterday during my first hunt for a paying job. "I've plunged on shop equipment, since Jimmy says, other things being equal, the factory with the best tools wins--that is, I've bought a reliable typewriter, and I tackled my first two-finger exercises last night. The results were dire--mostly interior capitals and extraneous asterisks. I shan't have patience to take proper five-finger lessons. Sister vows she's going to master the wretched thing too, so she can help with copying now and then. There's a gleam in her eye, dear--wonderful! This is to be her great adventure as well as mine. 'Susan, Sister & Co., Unlicensed Hacks--Piffle While You Wait!' Oh, we shall get on--you'll see. Still, I can't truthfully report much progress yesterday or to-day, though a shade more to-day than yesterday. I've been counting callously on Maltby, as Phil disapprovingly knows, and I brought three short manufactured-in-advance articles for the Garden Ex. down with me. So my first step was to stifle my last maidenly scruple and take them straight to Maltby; I hoped they would pay at least for the typewriter. It was a clear ice-bath of a morning, and the walk up Fifth Avenue braced me for anything. I stared at everybody and a good many unattached males stared back; sometimes I rather liked it, and sometimes not. It all depends. "But I found the right building at last, somewhere between the Waldorf and the Public Library. There's a shop on its avenue front for the sale of false pearls, and judging from the shop they must be more expensive than real ones. Togo dragged me in there at first by mistake; and as I was wearing my bestest tailor-made and your furs, and as Togo was wearing his, plus his haughtiest atmosphere, we seemed between us to be just the sort of thing the languid clerks had been waiting for. There was a hopeful stir as we entered--no, swept in! I was really sorry to disappoint them; it was horrid to feel that we couldn't live up to their expectations. "We didn't sweep out nearly so well! But we found the elevator round the corner and were taken up four or five floors, passing a designer of _de luxe_ corsets and a distiller of _de luxe_ perfumes on the way, and landed in the impressive outer office of the Garden Ex.