"Hullo!" said Dr. Surtaine. "What's up? Anything wrong at the shop, Milly?" The girl walked into the room and stood trimly at ease before the four men. "No, Chief," said she. "I understood Mr. Surtaine wanted to see me." "I?" said Hal blankly, pushing a chair toward her. "Yes. Didn't you? They told me you left word for me in the city room, to see you when I came in again. Sometimes I send my copy, so I only just got the message." "Miss Neal is 'Kitty the Cutie,'" explained McGuire Ellis. "Looks it, too," observed L.P. McQuiggan jauntily, addressing the upper far corner of the room. Miss Neal looked at him, met a knowing and conscious smile, looked right through the smile, and looked away again, all with the air of one who gazes out into nothingness. "Guess I'll go look up this Shearson person," said Mr. McQuiggan, a trifle less jauntily. "See you all later." "I'd no notion you were the writer of the Cutie paragraphs, Milly," said Dr. Surtaine. "They're lively stuff." "Nobody has. I'm keeping it dark. It's only a try-out. You _did_ send for me, didn't you?" she added, turning to Hal. "Yes. What I had in mind to say to you--that is, to the author--the writer of the paragraphs," stumbled Hal, "is that they're a little too--too--" "Too flip?" queried his father. "That's what makes 'em go." "If they could be done in a manner not quite so undignified," suggested the editor-in-chief. Color rose in the girl's smooth cheek. "You think they're vulgar," she charged. "That's rather too harsh a word," he protested. "You do! I can see it." She flushed an angry red. "I'd rather stop altogether than have you think that." "Don't be young," put in McGuire Ellis, with vigor. "Kitty has caught on. It's a good feature. The paper can't afford to drop it." "That's right," supplemented Dr. Surtaine. "People are beginning to talk about those items. They read 'em. I read 'em myself. They've got the go, the pep. They're different. But, Milly, I didn't even know you could write." "Neither did I," said the girl staidly, "till I got to putting down some of the things I heard the girls say, and stringing them together with nonsense of my own. One evening I showed some of it to Mr. Veltman, and he took it here and had it printed." "I was going to suggest, Mr. Surtaine," said McGuire Ellis formally, "that we put Miss Kitty on the five-dollar-a-column basis and make her an every-other-day editorial page feature. I think the stuff's worth it." "We can give it a trial," said his principal, a little dubiously, "since you think so well of it." "Then, Milly, I suppose you'll be quitting the shop to become a full-fledged writer," remarked Dr. Surtaine. "No, indeed, Chief." The girl smiled at him with that frank friendliness which Hal had noted as informing every relationship between Dr. Surtaine and the employees of the Certina plant. "I'll stick. The regular pay envelope looks good to me. And I can do this work after hours."