Mr. Ross disregarded her letter for ten days, then so urgently telephoned her to come and see him that she took a taxicab clear to the Pemberton Building in Long Island City. After paying a week's lunch money for the taxicab, it was rather hard to discover why Mr. Ross had been quite so urgent. He rolled about his magnificent mahogany and tapestry office, looked out of the window at the Long Island Railroad tracks, and told her (in confidence) what fools all the _Gas Gazette_ chiefs had been, and all his employers since then. She smiled appreciatively, and tried to get in a tactful remark about a position. She did discover that Mr. Ross had not as yet chosen his secretary at Pemberton's, but beyond this Una could find no evidence that he supposed her to have come for any reason other than to hear his mellow wisdom and even mellower stories. After more than a month, during which Mr. Ross diverted himself by making appointments, postponing them, forgetting them, telephoning, telegraphing, sending special-delivery letters, being paged at hotels, and doing all the useless melodramatic things he could think of, except using an aeroplane or a submarine, he decided to make her his secretary at twenty dollars a week. Two days later it occurred to him to test her in regard to speed in dictation and typing, and a few other minor things of the sort which her ability as a long-distance listener had made him overlook. Fortunately, she also passed this test. When she told Mr. Wilkins that she was going to leave, he used another set of phrases which all side-street office potentates know--they must learn these _clichés_ out of a little red-leather manual.... He tightened his lips and tapped on his desk-pad with a blue pencil; he looked grieved and said, touchingly: "I think you're making a mistake. I was making plans for you; in fact, I had just about decided to offer you eighteen dollars a week, and to advance you just as fast as the business will warrant. I, uh, well, I think you're making a mistake in leaving a sure thing, a good, sound, conservative place, for something you don't know anything about. I'm not in any way urging you to stay, you understand, but I don't like to see you making a mistake." But he had also told Bessie Kraker that she was "making a mistake" when she had resigned to be married, and he had been so very certain that Una could never be "worth more" than fifteen. Una was rather tart about it. Though Mr. Ross didn't want her at Pemberton's for two weeks more, she told Mr. Wilkins that she was going to leave on the following Saturday.