"Don’t take bacon," he advised, when I had ordered bacon and eggs; "it ’ll be punk. Take ham. Coffee ’ll be punk, too. Better stick to tea." Having given me these counsels, he proceeded with those short and simple annals of his history which I had already found to be the usual form of self-introduction. An Englishman, a Cornishman, he had been twenty years in America. He was married and had a family, but preferred to live in New York while he maintained his household in Chicago. "Married life is punk," was his summing up. "Got the best little wife in the state of Illinois, and three fine kids, a boy and two girls—but I couldn’t come it." "Couldn’t come what?" "Oh, the whole bloomin’ business—toein’ the line like, bein’ home at night, and the least little smell of anythink on your breath—" A wave of his fork sketched a world of domestic embarrassment from which he had freed himself only by a somber insouciance. A somber insouciance might be called his key-note. Outwardly serious, ponderous, hard-working, and responsible, he was actually light-hearted and inconsequent. During the progress of the meal he recited the escapades of a Don Juan with the gravity of a Bunyan. Still with my good-mixer air I asked: "How does a guy like me get a job in New York?" "Ever work in a Turkish bath?" He answered this question before I could do it myself. "Sure you didn’t—not a chap of your cut. It isn’t a bad sort of thing for a"—he hesitated, but decided to use the epithet—"for a—gentleman. Only a good class of people take Turkish baths. Hardly ever get in with a rough lot. A few drunks, but what of that? Could have got you a place at the Gramercy if you’d ha’ turned up last week; but a Swede has it now and it’s too late." By the end of breakfast, however, he had made a suggestion. "Why don’t you try the Intelligence? They’ll often get you a berth when everything else has stumped you." I said I was willing to try the Intelligence if I knew what it was, discovering it to be the Bureau of Domestic and Business Intelligence conducted by Miss Bryne. You presented yourself, gave your name and address, indicated your choice of work, told your qualifications for the job, and Miss Bryne did the rest, taking as her commission a percentage of your first week’s pay. "But I don’t know any qualifications," I declared, with some confusion. "Oh, that’s nothing. Say clerical work. That covers a lot. Somethink ’ll turn up." "But if they ask me if I can do certain things—?"