She wouldn't have been my choice if I'd been doin' the pickin'. One of these tall, limber young females, Miss Casey is, about as thick as a drink of water, but strong on hair and eyes. She glides in willowy, drapes herself on a chair, pats her home-grown ear-muffs into shape, and unfolds her note book business-like. And inside of two minutes she's doing the Pitman stuff in jazz time, with no call for repeats except when I'd shoot a string of figures at her. I was handin' myself the comfortin' thought, too, that I'd drawn a prize. We breezes along on the report until near lunch time with never a hitch until I gets to this paragraph where I mentions Camp Mills, and the next thing I know she has stopped short and is snifflin' through her nose. "Eh?" says I, gawpin' at her. "Have I been feedin' it at you too speedy?" "N--no," says she, "bub--but that's where Stub is--Camp Mills--and it got to me sudden." "Oh!" says I. "And Stub is a brother or something?" "He--he--Well, there!" says she, holdin' out her left hand and displayin' a turquoise set with chip diamonds. "Sorry," says I, "but I couldn't tell from the service pin, you understand, when some wears 'em for second cousins. And anyway, the name of the camp had to----" "'Sall right," snuffles Miss Casey. "I had no call spillin' the weeps durin' business hours. I wouldn't of either, only I had another session with his old lady this mornin' and she sort of got me stirred up." "Mother taking it hard, is she?" I asks. "You've said sumpin," admits Miss Casey, unbuttonin' a locket vanity case and repairin' the damage done to her facial frescoin' with a few graceful jabs. "Not but what I ain't strong for Stub Mears myself. He's all right, Stub is, even if he never could qualify in a beauty competition with Jack Pickford or Mr. Doug. Fairbanks. He's good comp'ny and all that, and now he's in the army I expect he'll ditch that ambition of his to be the champion heavy-weight pool player of the West Side. "But to hear Mrs. Mears talk you'd think he was one of the props of the universe, and that when the new draft got Stub it was a case where Congress ought to stop and draw a long breath. Uh-huh! She's 100 per cent. mother, Mrs. Mears is, and it looks like some of it was catchin' for me to get leaky-eyed just at mention of the camp he's in. Oh, lady, lady! Excuse it, please, sir." Which I does cheerful enough. And just to prove I ain't any slave driver I sort of eggs Miss Casey on, from then until the noon hour, to chat away about this war romance of hers. Seems Mr. Mears could have been in Class B, on account of his widowed mother and him being a plumber's helper when he had time to spare from his pool practicin'. Livin' in the same block, they'd been acquainted for quite some time, too.