Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/97

Rh "Why not?"

"Because you would really be the owner of the signature you might use!" he had the brazenness to try to tell me.

"I'd be the owner, you say, of somebody else's signature?" I snorted.

"For the time being, at least," he announced. "Might I, now! And wouldn't even that be what you'd call impersonation?"

"It might be called that."

"And what would save us from getting in Dutch, doing a stunt like that?" I asked, trying to let him see, by my talk, that I wasn't the lambkin he might have taken me for.

"You would," was his reply. He had his nerve, that old codger, and I take off my hat to any man with nerve.

"How?"

"By acting as the clever young woman you are?"

"I guess I'm not so clever, or I wouldn't be out of a job," I told him, as certain events of that afternoon suddenly flashed back on my mind.

"It will be a long time before you will need another," he calmly informed me.

"Why?"

'Because you will be so well paid for this one!"