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 with her already, for all I know. I suppose I might get a job with the Telephone Company, but by the time I had worked up far enough to have an excuse for going into the vice-president's office where she works, someone else might have married her." He laughed, a boyish, ingratiating chuckle.

"It does seem pretty hard," said Ann. "I don't know what to say." She had a mental picture of the unknown fair one, going in and out of the big Telephone Company's building on Dey Street, unaware of the admiring glances of this bashful admirer. "I'll bet the men she knows aren't half as nice as he is," she said to herself.

"I happen to know that she reads your column," said Caldwell. "I suppose there isn't any way I could get in touch with her through that?"

"If there's any legitimate way I can help," Ann said, "I'll be glad to. But I hardly see what I can do."

"Well, thanks awfully," he said. "If I get a chance to meet her, will you let me come in again and tell you about it? Perhaps you would let me mention your name as a reference, in regard to my respectability I mean?"

"Surely you can give her better references than that? You see, I don't know so very much about you, Mr. Caldwell."