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68 entire two hours that she had spent dipping into this magazine and that, in an effort to focus her attention on some other human problem than her own.

The sentence was in fine print, hidden away in a twenty-cent magazine, half-way down a long column between glowing advertisements of Baking Powder and Toilet Soap. The sentence was in quotation marks and repeated a telegram cabled to Washington from a woman at the head of certain canteens in France.

"Don't send us any more executive women," it said. "Ship us a few fools."

Was it a misprint? Did they mean ship us a few tools? The difference between "f" and "t" was less than a sixteenth of an inch. Constance stared at the sentence.

"I'm no good as a tool. Nor shaped for any special purpose, and not enough steel to me to be of use in the rough, but if it's fools they want—" She stared into space. She had never seriously considered France. France required trained women, she had always witheringly been informed.

Surreptitiously she mailed an inquiry to the editor of the magazine that night.

"Fools is right," the editor replied four days later.