Page:I Know a Secret (1927).pdf/252

 the stairs perseveringly, and a pleasant young woman at a desk in the hall, noticing him on the floor, asked if she could do anything for him.

"I wish to see Mr. Doubleday," he said, outwardly bold but rather shaky deep inside his curly shell.

"Which Mr. Doubleday?" she asked, and this perplexed him for a moment; but he made the proper reply. "There is only one Mr. Doubleday," he said firmly.

He was escorted into a large library where he waited.

Mr. Doubleday did what any wise business man would do. When he was told that an unexpected visitor was asking for him, he sent his assistant, Miss Comstock, to find out what it was all about. Miss Comstock came to the library. At first she could not see anyone, and was puzzled, but then she found Escargot on top of a glass case that holds some rare manuscripts and old printed books. He was pretending to study the manuscripts with keen interest, but as a matter of fact he had climbed there with a sound business instinct. He knew that to talk upward from the floor would put him at a disadvantage.