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 Busy himself. The other girls were convulsed by the stuff they eavesdropped, but honestly I wouldn't be bothered listening in to any sweet nothings passed between a Romeo of thirty and a Juliet of fifty, if you know what I mean. However, I did kid Thurston once about his affair of the heart, as they say in Guatemala, and his reaction surprised me. Instead of laughing it off, he told me very seriously that Abigail was delightful and dwelt on her charms to such an extent that I soon stopped smiling and became very, very thoughtful. When I saw them having tea together on the roof garden later, with Abigail gazing into Thurston's eyes as if they were a couple of suppressed novels, I began to speculate in earnest on just what the big boy's racket was.

The mysterious private detective's attentions to the simpering foolish virgin didn't seem to slow up his ambitions in my direction a particle, though whenever dear old Abby was in the immediate vicinity Thurston throttled down and became merely polite to me. This amused me so highly that simply because I didn't like his work I made matters harder for Oliver Thurston by flirting outrageously with him the minute Abby came near the switchboard and refusing even to talk to him when she was nowhere to be seen.

Then one bright morning Abigail hurls the fashionable St. Moe into a turmoil by excitedly dashing into