It was four o'clock on a hot summer afternoon, and round the board-room table the members were saying "aye" and "no" and "I so move," while their minds were occupied with the questions that do occupy the mind at such times—golf and suburban trains, and whether huckleberry pie in hot weather hadn't been a mistake—when the glass door opened and a beautiful girl came in like a hurricane. She had evidently been talking for some seconds when she entered. She was saying, "——are just terrible. I want to tell you gentlemen, now that I have you together, that I think men are just terrible." She had a curious voice, deep and a little rough, more like a boy's than a woman's, yet a voice which when you once knew Pearl you remembered with affection. "This is the fourth job I've lost because men have no self-control. I do my work. I don't even speak to any of you—I'd like to—I'm human, but I don't dare any more. I attend to business, there's no fault found with my work—but I've got to go because some man or other can't work in the office with me. Why not? Because he has no self-control—and not ashamed [Pg 13]of it—not ashamed, that's what shocks me. Why, if a girl found she couldn't do her work because there was a good-looking man in the office, she'd die rather than admit she was so silly. But what does a man do? He goes whining to the president to get the poor girl dismissed. There it is! I have to go!"

[Pg 13]

And so on, and so on. The board was so astonished at her entrance, at the untrammeled way in which she was striding up and down, digging her heels into the rug and flinging her arms about as she talked, that they were like people stunned. They turned their eyes with relief to Mr. Bunner, who came hurrying in behind her.

"Miss Leavitt has been dropped," he began, but she cut him short.

"I've been dropped," she said, "because——"

"Will you let me speak?" said Mr. Bunner—a rhetorical question. He meant to speak in any case.

"No," answered Pearl. "Certainly not. Gentlemen, I have been dismissed—I know—because some man in this office has no self-control. I can't identify him, but I have my suspicions." And she cast a dreadful glance at the third vice [Pg 14]president. "Why should I go? Why shouldn't he? Crying! Woof! How absurd!"

[Pg 14]

"Leave the room, Miss Leavitt," said the president; but he weakened the effect of his edict by leaning forward with his hand to his ear so as 

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