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The mystic slogan to "Say it with flowers," had certainly been worked overtime with Maida. She walked home with the telephone-girl one day instead of waiting for Rose -- and an apology had to be said with two dozen carnations. She was reproached by Rose for a hurried good morning, minus the usual kiss; it had to be explained by a corsage of violets. A Christmas show -- orchids. A ball-game -- chrysanthemums. A birthday -- lilies of the valley and one symbolic rosebud. Their telephone conversations sounded harmless enough, yet both girls were ravaged by them. "You weren't there. Oh, you were? Oh, you know what I mean. You will? You will for sure? I got a headache. You would? You would for always? I'm lonesome. I know you aren't. Yes you are. I know what daisies say. Don't go. I was only fooling. Say you wouldn't."

At her last telephone call, when Maida announced her departure, and the connection was suddenly broken. Rose, blinded with tears, had fairly staggered through the door into the arms of Hank, who was lingering outside the library wherein she worked, merely because he had no other place to go. Hank piloted her home rather awkwardly, for he did not know who she was, and he was not accustomed to girls. But it was through Hank, now lurking outside the office building as he had lurked outside the library, that we learned where Rose was. Mattie had to be left to hunt her own job, for according to Hank and her employers. Rose's case was now more urgent. She had not left her room since the night Maida absconded, and she said flatly that she did not intend to.

As was to be expected, we viewed the unknown Hank with the cold eye which every male person must brace himself to meet, when, before righteous matrons, he exhibits an interest in a sobbing girl. "Young man, what is the meaning of this?" is all he gets for his pains. But Hank turned out to be discreet and above reproach. In fact, we got so that we found him excellent company -- out of doors. For his self-possession left him when he ventured inside. Hence his tendency to lurk in entries. Which in turn was explained by the fact that, once under a roof, he had to perform the dreaded act of taking off his hat, thus revealing the soul-racking tragedy that, although only twenty-four, he was partially bald. Slight though this fact may seem in significance, it had not only driven him to the edge of Neurotica, but he had fairly crossed the border. In short, he had the thing called an inferiority complex.

He was by no means a fool. He had finished high-school, and even yearned toward journalism, for which he had a considerable knack. But any craft of a literary nature apparently demanded that he should from time to time take off his hat -- and no sooner had he done so than he felt the morbid world concentrating on his baldness. He had tried all the outdoor trades of manly men, such as ice and coal, trucking, and automobile mechanics. But he had no physique or gift for any of them, and failed in all, which did not help the complex. He tried to be a postman -- in vain, there were no vacancies. Policeman or fireman -- he was too thin. So by persistently trying to do the things in which he must inevitably fail, guided always by the desire to seem a burly man or to keep his head covered -- he had got failure so engraven on his heart that it seemed but a matter of time till the workhouse would have another occupant. To Hank in such a state of mind, lingering near the library in the dusk, longing for a book which he dared not doff his hat to get -- to Hank, it can be readily seen, no more manly and inspiriting adventure could have taken place than for a weeping girl to fall into his arms. With her imagination intent upon the departed Maida, Rose accepted the support of Hank's arms as she would have leaned against a lamp-post. Hank, on the contrary, thrilled to his first masculine adventure. In the dark she could not see him. His derby was firmly on his head, and he dared be bold. As we strolled around the block, discussing Rose tactfully, with covered heads. Hank's ideas were excellent and well expressed. If he and Rose could only have emerged from Neurotica long enough to become seriously interested in each other, all might have been well. Both were lonely and both had bookish tastes. They might as well have led each other into Normalcy, as to have left the business for someone else. But Hank was not bold enough to woo without considerable assistance from the lady herself, and the lady unfortunately wanted her room rent paid, and then to be left alone, far more than she wanted his company. So Hank, after a flash in the pan of feeling like a real Romeo, enlisted in the army, where hats are kept on heads, and that hoped-for romance was blasted in the bud.

What, then, was to become of Rose, when her rent was up? She was anasmic and had a list of minor ailments that would have depleted the energy of even a well-balanced girl who had eaten three square meals, which Rose had not done for a week. Moreover, when we urged her to eat, the question still obtruded itself: who was to pay for the delicacies we so enticingly described? Perhaps Mrs. Pinkard the landlady, would help us out. She answered our knock with reluctance.