"She's asleep; and she'd best be left to sleep; she needs it," reported the landlady over the wire.
Ellen agreed that Di should not be disturbed; and when she learned from Mr. Lowry that Mr. Sam Metten was absent from his office, she assumed that Jello, also requiring rest, was profiting from a similar respect for sleep. The situation, whatever it was, evidently paralyzed progress on the issuance of orders.
"Anything new?" Mr. Rountree inquired of Ellen, when he returned from the plant late in the afternoon; and she was sure that he meant, "Is the Metten order in?" but he would not admit his anxiety over it.
"Nothing," said Ellen.
"Where is my son?"
"He's in the stockroom. Do you want him?"
"No. Put him on the payroll; fifty dollars a week. Make out the slip."
While writing, obediently, the memorandum of the amount to be paid Justin Rountree, weekly, Ellen's fancies flew again to the hotel on the Lake Shore Drive where Jay and his wife dwelt.
Jay had lunch with Lowry and he had spent the afternoon, at the salesmanager's direction, in the stockroom picking up a casual acquaintance, at least, with the more important shapes, sizes, weights, patterns and prices of the articles which he had sold to Phil Metten, to an amount totaling twenty thousand dollars on the two-weeks order, in total ignorance of the practical details.
Of course Phil was completely familiar with the stock; he had known exactly what he was buying, upon the ma-
