The white crown and other stories Author:Herbert Dickinson Ward Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE VALUE OF A CIPHER. I. When Mrs. De Puyster Kendall opened the door of Miss Flood's famous intelligence office, she recoiled with a suffocated gasp, and t... more »ottered as if she were about to faint. The office occupied the whole of the second floor on the street, and, extending through to the area court, it grew dark and darker as it approached the rear. In the front and in the light a low railing shut off the servants and made a public office for Miss Flood and her assistants. Here the lady in search of " help " made her selection for her own weal. Outside of this fence rude benches were arranged as for a prayer-meeting; the nearest to the " top " were thronged with an expectant, whispering, gossiping, rude-looking lot of women of all ages and sizes and nations. Towards the dusky rear the mass thinned out, until at the farthest end a solitary woman could be seen sitting in a rocking-chair, trying by the dim light to read the advertising columns of the morning paper, and swallow a cup of coffee at the same time. If any one wishes an antidote for constitutional hilarity let him spend ten minutes in a city intelligence office. There was an immediate rustle of interest among the hundred women waiting pugnaciously for a mistress. This general awakening seemed to stir the close atmosphere from its lowest depths. Mrs. De Puyster Kendall leaned heavily upon her daughter's arm, and applied salts to her veil with protesting vigor. After a few undecided and un- elastic steps, she dropped upon the wooden bench within the railing. Mrs. Kendall generally swept into a room with that unconscious air of possession characteristic of irreproachable ancestry. But who can sweep into an intelligence office ? " Do let us go, Alys dear." By reason of excessive salts tears had arisen to the ...« less