Queed.
A determinedly moneyless, friendless, and vocationless young man could
not daily stretch his limbs under her aunt's table and retain the Third
Hall Back against more compensatory guests. But the letter proved a
grievous disappointment to her. Inside was a folded sheet of cheap white
paper, apparently torn from a pad. Inside the sheet was a new
twenty-dollar bill. That was all. Apart from the address, there was no
writing anywhere.
Yet the crisp greenback, incognito though it came, indubitably suggested
that Mr. Queed was not an entire stranger to the science of
money-making.
"Ah," said the agent, insinuatingly, "evidently you have _some_
occupation, after all-of--of a productive sort...."
He looked up again with that same air of vexed surprise, as much as to
say: "What! You still hanging around!"
"I don't follow you, I fear."
"I assume that this money comes to you in payment for some--work you
have done--"
"It is an assumption, certainly."
"You can appreciate, perhaps, that I am not idly inquisitive. I
shouldn't--"
"What is it that you wish to know?"
"As to this money--"
"Really, you know as much about it as I do.
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