The Type-writer Girl

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THE TYPE-WRITER GIRL By Olive Pratt Rayner Contents I. Introduces a Latter-day Heroine II. The Struggle for Life III. Environment Wins IV. The Choice of a Patron V. Vive l'Anarchie! VI. The Inner Brotherhood VII. A Mutinous Mutineer VIII. Called "Of Accidents" IX. I Play Carmen X. Sic me Servavit Apollo! XI. A Sail on the Horizon XII. A Cavalier makes Advances XIII. Concerning Romeo XIV. "Now Barabbas was a Publisher" XV. Fresh Light on Romeo XVI. I try Literature XVII. A Drawn Battle XVIII. An Autumn Holiday XIX. "O Romeo, Romeo!" XX. "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" XXI. Envoy Plenipotentiary XXII. I Cling to the Rigging Chapter 1 Excerpt I WAS twenty-two; and without employment. I would not say by this that I was without occupation. In the world in which we live, set with daisies and kingfishers and undeciphered faces of men and women, I doubt I could be at a loss for something to occupy me. A swallow's back, as he turns in the sunshine, is so full of meaning. If you dwell in the country, you need but pin on a hat and slip out into a meadow, and there, in some bight of the hedgerow, you shall see spring buds untwisting, sulphur butterflies coquetting; hear nightingales sing as they sang to Keats, and streamlets make madrigal as they wimpled for Marlowe. Nay, even here in London, where life is rarer, how can I cruise down the Strand without encountering Strange barks - mysterious argosies that attract and intrigue me? That living stream is so marvellous! Whence come they, these shadows, and whither do they go? - innumerable, silent, each wrapped in his own thought, yet each real to himself as I to my heart. To me, they are shooting stars, phantoms that flash athwart the orbit of my life one second, and then vanish. But to themselves they are the centre of a world - of the world; and I am but one of the meteors that dart across their horizon. I cannot choose but wonder who each is, and why he is here. For one after another I invent a story. It may not be the true stor