ITTLE Miss Winnie O'Wynn was playing all by herself in her flat. It was a new game, and one which she had invented. She had named it Roll Call, and it consisted of looking through the muster roll of the regiment of which she was colonel in chief—twelve hundred stanch and steady and true little soldiers, very trim, very smart and all exactly alike, ready at her lightest word of command to spring on parade from the bank in which they were billeted. Winnie's Own Bright Force, she playfully called them, and she was very proud of them; so proud, indeed, that she was never tired of looking at the roll of them, so nicely written in the book provided by the bankers; never tired of planning for their welfare and their future
There was a tiny frown of concentration on the brows of their lovely colonel to-night, for she had quite recently arrived at a momentous decision in connection with the regiment. She intended to arrange for married quarters at the ban—the barracks—and to get every one of her smart little soldiers wedded,
“That will make you twenty-four hundred strong,” she said. “And if you all become papas in a year's time—why, then you will be thirty-six hundred strong! And that will be much better.”
She smiled at the quaint conceit, sipped her chocolate and put the book away.
“I must go recruiting,” said she, and aided by many cushions, the big couch and the pink tea gown in which she always thought so well, she gave herself up to speculation.
“If only men were not such wolves; if only they would not pounce upon one so savagely,” she mused, “I should have no trouble in making my regiment into quite an army. But nowadays they are so sharp and keen that a lonely, unprotected girl can hardly expect more than the scraps which fall from their table.” She smiled.
“Still one may try. The first duty of an officer is to see to the welfare of his men; the first thought of a colonel must always be of his regiment. Daddy never told me that, but he would have if he had thought of it. Now where shall I go recruiting?”
She relaxed like a Persian kitten, and was already winding her mental way through a maze of speculation when the evening mail arrived. There was only one letter. The envelope was heavily marked “Private,” and—the girl observed—was addressed in the bold and impressive handwriting of a gentleman whom she had already met—the open, frank and breezy Mr. George H. Jay, of Finch Court, Southampton Row, Agent. Indeed, it was Mr. Jay who some time before had selected her from among many applicants for a temporary post at his disposal. Oddly enough, it had cost him a great deal of very excellent money, and though it was that money which now formed a goodly proportion of Winnie's regiment, Mr. Jay did not blame the girl. It was through no fault of hers, he conceived, but rather through his misfortune.
He wrote requesting her, if not otherwise engaged, to call upon him on the following morning. He was, he added, in need of just such assistance as his, he hoped he might say, friend Miss O'Wynn could give him. It was quite a simple matter, would be well paid, and he would send a taxi for her at ten o'clock. Winnie put down the letter with a pensive smile.
“Dear Mr. Jay—he always makes the mistake of being too anxious. But then he is a quick man—he said so before, I think he wants something from me. It is a pity—from his point of view—to let it be so obvious. But I suppose that it is because he is so quick, and perhaps it will help me with my recruiting.”
She laughed, a low musical sound, harmonizing exquisitely with her baby-blue eyes, and settled down with a novel. She had been exploring the Tower of London that day and felt very much in the mood for light fiction.
She had not yet been in London a month, but even in o brief a time she had planned her career.
That the city was full of those whom it amused her to term wolves had become abundantly evident to her, and since she had acquired the beginnings of her fortune, together with raiment befitting a minor capitalist, it was equally evident that it would not be only her slim wild-flower loveliness which attracted the roving eyes of some of the wolves.
She was not the only colonel who wished to increase the size of his regiment. She was not singular in this respect. But she carried under her sunny coronet of curling hair a fixed and even slightly amused confidence in her ability to extend her roll—her muster roll—which many of the aforesaid wolves would have envied. This may have been due to her recollection of certain wise words of that worldly wise man, her late father.