"No. It would be too great a responsibility. But, seriously, you should have some one. You are not in a condition to make a long journey alone."
I felt that as well as she. But of all my friends I could think of no one to fill the bill, and I told her so.
"Tom would go, if he could," she said. "He would lose a year in his classes, though, which is a serious matter. Can you not hire some capable young man, who would act as an assistant and companion combined?"
If I was sure of anything it was that I wanted nothing of that kind. A servant was all right, and there were lots of fellows who would make good travelling companions, but a man who could combine the two qualities would be unbearable.
"There's another alternative you haven't thought of," I remarked, catching at an idea. "What would you say to a typewriter?"
"There are many young men in that business who would be glad to go with you," was her reply.
"Hang young men! If I take a typewriter it will be a young woman," I retorted. "Oh, don't glare at me in that frigid way. There are respectable young women enough without letting your thoughts run wild. Uncle Dugald has been trying to get me to resume work on the family genealogy, which I was plodding through when I was knocked out by that confounded illness. I have all of the notes on hand. Supposing I advertise for a young woman of good moral character to assist a literary man, one that is willing to travel. Don't you think I might secure the right sort of person in that way?"
"Good moral character!" she echoed, her lip curling. "And what do you think her character would resemble when she returned with you from your journey?"
I replied that it would be something like that of a vestal virgin, as near as I could prognosticate. And I demanded where she got the notion that I was a menace to the purity of any young creature who might decide to trust herself in my company.
"The idea is too silly to talk of seriously," she answered.
"Oh, I don't know," said I. "The more I think about it, the better I like the thing. Some of these typewriter girls are not bad looking. Many are well educated. A good salary ought to overcome their objections to travel, especially at this season of the year, when New York is under the dominion of the Ice King. I shall put an advertisement in the 'Personal' column of the Herald, next Sunday."