The Agony Column

Notices in the personal column of the London Daily Mail, that romantic institution popularly called "The Agony Column," afford a medium for the introduction of the lovely girl and the hero in the opening of this story. A maze of perplexing circumstances follow, and throughout there is the same originality of treatment that one finds in the author's previous works. Turned into a motion picture The Second Floor Mystery in 1930e lady at least, I said, will understand. He sneered at that. He shook his silly gray head. I will admit he had me worried. But now you have justified my faith in you. Thank you a million times for that! Three weeks I have been in this huge, ungainly, indifferent city, longing for the States. Three weeks the Agony Column has been my sole diversion. And then--through the doorway of the Carlton restaurant--you came-- It is of myself that I must write, I know. I will not, then, tell you what is in my mind--the picture of you I carry. It would mean little to you. Many Texan gallants, no doubt, have told you the same while the moon was bright above you and the breeze was softly whispering through the branches of--the branches of the--of the-- Confound it, I don't know! I have never been in Texas. It is a vice in me I hope soon to correct. All day I intended to look up Texas in the encyclopedia. But all day I have dwelt in the clouds. And there are no reference books in the clouds. Now I