I had grown to regard myself as the repository of all its gossip.

The fraction of it that I retailed was a matter of calculated discretion.

I made a little hobby--it was a foible, a vanity, what you will--of my omniscience.

I knew months ahead the dates of the arrivals of young Wellingsfordians in this world of pain and plenitude.

I knew of maidens who were wronged and youths who were jilted; of wives who led their husbands a deuce of a dance, and of wives who kept their husbands out of the bankruptcy court.