The other day I noticed a sign on Fifth Avenue: KEEN & CO.
TRACERS OF LOST PERSONS It was a most extraordinary sign; and having a little unemployed imagination I began to speculate on how Keen & Co.

might operate, and I wondered a little, too, that, the conditions of life in this city could enable a firm to make a living by devoting itself exclusively to the business of hunting up missing people." Kerns paused, partly to light a cigarette, partly for diplomatic reasons.
"What has all this to do with me ?" inquired Gatewood curiously; and diplomacy scored one.
"Why not try Keen & Co. ?" "Try them?
Why?
I haven't lost anybody, have I ?" "You haven't, precisely _lost anybody_, but the fact remains that you can't _find somebody_," returned Kerns coolly.

"Why not employ Keen & Co.

to look for her ?" "Look for whom, in Heaven's name ?" "Your ideal." "Look for--for my ideal! Kerns, you're crazy.

How the mischief can anybody hunt for somebody who doesn't exist ?" "You _say_ that she _does_ exist." "But I can't prove it, man." "You don't have to; it's up to Keen & Co.