id Liz, after the chaser had sputtered under
her nose. "It's got to me that he says he'll take Annie Karlson to
the dance. Let him. The pink-eyed white rat! I'm lookin' for 'm. You
know me, Tommy. Two years me and the Kid's been engaged. Look at
that ring. Five hundred, he said it cost. Let him take her to the
dance. What'll I do? I'll cut his heart out. Another whiskey,
Tommy."

"I wouldn't listen to no such reports, Miss Lizzie," said the waiter
smoothly, from the narrow opening above his chin. "Kid Mullaly's not
the guy to throw a lady like you down. Seltzer on the side?"

"Two years," repeated Liz, softening a little to sentiment under
the magic of the distiller's art. "I always used to play out on the
street of evenin's 'cause there was nothin' doin' for me at home.
For a long time I just sat on doorsteps and looked at the lights
and the people goin' by. And then the Kid came along one evenin'
and sized me up, and I was mashed on the spot for fair. The first
drink he made me take I cried all night at home, and got a lickin'
for makin' a noise. And now--say, Tommy, you ever see this Annie
Karlson? If it wasn't for peroxide the chloroform limit would have
put her out long ago. Oh, I'm lookin' for 'm. You tell the Kid if
he comes in. Me? I'll cut his heart out. Leave it to me. Another
whiskey, Tommy."

A little unsteadily, but with watchful and brilliant eyes, Liz
walked up the avenue. On the doorstep of a brick tenement a
curly-haired child sat, puzzling over the convolutions of a tangled
string. Liz flopped down beside her, with a crooked, shifting smile
on her flushed face. But her eyes had grown clear and artless of a
sudden.

"Let me show you how to make a cat's-cradle, kid," she said, tucking
her green silk skirt under her rusty shoes.

And while they sat there the lights were being turned on for the
dance in the hall of the Small Hours Social Club. It was the
bi-monthly dance, a dress affair in which the members took great
pride and bestirred themselves huskily to further and adorn.

At 9 o'clock the President, Kid Mullaly, paced upon the floor with a
lady on his arm. As the Loreley's was her hair golden. Her "yes" was
softened to a "yah," but its quality of assent was patent to the
most Milesian ears. She stepped upon her own train and blushed,
and--she smiled into the eyes of Kid Mullaly.

And then, as the two stood in the middle of the waxed floor, the
thing happened to prevent which many lamps are