ere under the shadow of her hat, and he
could not be certain, he diagnosed as green, or may be blue, or possibly
grey. Not that it mattered, for he had a catholic taste in feminine
eyes. So long as they were large and bright, as were the specimens under
his immediate notice, he was not the man to quibble about a point of
colour. Her nose was small, and on the very tip of it there was a tiny
freckle. Her mouth was nice and wide, her chin soft and round. She was
just about the height which every girl ought to be. Her figure was trim,
her feet tiny, and she wore one of those dresses of which a man can say
no more than that they look pretty well all right.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Samuel Marlowe was a susceptible young man, and
for many a long month his heart had been lying empty, all swept and
garnished, with "Welcome" on the mat. This girl seemed to rush in and
fill it. She was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She was the
third prettiest. He had an orderly mind, one capable of classifying and
docketing girls. But there was a subtle something about her, a sort of
how-shall-one-put-it, which he had never encountered before. He
swallowed convulsively. His well-developed chest swelled beneath its
covering of blue flannel and invisible stripe. At last, he told himself,
he was in love, really in love, and at first sight, too, which made it
all the more impressive. He doubted whether in the whole course of
history anything like this had ever happened before to anybody. Oh, to
clasp this girl to him and....

But she had bitten him in the arm. That was hardly the right spirit.
That, he felt, constituted an obstacle.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she cried.

Well, of course, if she regretted her rash act.... After all, an
impulsive girl might bite a man in the arm in the excitement of the
moment and still have a sweet, womanly nature....

"The crowd seems to make Pinky-Boodles so nervous."

Sam might have remained mystified, but at this juncture there proceeded
from a bundle of rugs in the neighbourhood of the girl's lower ribs, a
sharp yapping sound, of such a calibre as to be plainly audible over the
confused noise of Mamies who were telling Sadies to be sure and write,
of Bills who were instructing Dicks to look up old Joe in Paris and give
him their best, and of all the fruit-boys, candy-boys, magazine-boys,
American-flag-boys, and telegraph boys who were honking their wares on
every side.

"I hope he didn't hurt you muc