one foot, waitin' for a chance to butt in.

"Why, professor! This is a pleasure," says he.

"Hello!" says I. "Where'd you blow in from?"

Then I makes him acquainted with Sadie, and asks him what it'll be. Oh,
he did it well; seemed as surprised as if he hadn't seen me for a year,
and begins to get acquainted with Sadie right away. I tried to give her
the wink, meanin' to put her next to the fact that here was where she
ought to come out strong on the broad A's, and throw in the
dontcher-knows frequent; but it was no go. She didn't care a rap. She
talked just as she would to me, asked Pinckney all sorts of fool
questions, and inside of two minutes them two was carryin' on like a
couple of kids.

"I'm a rank outsider here, you know," says she, "and if it hadn't been
for Shorty I'd never got in at all. Oh, sure, Shorty and I are old
chums. We used to slide down the same cellar door."

S'elp me, I was plumb ashamed of Sadie then, givin' herself away like
that. But Pinckney seemed to think it was great sport. Pretty soon he
says he's got some friends over at another table, and did she mind if he
brought 'em over.

"Think you'd better?" says she. "I'm the Mrs. Dipworthy of the 'Drowsy
Drops,' you know, and that's a tag that won't come off."

"If you'll allow me," says he, "I'll attend to the tag business. They'll
be delighted to meet you."

"Say," says I, soon as he'd left, "don't be a sieve, Sadie. Just forget
auld lang syne, and remember that you're travelin' high."

"They've got to take me for what I am, or not at all," says she.

"Yes, but you ain't got no cue to tell the story of your life," says I.

"That's my whole stock in trade, Shorty," says she.

I was lookin' for her to revise that notion when I sees the kind of
company Pinckney was luggin' up to spring on us. I'd seen their pictures
in the papers, and knew 'em on sight. And the pair wasn't anything but
the top of the bunch. You know the Twombley-Cranes, that cut more ice in
July than the Knickerbocker Trust does all winter. Why say, to see the
house rubber at 'em as they came sailin' our way, you'd thought they was
paid performers stepping up to do their act. It was a case of bein' in
the lime-light for us, from that on.

"Hully chee!" says I. "Here's where I ought to fade."

But there wasn't any show to duck; for Felix was chasin' over some more
chairs, and Pinckney was doin' the honors all round, and the first thing
I knew we was a nice little