ll him not to be so silly."

Mrs. Fillmore crossed the room and kissed Sally impulsively.

"You're an angel," she said. "I wish there were more like you. But I
guess they've lost the pattern. Well, I'll go back and tell Fillmore
that. It'll relieve him."

The door closed, and Sally sat down with her chin in her hands to think.

3

Mr. Isadore Abrahams, the founder and proprietor of that deservedly
popular dancing resort poetically named "The Flower Garden," leaned back
in his chair with a contented sigh and laid down the knife and fork
with which he had been assailing a plateful of succulent goulash. He was
dining, as was his admirable custom, in the bosom of his family at his
residence at Far Rockaway. Across the table, his wife, Rebecca, beamed
at him over her comfortable plinth of chins, and round the table his
children, David, Jacob, Morris and Saide, would have beamed at him
if they had not been too busy at the moment ingurgitating goulash.
A genial, honest, domestic man was Mr. Abrahams, a credit to the
community.

"Mother," he said.

"Pa?" said Mrs. Abrahams.

"Knew there was something I'd meant to tell you," said Mr. Abrahams,
absently chasing a piece of bread round his plate with a stout finger.
"You remember that girl I told you about some time back--girl working at
the Garden--girl called Nicholas, who came into a bit of money and threw
up her job..."

"I remember. You liked her. Jakie, dear, don't gobble."

"Ain't gobbling," said Master Abrahams.

"Everybody liked her," said Mr. Abrahams. "The nicest girl I ever hired,
and I don't hire none but nice girls, because the Garden's a nice place,
and I like to run it nice. I wouldn't give you a nickel for any of your
tough joints where you get nothing but low-lifes and scare away all the
real folks. Everybody liked Sally Nicholas. Always pleasant and always
smiling, and never anything but the lady. It was a treat to have her
around. Well, what do you think?"

"Dead?" inquired Mrs. Abrahams, apprehensively. The story had sounded to
her as though it were heading that way. "Wipe your mouth, Jakie dear."

"No, not dead," said Mr. Abrahams, conscious for the first time that the
remainder of his narrative might be considered by a critic something
of an anti-climax and lacking in drama. "But she was in to see me this
afternoon and wants her job back."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Abrahams, rather tonelessly. An ardent supporter of the
local motion-picture p