hands with
monotonous gestures alternately to her breast. Her squat, matronly
figure, beef from the heels up, looked singularly absurd in her short
skirt. Her face was excessively over-painted, her mouth good-naturedly
large, and her eyes out of their slit-like lids leered at the audience.

"Ain't she great?" said a tall bean-pole of a man on my right, as she
finished off with a round of applause. "There's some class to her work."

He looked at me in a confidential way, and his pale-blue eyes were full
of rapturous appreciation. Then he did something that surprised me. He
tugged open his poke and, dipping into it, he produced a big nugget.
Twisting this in a scrap of paper, he rose up, long, lean and awkward,
and with careful aim he threw it on the stage.

"Here ye are, Lulu," he piped in his shrill voice. The woman, turning in
her exit, picked up the offering, gave her admirer a wide, gold-toothed
smile, and threw him an emphatic kiss. As the man sat down I could see
his mouth twisting with excitement, and his watery blue eyes snapped
with pleasure.

"By heck," he said, "she's great, ain't she? Many's the bottle of wine
I've opened for that there girl. Guess she'll be glad when she hears old
Henry's in town again. Henry's my name, Hard-pan Henry they call me, an'
I've got a claim on Hunker. Many's the wallopin' poke have I toted into
town an' blowed in on that there girl. An' I just guess this one'll go
the same gait. Well, says I, what's the odds? I'm havin' a good time
for my money. When it's gone there's lots more in the ground. It ain't
got no legs. It can't run away."

He chuckled and hefted his poke in a horny hand. There was a flutter of
the heliotrope curtains, and the face of Lulu, peeping over the plush
edge of a box, smiled bewitchingly upon him. With another delighted
chuckle the old man went to join her.

"Darned old fool," said a young man on my left. He looked as if his
veins were chuckful of health; his skin was as clear as a girl's, his
eye honest and fearless. He was dressed in mackinaw, and wore a fur cap
with drooping ear-flaps.

"He's the greatest mark in the country," the Youth went on. "He's got no
more brains than God gave geese. All the girls are on to him. Before he
can turn round that old bat up there will have him trimmed to a finish.
He'll be doing flip-flaps, and singing ''Way Down on the Suwanee River'
standing on his head. Then the girl will pry him loose from his poke,
and to-mo