"I did," he confessed with a disappointed laugh. "I hadn't the nerve to
be mushy enough, though--and nothing else seems to be real poetry. I
got one line that listened like the goods, but I couldn't match it up:
'As I lie awake and look at the stars--' Pretty good start, eh? How do
you find a rhyme for it?"

"You go down through the alphabet," Polly advised him, rather proud to
be able to answer him so promptly. "Bars, cars, fars, jars--that way,
you know. How I found out is that Sister Winnie writes so much poetry."

"She's a great kid," laughed Johnny. "Where is she?"

"Round here some place, giving orders to Sammy Chirp. Why are you
loafing this afternoon? You're supposed to be making five thousand
dollars an hour, but I don't see any chance for it here."

"It's a holiday," he retorted. "You're loafing yourself. I see it's on
the program that you're to sell a quarter's worth of violets and a
smile, for five dollars a throw at the boutonniere booth. Notice how I
said boutonniere?"

"You got it out of a book," charged Polly disdainfully. "I called
Constance over from the candy booth to take my place because a
gray-haired rusher came back seven times to have me pin violets on his
coat--and I couldn't smile any more. There he goes now. That's his
second trip for Constance."

"This is a cruel world. I suppose it would fuss her all up if I dropped
him out of a window," Johnny observed wistfully.

"Constance doesn't need help. Just watch her!" And Polly grinned
appreciatively as Constance, recognizing and sorting the tottering
lady-killer at a glance, took his money handed him a nosegay and a pin,
and returned to the back of the booth to arrange her stock:

A huge blot of orange and a thin streak of lavender paused on the other
side of the palms. Johnny wondered to see these two enemies together,
but no man could know the satisfaction they took in it.

"The violet booth," read the big blot of orange, adjusting her gold
lorgnette to the bridge of her globular nose and consulting her
catalogue. "Friday afternoon: Polly Parsons and Mrs. Arthur Follison.
That is not Mrs. Follison in the booth, is it?"

"Oh, no, Mrs. Guff!" protested the thin streak of lavender in a rasping
little lavender voice. "Mrs. Follison, though not a doll-face--indeed,
far from it--is of most aristocratic bearing."

"I suppose that person in the booth, then, is the adopted actress,"
guessed Mrs. Guff. "Any one can tell that's beauty and m