minister's back parlor at ten sharp in the morning. We can be
back here by noon and get the place cleared enough to give 'em a little
lunch--just a fun lunch without fixings."

"I hope the old guy don't waste no time splicing us. It's one of the things
a fellow likes to have over with."

"Jimmie! Why, it's the most beautiful thing in the world, like a garden of
lilies or--or something, a marriage ceremony is! You got the ring safe,
honey-bee, and the license?"

"Pinned in my pocket where you put 'em, Flirty Gertie."

"Flirty Gertie! Now you'll begin teasing me with that all our life--the
way I didn't slap your face that night when I should have. I just couldn't
have, honey. Goes to show we were just cut and dried for each other, don't
it? Me, a girl that never in her life let a fellow even bat his eyes at her
without an introduction. But that night when you winked, honey--something
inside of me just winked back."

"My girl!"

"You mean it, boy? You ain't sorry about nothing, Jimmie?"

"Sorry? Well, I guess not!"

"You saw the way--she--May--you saw for yourself what she was, when we saw
her walking, that next night after Ceiner's, nearly staggering, up Sixth
Avenue with Budge Evans."

"I never took any stock in her, honey. I was just letting her like me."

She sat back on the box edge, regarding him, her face so soft and wont to
smile that she could not keep her composure.

"Get me my hat and coat, honey. We'll walk down. Got the key?"

They skirmished in the gloom, moving through slit-like aisles of furniture
and packing-box.

"Ouch!"

"Oh, the running water is hot, Jimmie, just like the ad said! We got
red-hot running water in our flat. Close the front windows, honey. We don't
want it to rain in on our new green sofa. Not 'til it's paid for, anyways."

"Hurry."

"I'm ready."

They met at the door, kissing on the inside and the outside of it; at the
head of the fourth, third, and the second balustrade down.

"We'll always make 'em little love landings, Jimmie, so we can't ever get
tired climbing them."

"Yep."

Outside there was still a pink glow in a clean sky. The first flush of
spring in the air had died, leaving chill. They walked briskly, arm in arm,
down the asphalt incline of sidewalk leading from their apartment house, a
new street of canned homes built on a hillside--the sepulchral abode of the
city's trapped whose only escape is down the fire-escape, and then only
when the alternativ