enough to lure me from a steady job for long,
though, unless some one was goin' to do more'n look desp'rate and talk
spiteful.

"Ah, why not smash something?" I sings out. "Didn't any lady think to
bring a brick in her vanity bag?"

A couple turns around and glares at me; but it encourages one to begin
hammerin' on the glass with her near-gold purse, and just as I'm about
to leave this turns the trick. The door swings open all of a sudden, and
there stands a tall, well-built gent, with a green felt hat pushed back
on his head, a five-inch cigar juttin' out of one corner of his mouth,
and his thumbs stuck in the pockets of a sporty striped vest. On account
of the curly brown Vandyke, he's kind of a foreign-lookin' party; but
someway them smilin', wide-open eyes of his has a sort of familiar look.

For a high pressure storm center he seems mighty placid. As he throws
open the door he steps back into the middle of the room, rests one elbow
against the rail of a wired-in cashier's coop, and removes the cheroot
so he can spring a comfortin' smile on the crowd. It's a brainy play.
The rush line stops like it has gone up against a bridge pier, and then
spreads out in a half-circle.

"Well, ladies," says he, "what can we do for you to-day?"

Do I know who it is then? Well, do I! Maybe it has been months since
I've heard the voice, and maybe he does wear a set of face herbage that
I'd never seen before; but I ain't one to forget the only real A-1
classy boss I ever had; not that soon, anyway. It's Mr. Belmont Pepper,
as sure as I've got a Titian thatch on my skull!

Do I linger? That's what! Why, I've been waitin' for him to show up
again like a hired girl waits for Thursday afternoon. It's Mr. Pepper,
all right; but it looks like he's been let in bad, for after one or two
gasps in chorus that bunch of lady grouches gets their second wind and
closes in on him with a whoop.

"Where's my dividends? I want to draw out my money! Say, you give me
back my eighteen dollars, or I'll----You'll try your bunko game on me,
will you? Hey! I've been waiting since noon to catch you, you----"

My! but they did have their hammers out! They called him everything that
a lady could, and a few names that wa'n't so ladylike as they might
have been. They shook things at him, and promised to do him all sorts of
damage, from bringin' lawsuits to scratchin' his eyes out.

Mr. Pepper, though, he goes on smokin' and smilin', now and then
throwin