this house number 121?" he asked.

"No, it's 123. What of it?"

"It's the wrong house. I'm ce'tainly one chump."

The black eyes lit with sardonic mockery. The young woman knew already
that she had nothing to fear from this brown-faced man. His face was
not that of a thug. It carried its own letter of recommendation
written on it. Instinctively she felt that he had not come to rob. A
lively curiosity began to move in her.

"Say, do I look like one of them born-every-minute kind?" she asked
easily. "Go ahead and spring that old one on me about how you got
tanked at the club and come in at the window on account o' your wife
havin' a temper somethin' fierce."

"No, I--I was lookin' for some one else. I'm awful sorry I scared you.
I'd eat dirt if it would do any good, but it won't. I'm just a plumb
idiot. I reckon I'll be pushin' on my reins." He turned toward the
window.

"Stop right there where you're at," she ordered sharply. "Take a step
to that window and I'll holler for a harness bull like a Bowery bride
gettin' a wallopin' from friend husband. I gotta have an explanation.
And who told you I was scared? Forget that stuff. Take it from Annie
that she ain't the kind that scares."

The girl sat up in bed, fingers laced around the knees beneath the
blanket. There was an insouciance about her he did not understand.
She did not impress him in the least as a wanton, but if he read that
pert little face aright she was a good deal less embarrassed than he.

"I came to see some one else, but I got in the wrong house," he
explained again lamely.

"That's twice I heard both them interestin' facts. Who is this goil
you was comin' through a window to see in the middle o' the night. And
what's that gat for if it ain't to croak some other guy? You oughtta
be ashamed of yourself for not pullin' a better wheeze than that on me."

Clay blushed. In spite of the slangy impudence that dropped from the
pretty red lips the girl was slim and looked virginal.

"You're 'way off. I wasn't callin' on her to--" He stuck hopelessly.

"Whadya know about that?" she came back with obvious sarcasm. "You
soitainly give me a pain. I'll say you weren't callin' to arrange no
Sunday School picnic. Listen. Look at that wall a minute, will you?"

When he turned again at her order she was sitting on the side of the
bed wrapped in a kimono, her feet in bedroom slippers. He saw now that
she was a slender-limbed slip of