Or Miss Olson, at the Rialto ticket
window? Or the Celtic, emotional Miss Ahearn, the manicure? Or Gertie
the goof? They knew nothing of mythology; of pointed ears and pug noses
and goat's feet. Nick's ears, to their fond gaze, presented an honest
red surface protruding from either side of his head. His feet, in tan
laced shoes, were ordinary feet, a little more than ordinarily expert,
perhaps, in the convolutions of the dance at Englewood Masonic Hall,
which is part of Chicago's vast South Side. No; a faun, to Miss Bauers,
Miss Olson, Miss Ahearn, and just Gertie, was one of those things in the
Lincoln Park Zoo.

Perhaps, sometimes, they realized, vaguely, that Nick was different.
When, for example, they tried--and failed--to picture him looking
interestedly at one of those three-piece bedroom sets glistening like
pulled taffy in the window of the installment furniture store, while
they, shy yet proprietary, clung to his arm and eyed the price ticket.
Now $98.50. You couldn't see Nick interested in bedroom sets, in price
tickets, in any of those settled, fixed, everyday things. He was fluid,
evasive, like quicksilver, though they did not put it thus.

Miss Bauers, goaded to revolt, would say pettishly: "You're like a
mosquito, that's what. Person never knows from one minute to the other
where you're at."

"Yeh," Nick would retort. "When you know where a mosquito's at, what do
you do to him? Plenty. I ain't looking to be squashed."

Miss Ahearn, whose public position (the Hygienic Barber Shop. Gent's
manicure, 50c.) offered unlimited social opportunities, would assume a
gay indifference. "They's plenty boys begging to take me out every hour
in the day. Swell lads, too. I ain't waiting round for any greasy
mechanic like you. Don't think it. Say, lookit your nails! They'd queer
you with me, let alone what else all is wrong with you."

In answer Nick would put one hand--one broad, brown, steel-strong hand
with its broken discoloured nails--on Miss Ahearn's arm, in its flimsy
georgette sleeve. Miss Ahearn's eyelids would flutter and close, and a
little shiver would run with icy-hot feet all over Miss Ahearn.

Nick was like that.

Nick's real name wasn't Nick at all--or scarcely at all. His last name
was Nicholas, and his parents, long before they became his parents,
traced their origin to some obscure Czechoslovakian province--long
before we became so glib with our Czechoslovakia. His first name was
Dewey, knowing w