Anton; but, somehow, I wanted to
try out a few hints on Anna. I couldn't say just why, either. The line
of josh I opens with ain't a bit subtle. It don't have to be. Anna was
tickled to pieces to be kidded about her feller. She invites me into the
box-office, offers me chewin' gum, and proceeds to get quite frisky.

"Ah, who was tellin' you that?" says she. "Can't a girl have a gentleman
frien' without everybody's askin' is she engaged? Wotcher think?"

"Tut-tut!" says I. "I suppose, when you two had your heads together so
close, he was rehearsin' one of his speeches to you--the kind he makes
up in the hall, eh?"

"Mr. Stukey don't make no speeches there," says Anna. "He just tells the
others what to say. You ought to hear him talk, though. My, sometimes
he's just grand!"

"Urgin' 'em not to quit work, I suppose?" says I.

"Him?" says Anna. "Not much. He wants 'em to strike, all the time
strike, until they own the shops. He's got no use for rich people. Calls
'em blood-suckers and things like that. Oh, he's sump'n fierce when he
talks about the rich."

"Is he?" says I. "I wonder why?"

"All the workers get like that," says Anna. "Mr. Stukey says that pretty
soon everybody will join--all but the rich blood-suckers, and they'll be
in jail. He was poor himself once. So was I, you know, in Poland. But we
got along until the Germans came, and then---- Ugh! I don't like to
remember."

"Anton was tellin' me," says I. "You lost some of your folks."

"Lost!" says Anna, a panicky look comin' into her big eyes. "You call it
that? I saw my father shot, my two brothers dragged off to work in the
trenches, and my sister--oh, I can't! I can't say it!"

"Then don't tell Stukey," says I, "if you want to keep stringin' him
along."

"But why?" demands Anna.

"Because," says I, "the money he's spendin' so free around here comes
from them--the Germans."

"No, no!" says Anna, whisperin' husky. "That--that's a lie!"

"Sorry," says I; "but I got his number straight. He was workin' for a
German insurance company up to 1915, bookkeepin' at ninety a month. Then
he got the chuck. He came near starvin'. It was when he was almost in
that he went crawlin' back to 'em, and they gave him this job. If you
don't believe it's German money he's spendin' ask Anton to show you some
of Stukey's canceled checks."

"But--but he's English," protests Anna. "Anyway, his father was."

"The Huns don't mind who they buy up," says I.

She's stil