side him. "Isn't that so, Rube?"

"Sure. Look at _me_!" One would not have thought there could be so much
subtle vindictiveness in a fat blonde.

Sammett whipped out a watch. "Just three-quarters of an hour. Come on,
girlie."

His conversation had been conducted in an urgent undertone, with side
glances at the fat man with the megaphone. Terry approached him now.

"I'm leaving now," she said.

"Oh, no you're not. Six o'clock is your quitting time."

In which he touched the Irish in Terry. "Any time I quit is my quitting
time." She went in quest of hat and coat much as the girl had done whose
place she had taken early in the day. The fat man followed her,
protesting. Terry, pinning on her hat tried to ignore him. But he laid
one plump hand on her arm and kept it there, though she tried to shake
him off.

"Now, listen to me. That boy wouldn't mind putting his heel on your face
if he thought it would bring him up a step. I know'm. Y'see that walking
stick he's carrying? Well, compared to the yellow stripe that's in him,
that cane is a lead pencil. He's a song tout, that's all he is." Then,
more feverishly, as Terry tried to pull away: "Wait a minute. You're a
decent girl. I want to--Why, he can't even sing a note without you give
it to him first. He can put a song over, yes. But how? By flashin' that
toothy grin, of his and talkin' every word of it. Don't you--"

But Terry freed herself with a final jerk and whipped around the
counter. The two, who had been talking together in an undertone, turned
to welcome her. "We've got a half hour. Come on. It's just over to Clark
and up a block or so."

If you know Chicago at all, you know the University Inn, that gloriously
intercollegiate institution which welcomes any graduate of any school
of experience, and guarantees a post-graduate course in less time than
any similar haven of knowledge. Down a flight of stairs and into the
unwonted quiet that reigns during the hour of low potentiality, between
five and six, the three went, and seated themselves at a table in an
obscure corner. A waiter brought them things in little glasses, though
no order had been given. The woman who had been Ruby Watson was so
silent as to be almost wordless. But the man talked rapidly. He talked
well, too. The same quality that enabled him, voiceless though he was,
to boost a song to success, was making his plea sound plausible in
Terry's ears now.

"I've got to go and make up in a few minutes