rriedly explained. "But don't
you stand for it. You don't have to! Just hand 'em along to me, and
I'll make 'em sorry their fathers ever seen their mothers."

Sadie's story of girl life in Toyland was on the same lines, but with
a different moral.

"Don't you tell tales out o' school, no matter what any of the chaps
_do_," was her advice. "I kin hold my own, and I bet you can. You may
be a looker, but you ain't anybody's baby doll. If a feller calls you
'childie' or 'sweet lamb' or tells you you're the peacherino in the
peach basket, don't you answer back, but just smile and wend your
ways. If he goes so far as to put his arm around your waist or take a
nip with his nails out of your arm or hip, why, then you can land him
one on the napper if nobody's lookin'. But all the same, the chaps
mostly ain't so black at heart. They just try to decorate their gray
lives a bit, and if those sort of things didn't happen to me once or
twicet a day, why I'd be discouraged and think I'd lost my fatal
beauty."

For some subtle reason, however, "chaps" did not pinch or tickle Win
or slip arms around her waist. One confided to another that he guessed
there was nothing "didding" in that direction, and he'd as soon make
love to the Statue of Liberty as an English Maypole; which was as
well, for from the first moment of her entrance on the scene, the lion
tamer kept his eyes open. There were all sorts and conditions of men
in Toys, but he was among them as a giant among pygmies; and even if
the ex-ship's steward, the ex-trolley driver, the conjurer out of a
job, and the smart young men who had been "clerking since they were in
long pants," had wished to try their luck with Win, Earl Usher would
have shown them the wisdom of turning their eyes elsewhere.

The news soon ran round Toyland that "Winsome Winnie" was Usher's
girl. The male "assistants" did no worse than call her by her
Christian name (they must have caught it from Sadie), and that was no
cause of offence to girl from man in a department store. Every girl in
a department shared by men was "Kitty" or "Winny," "Sadie" or
"Sweetie," while the men expected to be addressed as Mr. Jones or Mr.
Brown, except by their own particular "petsies." Sadie was popular
with all, even the "permanences," who considered themselves above the
"holiday extras." The ex-steward, a good-looking young German, had
offered to get her a dandy place as stewardess when he felt ready to
sniff salt water ag