"Well, if you're not a sight for sore eyes, dearie," exclaimed Miss
Weinstein. "My goodness, how grand and thin you are! I'd be willing to
take a course in typhoid myself, if I thought I could lose twenty-five
pounds."

"I haven't a rag that fits me," Effie announced proudly.

Miss Weinstein lowered her voice discreetly. "Dearie, can you come down
to my department for a minute? We're going to have a sale on imported
lawnjerie blouses, slightly soiled, from nine to eleven to-morrow.
There's one you positively must see. Hand-embroidered, Irish motifs, and
eyeleted from soup to nuts, and only eight-fifty."

"I've got a fine chance of buying hand-made waists, no matter how
slightly soiled," Effie made answer, "with a doctor and nurse's bill as
long as your arm."

"Oh, run along!" scoffed Miss Weinstein. "A person would think you had a
husband to get a grouch every time you get reckless to the extent of a
new waist. You're your own boss. And you know your credit's good.
Honestly, it would be a shame to let this chance slip. You're not
getting tight in your old age, are you?"

"N-no," faltered Effie, "but----"

"Then come on," urged Miss Weinstein energetically. "And be thankful you
haven't got a man to raise the dickens when the bill comes in."

"Do you mean that?" asked Effie slowly, fixing Miss Weinstein with a
thoughtful eye.

"Surest thing you know. Say, girlie, let's go over to Klein's for lunch
this noon. They have pot roast with potato pfannkuchen on Tuesdays, and
we can split an order between us."

"Hold that waist till to-morrow, will you?" said Effie. "I've made an
arrangement with a--friend that might make new clothes impossible just
now. But I'm going to wire my party that the arrangement is all off.
I've changed my mind. I ought to get an answer to-morrow. Did you say
it was a thirty-six?"

VII

MAYMEYS FROM CUBA

There is nothing new in this. It has all been done before. But tell me,
what is new? Does the aspiring and perspiring summer vaudeville artist
flatter himself that his stuff is going big? Then does the stout man
with the oyster-colored eyelids in the first row, left, turn his bullet
head on his fat-creased neck to remark huskily to his companion:

"The hook for him. R-r-r-rotten! That last one was an old Weber'n
Fields' gag. They discarded it back in '91. Say, the good ones is all
dead, anyhow. Take old Salvini, now, and Dan Rice. Them was actors.
Come