aps, and molds, and thumps and shapes the dough into toothsome Scotch
confections. There was a crowd around the white counters now, and the
flat baking surface of the gas stove was just hot enough, and David the
Scone Man (he called them Scuns) was whipping about here and there,
turning the baking oat cakes, filling the shelf above the stove when they
were done to a turn, rolling out fresh ones, waiting on customers. His
nut-cracker face almost allowed itself a pleased expression--but not
quite. David, the Scone Man, was Scotch (I was going to add, d'ye ken,
but I will not).

Jennie wondered if she really saw those things. Mutton pies! Scones!
Scotch short bread! Oat cakes! She edged closer, wriggling her way
through the little crowd until she stood at the counter's edge. David,
the Scone Man, his back to the crowd, was turning the last batch of oat
cakes. Jennie felt strangely light-headed, and unsteady, and airy. She
stared straight ahead, a half-smile on her lips, while a hand that she
knew was her own, and that yet seemed no part of her, stole out, very,
very slowly, and cunningly, and extracted a hot scone from the pile that
lay in the tray on the counter. That hand began to steal back, more
quickly now. But not quickly enough. Another hand grasped her wrist. A
woman's high, shrill voice (why will women do these things to each
other?) said, excitedly:

"Say, Scone Man! Scone Man! This girl is stealing something!"

A buzz of exclamations from the crowd--a closing in upon her--a whirl of
faces, and counter, and trays, and gas stove. Jennie dropped with a
crash, the warm scone still grasped in her fingers.

Just before the ambulance came it was the blonde lady of the impossible
gelatines who caught the murmur that came from Jennie's white lips. The
blonde lady bent her head closer. Closer still. When she raised her
face to those other faces crowded near, her eyes were round with surprise.

"'S far's I can make out, she says her name's Mamie, and she's from Cuba.
Well, wouldn't that eat you! I always thought they was dark complected."

VIII

THE LEADING LADY

The leading lady lay on her bed and wept. Not as you have seen leading
ladies weep, becomingly, with eyebrows pathetically V-shaped, mouth
quivering, sequined bosom heaving. The leading lady lay on her bed in a
red-and-blue-striped kimono and wept as a woman weeps, her head burrowing
into the depths of the lumpy hotel pillow, h