ish.

On the night that Sam Miller strolled up to talk to her, Pearlie was
working late. She had promised to get out a long and intricate bill for
Max Baum, who travels for Kuhn and Klingman, so that he might take the
nine o'clock evening train. The irrepressible Max had departed with much
eclat and clatter, and Pearlie was preparing to go home when Sam
approached her.

Sam had just come in from the Gayety Theater across the street, whither
he had gone in a vain search for amusement after supper. He had come
away in disgust. A soiled soubrette with orange-colored hair and baby
socks had swept her practiced eye over the audience, and, attracted by
Sam's good-looking blond head in the second row, had selected him as the
target of her song. She had run up to the extreme edge of the footlights
at the risk of teetering over, and had informed Sam through the medium of
song--to the huge delight of the audience, and to Sam's red-faced
discomfiture--that she liked his smile, and he was just her style, and
just as cute as he could be, and just the boy for her. On reaching the
chorus she had whipped out a small, round mirror and, assisted by the
calcium-light man in the rear, had thrown a wretched little spotlight on
Sam's head.

Ordinarily, Sam would not have minded it. But that evening, in the vest
pocket just over the place where he supposed his heart to be reposed his
girl's daily letter. They were to be married on Sam's return to New York
from his first long trip. In the letter near his heart she had written
prettily and seriously about traveling men, and traveling men's wives,
and her little code for both. The fragrant, girlish, grave little letter
had caused Sam to sour on the efforts of the soiled soubrette.

As soon as possible he had fled up the aisle and across the street to the
hotel writing-room. There he had spied Pearlie's good-humored, homely
face, and its contrast with the silly, red and-white countenance of the
unlaundered soubrette had attracted his homesick heart.

Pearlie had taken some letters from him earlier in the day. Now, in his
hunger for companionship, he, strolled up to her desk, just as she was
putting her typewriter to bed.

"Gee I This is a lonesome town!" said Sam, smiling down at her.

Pearlie glanced up at him, over her glasses. "I guess you must be from
New York," she said. "I've heard a real New Yorker can get bored in
Paris. In New York the sky is bluer, and the grass is