o the edge of the bridge and she throws herself down and hugs his
knees?"

"Did you red ink your stage directions in, with the margin wide, like he
wants? He was fussy about the first act."

"Yes'm; and say, ain't it a swell name for a show--'The Last of the
Dee-Moolans'? Give me a show to do every time, and you can have all your
contracts and statements and multigraph letters. Those love stories that
long, narrow fellow brings in are swell to do, too, if he wa'n't such an
old grouch about punctuation. Give me stuff that has some reading in it
every time!"

Miss Gregory sniffed--the realistic, acidulated sniff of unloved forty
and a thin nose.

"The sooner you quit curlin' your side-hair and begin to learn that
life's made up of statements and multigraphs, instead of love scenes on
papier-mache bridges and flashy fellows in checked suits and
get-rich-quick schemes, the better off you're going to be."

The light in Goldie's face died out as suddenly as a Jack-o'-lantern
when you blow on the taper.

"Aw, Miss Greg-or-ee!" Her voice was the downscale wail of an oboe.
"Whatta you always picking on Harry Trimp for? He ain't ever done
anything to you--and you said yourself when he brought them circular
letters in that he was one handsome kid."

"Just the same, I knew when he came in here the second time hanging
round you with them blue eyes and black lashes, and that batch of
get-rich-quick letters, he was as phony as his scarf-pin."

"I glory in a fellow's spunk that can give up a clerking job and strike
out for hisself--that's what I do!"

"He was fired--that's how he started out for himself. Ask Mae Pope; she
knows a thing or two about him."

"Aw, Miss--"

"Wait until you have been dealing with them as long as I have! Once get
a line on a man's correspondence, and you can see through him as easy as
through a looking-glass with the mercury rubbed off."

The walls of Jericho fell at the blast of a ram's horn. Not so Miss
Flint's frailer fortifications.

"The minute a fellow that doesn't belong to the society of pikers and
gets a three-figure salary comes along, and can take a girl to a
restaurant where they begin with horse-doovries instead of wiping your
cutlery on the table-cloth and deciding whether you want the 'and' with
your ham fried or scrambled--the minute a fellow like that comes along
and learns one of us girls that taxi-cabs was made for something besides
dodging, and pink roses for something bes