ou, and needs somebody older, my
boy--somebody strong that can handle her and love her all at once."

"She's gotta quit sneakin' home at all hours. She don't pay no attention
to me; but she's gotta quit or I--I'll go down and smash up that whole
theayter crowd of 'em!"

"If she'd 'a' had a father to grow up under it would 'a' been different.
He was one of the strongest men in the power-house, Jimmie. Mechanics
make strong men, my boy, and that's why my heart's set on you, Jimmie,
takin' up where he left off."

"It's that job of hers, ma; it ain't no hang-out for her down there
round the lights. She's gettin' too gay. I'll smash that
ticket-speculator to gelatin if he don't show up or leave her alone!"

"'Sh-h-h, Jimmie! He's her young man; she says he's a upright and
honorable young man with intentions."

"Where she hidin' him, then?"

"He--he's bashful about comin', Jimmie. Last night on her knees right
here by this bed she told me, Jimmie, with her eyes like saucers, that
he's said everything but come right out and ask her."

"What's the matter? Is he tongue-tied?"

"A fine fellow, she says, Jimmie--up to date as a new dime, makin' from
thirty to forty a week. Get that, Jimmie? Gawd--forty a week! On forty a
week, Jimmie, what they could do for themselves and for you!"

"I wanna look him over first. I knew a fellow in that game got forty a
week and ninety days once, too."

"Jimmie!"

"There's a bunch of speculators used to hang round the Forty-second
Street telegraph office, with one eye always on the cop and the other
always open for rubes. They was all hunchbacks from dodging the law."

"He ain't one of them kind, Jimmie."

"Then why don't he have a roof over his head instead of doing sidewalk
business?"

"Ticket-speculatin' is like any other business, Essie says. Profit is
profit, whether you make it on a sheet of music, a washboard, or a
theayter ticket."

"Then why don't he show his face round here, instead of runnin' her
round night after night when she ought to be home sleepin'?"

"Gawd, Jimmie! I don't know, except what she says. I just feel like I
couldn't stand her not bringing him to-night--like--like I couldn't
stand it, Jimmie."

"Lay easy there, ma."

"They're young, I guess, and gotta have life; but I lay here with it in
front of me all night, long after she gets home and is sleepin' here
next to me as light as a daisy. She's so little and pretty, Jimmie."

"I wanna get my glims