-vis_ at the little table.

Miss Sprunt surrounded herself with the implements of her craft--small
porcelain jars of pink and white cold-creams, cakes of powder in varying
degrees of pinkness, vials of opaque liquids, graduated series of files
and scissors, large and small chamois-covered buffers, and last the
round glass bowl of tepid water cloudy with melting soap.

Mr. Barker extended his large hand upon the little cushion and sighed in
satisfaction.

"Go to it, sis--gimme a shine like a wind-shield."

She rested his four heavy fingers lightly in her palm.

"You really don't need a manicure, Mr. Barker; your hands keep the shine
better than most."

"Well, I'll be hanged--tryin' to learn your Uncle Fuller when to have
his own hands polished! Can you beat it?" Mr. Barker's steel-blue shaved
face widened to a broad grin. "Say, you're a goil after my own heart--a
regular little sixty-horse-power queen."

"I wasn't born yesterday, Mr. Barker."

"I know you wasn't, but you can't bluff me off, kiddo. You don't need to
give me no high-power shine if you don't want to, but I've got one
dollar and forty minutes' worth of your time cornered, just the samey."

Miss Sprunt dipped his hands into tepid water.

"I knew what I said would not frighten you off, Mr. Barker. I wouldn't
have said it if I thought it would."

Mr. Barker guffawed with gusto.

"Can you beat the wimmin?" he cried. "Can you beat the wimmin?"

"You want a high pink finish, don't you, Mr. Barker?"

"Go as far as you like, sis; give 'em to me as pink and shiny as a
baby's heel."

Miss Sprunt gouged out a finger-tip of pink cream and applied it lightly
to the several members of his right hand. Her touch was sure and swift.

He regarded her with frankly admiring eyes.

"You're some little goil," he said; "you can tell me what I want better
than I know myself."

"That's easy; there isn't a broker in New York who doesn't want a high
pink finish, and I've been doing brokers, actors, millionaires, bank
clerks, and Sixth Avenue swells in this hotel for three years."

He laughed delightedly, his eyes almost disappearing behind a fretwork
of fine wrinkles.

"What makes you know I'm a tape-puller, kiddo? Durned if you ain't got
my number better than I got it myself."

"I can tell a broker from a business man as easy as I can tell a
five-carat diamond from a gilt-edge bond."

He slid farther down on his chair and regarded her with genuine
approval