"Tried to dodge me to-night, didn't you, kitten?"

"I--I didn't think I ought to go to-night."

"It's a good thing my feelings ain't hurt easy."

"Honest, Jimmie, I didn't try to dodge you. I--I only thought, with
the girls here gabbling so much about last Tuesday night and all, it
wouldn't look right. And he had a spell last night again, and the doctor
said we--we ought to get him South before the first snow--South, where
the sun shines. But he's got as much chance of gettin' South as I have
of climbing the South Pole!"

"A pretty little thing like you climbing the South Pole! I'd be there
with field-glasses all-righty!"

"I--I went up and talked and begged and begged and talked to old Ingram
up at the Aid Society to-day, but the old skinflint says they can't do
nothing for an employee after he's been out of his department more'n
eight weeks, and--and Harry's been out twelve. He says the Society can't
do nothing no more, much less send him South. Just like a machine he
talked. I could have killed him!"

"Poor little filly! I was that surprised when I seen you was back in the
store again! There ain't been a classy queen behind the counter since
you left."

"Aw, Jimmie, no wonder the girls say you got your race-horses beat for
speed."

"That's me!"

Aisles thinned and the store relaxed into a bacchanalian chaos of
trampled debris, merchandise strewn as if a flock of vultures had left
their pickings--a battlefield strewn with gewgaws and the tinsel of
Christmastide, and reeking with foolish sweat.

"Button up there, Doll, and come on; it's a swell night for Eskimos."

Mr. Fitzgibbons folded over his own double-breasted coat, fitted his
flat-brimmed derby hat on his well-oiled hair, drew a pair of gray suede
gloves over his fingers, and hooked his slender cane to his arm.

"Ready, Doll?"

"The girls, Jimmie--look at 'em rubbering and gabbling like ducks!
It--it ain't like I could do any good at home, it ain't."

"I'd be the first to ship you there if you could. You know me, Doll!"

His words deadened her doubts like a soporific. She glanced about for
the moment at the Dionysian spectacle of the Mammoth Store ravished
to chaos by the holiday delirium; at the weary stream of shoppers and
workers bending into the storm as they reached the doors; at the swift
cancan of snowflakes dancing whitely and swiftly without; at Mr. Jimmie
Fitzgibbons standing attendant. Then she smiled.

"Come on, Jimmie!"

"Come