Sweetness, and we'll catch a Sixth Avenue car. We wanna
get in on it while the tamales are hot."

She grasped his arm closer, and straightening her velveteen poke-bonnet
so that the curls lay pat, together they wormed through the sidewalk
crush; once or twice she coughed, with the hollow resonance of a chain
drawn upward from a deep well.

"Gee! I bet there'll be a jam!"

"Sure! There's some live crowd down there."

They were in the street-car, swaying, swinging, clutching; hemmed in by
frantic, home-going New York, nose to nose, eye to eye, tooth to tooth.
Around Sara Juke's slim waist lay Charley Chubb's saving arm, and with
each lurch they laughed immoderately, except when she coughed.

"Gee! ain't it the limit? It's a wonder they wouldn't open a window in
this car!"

"Nix on that. Whatta you wanna do--freeze a fellow out?"

Her eyes would betray her. "Any old time I could freeze you, Charley."

"Honest?"

"You're the one that freezes me all the time. You're the one that keeps
me guessing and guessing where I stand with you."

A sudden lurch and he caught her as she swayed.

"Come, Sweetness, this is our corner. Quit your coughing, there, hon;
this ain't no T.B. hop we're going to."

"No what?"

"Come along; hurry! Look at the crowd already."

"This ain't no--what did you say, Charley?"

But they were pushing, shoving, worming into the great lighted entrance
of the hall. More lurching, crowding, jamming.

"I'll meet you inside, kiddo, in five minutes. Pick out a red domino;
red's my color."

"A red one? Gee! Looka; mine's got black pompons on it. Five minutes,
Charley five minutes!"

Flags of all nations and all sizes made a galaxy of the Sixth Avenue
hall. An orchestra played beneath an arch of them. Supper, consisting
of three-inch-thick sandwiches, tamales, steaming and smelling in
their buckets, bottles of beer and soda-water, was spread on a long
picnic-table running the entire length of the balcony.

The main floor, big as an armory, airless as a tomb, swarmed with
dancers.

After supper a red sateen Pierrette, quivering, teeth flashing beneath a
sucy half-mask, bowed to a sateen Pierrot, whose face was as slim as a
satyr's and whose smile was as upturned as the eye-slits in his mask.

"Gee! Charley, you look just like a devil in that costume--all red, and
your mouth squinted like that!"

"And you look just like a little red cherry, ready to bust."

And they were off in the whirl o