e, Marj."

"That's right, rub it in," and looked away from him.

"Come, Marj, don't leave me high and dry like this. Come, I'll blow you
to a little supper, kiddo. I got a couple of meal tickets coming to me
down at Harry's on some ivories I threw last night."

"Dice! And after the line of talk you just tried to make me swallow. Did
I believe it? I did not!"

"No stakes, Marj. Just for a couple of meal tickets we tossed. Come,
girl, you 'ain't been down to Harry's for months; you won't get your
halo mussed from one time. It's Christmas Eve, Marj."

"I heard you the first time."

"If I got to go it alone to-night, Marj, it'll be the wettest Christmas
I ever spent, it will. I'll pickle this Christmas Eve like it was never
pickled before, I will."

"Aren't you no man at all, threatening like that? Just no man at all?"

"I tell you if I got to go it alone to-night, I won't be. I'm crazy
enough to tear things wide open."

"A line of talk like that will send me home quicker than anything, if
you want to know it." She turned her face away and toward the dark aisle
of the side street.

"I didn't mean it, Marj."

"I hate whining."

"Don't go, girl. Don't. Don't give me the horrors and leave me alone
to-night, Marj."

She moved slowly into the gloom of the cross-town street. Solemn rows of
blank-faced houses flanked it. Wind slewed as through a canon, whistling
in high pitch.

"Gee!"

"Fine little joy lane for your Christmas Eve, eh? Don't go, Marj. Have
a heart and be a sport. Let me blow you to a supper down at Harry's for
old times' sake. Didn't you promise my old woman to keep an eye on me?
Didn't you? For old times' sake, Marj. It's Christmas."

She stood shivering and gazing down into the black throat of the street.

"It'll be a merry evening in that two-by-four of yours, won't it? Look
at it down there. Cheerful, ain't it?"

Tears formed in a glaze over her eyes.

"Be a sport, Marj."

"All right--Blink!"

* * * * *

At the family entrance to Harry's place, and just around the corner from
the main entrance of knee-high swinging doors and a broadside of frosted
plate-glass front, a bead of gas burned sullenly through a red globe,
winking, so to speak, at all who would enter there under cover of its
murk.

Women with faces the fatty white of jade, and lips that might have
kissed blood, slipped from the dark tide of the side street into the
entrance. Furtive couple