tiny
kitchenette and enveloped herself in a blue-bib-top apron. Her movements
were short and full of caprice, and when she set the table, brushing his
chair as she passed and repassed, lights came out in her eyes when she
dared raise her lids to show them.

They dined by the concealed fireplace and from off a table that could
fold its legs under like Aladdin's. Fumes of well-made coffee rose as
ingratiating as the perfume of a love story. Mr. Michelson dropped a
lump of butter into the fluffy heart of a biscuit and clapped the halves
together.

"Some biscuits!"

"Bad boy, stop jollying."

"Say, if I'd tell you the truth about what I think of these biscuits,
you'd say I was writing a streetcar advertisement for baking-powder.
Say, this is some cup custard!"

"More?"

"Full to my eyebrows."

"Just a little bittsie?"

"Nope."

He lighted a cigarette and they settled back in after-dinner
completeness, their dessert-plates pushed well toward the center of the
table and their senses quiet. She pleated the edge of her napkin and
watched him blow leisurely spirals of smoke to the ceiling.

"What you thinking about, Phonzie?"

"Nothing."

"Honest?"

"If I was thinking at all I was just sizing it up as pretty soft for a
fellow like me to get this sort of stand-in with--with my boss. Gawd! me
and Roth used to love each other like snakes."

"I--I ain't your boss, Phonzie. Don't I give you the run of
everything--hiring the models and all?"

"Sure you're my boss, and it's pretty soft for me."

"And I was just thinking, Phonzie, that it's pretty soft for me to have
found a fellow like you to manage things for me."

"Shucks!"

"Without you, so used to the ways of the Avenue and all that kind of
thing, where would I be now, trying to run in the right kind of bluff
with the trade?"

"That's easy! After all, Fifth Avenue and Third Avenue is pretty much
alike in the end, madam. A spade may be a spade, but if you're a good
salesman, you can put it on black velvet and sell it for a dessert-spoon
any day in the week."

"That's just what I'm saying, Phonzie, about you're knowing how. I
needed just a fellow like you to show me how the swell trade has got
to be blindfolded, and that the difference between a dressmaker and a
modiste is about a hundred and fifty dollars a gown."

"You ought to see the way we handled them when I was on the floor for
Roth. Say, we wouldn't touch a peignoir in that establishment for un