ys, 'Oh yes, I guess the business wouldn't go bust for a few days,'
and so I goes down and gets a shave and a hair-cut and a singe and a
shampoo--there ain't as much to cut as there used to be, though--ha,
ha!--and here I am."

"Yes!" said Una affably....

Miss Una Golden, of Panama and the office, did not in the least feel
superior to Mr. Eddie Schwirtz's robust commonness. The men she knew,
except for pariahs like Walter Babson, talked thus. She could admire
Mamie Magen's verbal symphonies, but with Mr. Schwirtz she was able to
forget her little private stock of worries and settle down to her
holiday.

Mr. Schwirtz hitched forward in his rocker, took off his derby, stroked
his damp forehead, laid his derby and both his hands on his stomach,
rocked luxuriously, and took a fresh hold on the conversation:

"But say! Here I am gassing all about myself, and you'll want to be
hearing about Sandy Hunt. Seen him lately?"

"No, I've lost track of him--you _do_ know how it is in such a big
city."

"Sure, I know how it is. I was saying to a fellow just the other day,
'Why, gosh all fish-hooks!' I was saying, 'it seems like it's harder to
keep in touch with a fellow here in New York than if he lived in
Chicago--time you go from the Bronx to Flatbush or Weehawken, it's time
to turn round again and go home!' Well, Hunt's married--you know, to
that same girl that was with us at lunch that day--and he's got a nice
little house in Secaucus. He's still with Lowry. Good job, too,
assistant bookkeeper, pulling down his little twenty-seven-fifty
regular, and they got a baby, and let me tell you she makes him a mighty
fine wife, mighty bright little woman. Well, now, say! How are _you_
getting along, Miss Golden? Everything going bright and cheery?"

"Yes--kind of."

"Well, that's good. You'll do fine, and pick up some good live wire of a
husband, too--"

"I'm never going to marry. I'm going--"

"Why, sure you are! Nice, bright woman like you sticking in an office!
Office is no place for a woman. Takes a man to stand the racket. Home's
the place for a woman, except maybe some hatchet-faced old battle-ax
like the cashier at our shop. Shame to spoil a nice home with her. Why,
she tried to hold up my vacation money, because she said I'd
overdrawn--"

"Oh, but Mr. _Schwirtz_, what can a poor girl do, if you high and mighty
men don't want to marry her?"

"Pshaw. There ain't no trouble like that in your case, I'll gamble!"

"Oh