, you'd know how
they looked when they liked a thing, alrightee! Not that I want to knock
The Sex, y' understand, but you know yourself, bein' a shemale, that
there's an awful lot of cats among the ladies--God bless 'em--that
wouldn't admit another lady was beautiful, not if she was as
good-looking as Lillian Russell, corking figger and the swellest dresser
in town."

"Yes, perhaps--sometimes," said Una.

She did not find Mr. Schwirtz dull.

"But I was saying: It was a cinch to see that Sandy's girl thought you
was ace high, alrightee. She kept her eyes glommed onto you all the
time."

"But what would she find to admire?"

"Uh-huh, fishing for compliments!"

"No, I am _not_, so there!" Una's cheeks burned delightfully. She was
back in Panama again--in Panama, where for endless hours on dark porches
young men tease young women and tell them that they are beautiful....
Mr. Schwirtz was direct and "jolly," like Panama people; but he was so
much more active and forceful than Henry Carson; so much more hearty
than Charlie Martindale; so distinguished by that knowledge of New York
streets and cafes and local heroes which, to Una, the recent convert to
New York, seemed the one great science.

Their rockers creaked in complete sympathy.

The perfect summer man took up his shepherd's tale:

"There's a whole lot of things she'd certainly oughta have admired in
you, lemme tell you. I suppose probably Maxine Elliott is better-looking
than what you are, maybe, but I always was crazy over your kind of
girl--blond hair and nice, clear eyes and just shoulder-high--kind of a
girl that could snuggle down beside a fireplace and look like she grew
there--not one of these domineerin' sufferin' cats females. No, nor one
of these overdressed New-York chickens, neither, but cute and bright--"

"Oh, you're just flattering me, Mr. Schwirtz. Mr. Hunt told me I should
watch out for you."

"No, no; you got me wrong there. 'I dwell on what-is-it mountain, and my
name is Truthful James,' like the poet says! Believe me, I may be a
rough-neck drummer, but I notice these things."

"Oh!... Oh, do you like poetry?"

Without knowing precisely what she was trying to do, Una was testing Mr.
Schwirtz according to the somewhat contradictory standards of culture
which she had acquired from Walter Babson, Mamie Magen, Esther Lawrence,
Mr. Wilkins's books on architecture, and stray copies of _The Outlook_,
_The Literary Digest_, _Current Opinion_