omething. And that's a grudge. It
isn't my business, but if I were you, Rickets, I'd pay him orf and
have done with him."

"Oh, that's all right. I'm safe enough."

"You? It's just you who isn't. Dicky's not a bad sort, in his way. All
the same, he'd sell you up as soon as look at you. Unless--" (for a
moment her bright eyes clouded, charged with the melancholy meanings
of the world) "Unless you happened to be an orf'ly pretty woman." She
laid her right leg across her left knee and struck a vesta on the heel
of her shoe.

"Then, of course, he'd sooner look at me."

Poppy puffed at her cigarette and threw the vesta into the grate with
a dexterous jerk of her white forearm. "Look at you first. Sell you
up--after." Then Poppy burst into song--

"Oh, he is such a nice little boy,
When there's nothing you do to annoy;
But he's apt to stand aloof
If you arsk him for the oof,
And it's then that he looks coy.
Oh, he'll show the cloven hoof,
If you put him to the proof.
When you want him to hand you the boodle
He's _not_ such a nice little boy.

"Yes, dickee, _I_ see you!"

The canary, persuaded by Poppy's song that it was broad daylight, was
awake and splashing in his bath. Again in Poppy's mind (how
unnecessarily) he stood for the respectabilities and proprieties; he
was an understudy for Tiny of the dirty tea-gown.

"Going?"

"Yes. I must go."

"Wait." She rose and held him by the collar of his coat, a lapel in
each small hand. He grasped her wrists by an instinctive movement of
self-preservation, and gently slackened her hold. She gave his coat a
little shake. "What's the matter with you, Rickets? You're such a
howling swell."

Her eyes twinkled in the old way, and he smiled in spite of himself.

"Say, I'm a little nuisance, Rickets, _say_ I'm a little nuisance."

"You are a little nuisance.

"A d----d little nuisance."

"A d----d little nuisance."

"Ah, now you feel better, don't you? Poor Ricky-ticky, don't you be
afraid. It's only a _little_ nuisance. It'll never be a big one. It's
done growing. That is, I won't rag you any more, if you'll tell me one
thing--oh, what a whopper of a sigh!--Promise me you'll pay Dicky
off."

"All right. I'll pay him."

"To-morrow?"

"To-morrow, then. Don't, Poppy. I--I've got a sore throat." For Poppy,
standing on tip-toe, had made an effort to embrace him.

"I sy, if you blush like that, Rickets, you'll h