knows?

UNHEALTHY

On Saturday afternoons Titania and I always have an adventure. On
Sundays we stay at home and dutifully read manuscripts (I am the obscure
creature known as a "publisher's reader") but Saturday post meridiem is
a golden tract of time wherein we wander as we list.

The 35th Street entrance to McQueery's has long been hallowed as our
_stell-dich-ein_. We meet there at one o'clock. That is to say, I arrive
at 12:59 and spend fifteen minutes in most animated reflection. There is
plenty to think about. One may stand between the outer and inner lines
of glass doors and watch the queer little creatures that come tumbling
out of the cloak and suit factory across the street. Or one may stand
inside the store, on a kind of terrace, beneath pineapple shaped arc
lights, looking down upon the bustle of women on the main floor. Best of
all, one may stroll along the ornate gallery to one side where all sorts
and conditions of ladies wait for other ladies who have promised to meet
them at one o'clock. They divide their time between examining the
mahogany victrolae and deciding what kind of sundae they will have for
lunch. A very genteel old gentleman with white hair and a long morning
coat and an air of perpetual irritation is in charge of this social
gallery. He wears the queer, soft, flat-soled boots that are suggestive
of corns. There is an information bureau there, where one may learn
everything except the time one may expect one's wife to arrive. But I
have learned a valuable subterfuge. If I am waiting for Titania, and
beginning to despair of her arrival, I have only to go to a telephone to
call her up. As soon as I have put the nickel in, she is sure to appear.
Nowadays I save the nickel by going into a booth and _pretending_ to
telephone. Sure enough, at 1:14, Ingersoll time, in she trots.

We have a jargon of our own.

"Eye-polishers?" say I.

"Yes," says Titania, "but there was a block at 42nd Street. I'm _so_
sorry, Grump."

"Eye-polishers" is our term for the Fifth Avenue busses, because riding
on them makes Titania's eyes so bright. More widely, the word connotes
anything that produces that desirable result, such as bunches of
violets, lavender peddlers, tea at Mary Elizabeth's, spring millinery,
or finding sixpence in her shoe. This last is a rite suggested by the
old song:

And though maids sweep their hearths no less
Than they were wont to do,
Yet who doth now for cle