do, you know--but if you
_must_--sign a man's name to the letter, because my wife--well, she's
all right, but if----"

Letty escaped the necessity of accepting the dollar by assuring him
that if he would tell her the way to the nearest subway station she
would use a portion of her fifty cents.

"I'll go with you," he declared, with breezy fraternity. "No distance.
They're expecting me on a job up there in Waddle Street, but they'll
wait. Pipe burst--floodin' a loft where they've stored a lot of
jute--but why worry?"

As they threaded the broken series of streets toward the subway he
aired the matrimonial question.

"Some think as two can live on the same wages as one. All bunk, I'll
say. My wife used to be in the hair line. Some little earner too. Had
an electric machine that'd make hair grow like hay on a marsh. Two
dollars a visit she got. When we was married she had nine hunderd
saved. I had over five hunderd myself. We took a weddin' tour;
Atlantic City. Gettin' married's a cinch; but _stayin_' married--she's
all right, my wife is, only she's kind o' nervous like if I look
sideways at any other woman--which I hardly ever do intentional--only
my wife's got it into her head that...."

At the entrance to the subway Letty shook hands with him and thanked
him.

"Say," he responded, "I wish I could do something more for you; but I
got to hike it back to Waddle Street. Look-a-here! You stick to the
subway and the stations, and don't you be in a hurry to get to your
address in Red Point till after daylight. They can't be killin' nobody
over there, that you'd need to be in such a rush, and in the stations
you'd be safe."

To a degree that was disconcerting Letty found this so. Having
descended the stairs, purchased a ticket, and cast it into the
receptacle appointed for that purpose, she saw herself examined by the
colored man guarding the entry to the platform. He sat with his chair
tilted back, his feet resting on the chain which protected part of the
entrance, picking a set of brilliant teeth. Letty, trembling, nervous,
and only partly comforted by the cavalier who was now on his way to
Waddle Street, shrank from the colored man's gaze and was going down
the platform where she could be away from it. Her progress was
arrested by the sight of two men, also waiting for the train, who on
perceiving her started in her direction.

The colored man lifted his feet lazily from the chain, brought his
chair down to four