attle.
It's Bill, all right, all right."

"Aw, go 'long with you." She looked him in the eyes, her own sharply
passionate and inviting. "What is it, honest?"

Again she looked. All the centuries of woman since sex began were
eloquent in her eyes. And he measured her in a careless way, and knew,
bold now, that she would begin to retreat, coyly and delicately, as he
pursued, ever ready to reverse the game should he turn fainthearted. And,
too, he was human, and could feel the draw of her, while his ego could
not but appreciate the flattery of her kindness. Oh, he knew it all, and
knew them well, from A to Z. Good, as goodness might be measured in
their particular class, hard-working for meagre wages and scorning the
sale of self for easier ways, nervously desirous for some small pinch of
happiness in the desert of existence, and facing a future that was a
gamble between the ugliness of unending toil and the black pit of more
terrible wretchedness, the way whereto being briefer though better paid.

"Bill," he answered, nodding his head. "Sure, Pete, Bill an' no other."

"No joshin'?" she queried.

"It ain't Bill at all," the other broke in.

"How do you know?" he demanded. "You never laid eyes on me before."

"No need to, to know you're lyin'," was the retort.

"Straight, Bill, what is it?" the first girl asked.

"Bill'll do," he confessed.

She reached out to his arm and shook him playfully. "I knew you was
lyin', but you look good to me just the same."

He captured the hand that invited, and felt on the palm familiar markings
and distortions.

"When'd you chuck the cannery?" he asked.

"How'd yeh know?" and, "My, ain't cheh a mind-reader!" the girls
chorussed.

And while he exchanged the stupidities of stupid minds with them, before
his inner sight towered the book-shelves of the library, filled with the
wisdom of the ages. He smiled bitterly at the incongruity of it, and was
assailed by doubts. But between inner vision and outward pleasantry he
found time to watch the theatre crowd streaming by. And then he saw Her,
under the lights, between her brother and the strange young man with
glasses, and his heart seemed to stand still. He had waited long for
this moment. He had time to note the light, fluffy something that hid
her queenly head, the tasteful lines of her wrapped figure, the
gracefulness of her carriage and of the hand that caught up her skirts;
and then she was gone and he was le