ger."

"Grit's gone," assented Nell; "gone for good."

"Uhm." The man allowed his singular eyes to move over her. "I think we
can arrange something. I've seen you pass my place, looking in; and I
had something in mind when I started up here--something aside from
junk. I could make a place over there--matron or cashier. How would
you like that--cashier at the Garden?" He rocked up on his toes and
clicked his heels quite audibly.

"I don't know anything about it."

"You'll soon learn," he was confident. He mentioned the salary, and
that a former cashier was now half owner of an uptown place. And for
half an hour Great Taylor's saturnine mind followed in the wake of his
smoothly flowing words.

Why couldn't Grit have talked like that? she kept asking herself. Grit
never said anything. Why couldn't he been clean like that, with hair
brushed into a curl that sat up like that? ... The man's words
gradually slipped far beyond her, and only his pleasant voice
accompanied her own thoughts. No reason why she shouldn't be cashier
at the Garden. Only one reason, anyway, and that wasn't any reason at
all....

On an afternoon more than a year ago she had gone to the place around
the corner. She had told Grit all about it, and Grit had said in his
weary voice, "Don't never go again, Nell." She had argued with Grit.
The Garden wasn't wicked; nothing the matter with it; other people
went there of an afternoon; she liked the music.... And Grit had
listened, drooping in his chair, wrists crossed and palms turned
upward. Finally, when Nell had finished, he had repeated, "Don't go
again." He had not argued, for Grit never argued; he was always too
weary. But this had been one of his longest speeches. He had ended:
"The Devil himself owns that place. I ought to know, my junkyard's
right back of it." And he had closed his eyes and taken a long, deep
breath. "When I say a thing, Nell, I'm a stone wall. You can't go
there again--now or never." And that had settled it, for Great Taylor
had been afraid of Grit. But now Grit was dead; gone for good. She
would do as she pleased....

When she looked up the man had stopped talking. He glanced at the
clock.

"What time?" murmured Great Taylor.

"Five," said the man from just around the corner.

Nell nodded her head and watched as the man's fastidiously pressed
trousers and polished shoes cleared the closing door. Nell immediately
went to the looking-glass--a cracked little mirror that hu