ooden Indians.
You'd see 'em pilin' their wraps on one of them lordly gents just as if
he was a chair. Then they'd plant themselves, spread out their
dry-goods, peel off their elbow gloves, and proceed to rescue the cherry
from the bottom of the glass.

And Sadie? Well, say, you'd thought she'd never had a meal anywhere else
in her life. The way she bossed Felix around, and sized up the other
folks, calm as a Chinaman, was a caution. And talk! I never had so much
rapid-fire conversation passed out to me all in a bunch before. Course,
she was just keepin' her end up, and makin' believe I was doing my
share, too. But it was a mighty good imitation. Every now and then she'd
tear off a little laugh so natural that I could almost swear I'd said
something funny, only I knew I hadn't opened my head.

As for me, I was busy tryin' to guess what was under the silver covers
that Felix kept bringin' in, and rememberin' what Pinckney had said
about forks and spoons. Say, I suppose you've been up against one of
those little after-the-play-is-over suppers that they serve behind the
lace curtains on Fifth-ave.; but this was my first offense. Little
suppers! Honest, now, there was more'n I'd want if I hadn't been fed for
a week. Generally I can worry along with three squares a day, and when I
do feel like havin' a bite before I hit the blankets, a _sweitzerkase_
sandwich does me. But this affair had seven acts to it, and everyone was
a mystery.

"Why, I didn't know you were such an epicure," says Sadie.

"Me either," says I; "but I'd never let myself loose before. Have some
more _pulley_ from the _carrousell_ and help yourself to the--the other
thing."

"Shorty, tell me how you managed it," says she.

"I've been taking lessons by mail," says I.

"You're a dear to do it, anyway," says she. "Just think of the figure
I'd cut coming here by my lonesome. It's bad enough at the hotel, with
only Mrs. Prusset. And I've been wanting to come for weeks. What luck it
was, finding you to-day!"

"Say, don't run away with the idea that I'm makin' a day's work of
this," says I. "I'm havin' a little fun out of this myself. There's
worse company than you, y'know."

"And I've met a heap of men stupider than Shorty McCabe," says she,
givin' me the jolly with that sassy grin of hers, and lettin' go one of
those gurgly laughs that sounds as if it had been made on a clarinet.

It was just about then that I looks up and finds Pinckney standing on