and her head canted
to one side, and her mouth puckered into the mushiest kind of a grin you
ever saw. Her eyes were rolled up real kittenish, too. Oh, it was a
combination to make a man strike his grandmother, that look she was
sendin' up to me. I wanted to dodge it and pick up another, but there
was no more gettin' away from it than as if I was bein' followed by a
search-light. Worst of it was, I could feel myself grinnin' back at her
just as mushy. I was gettin' sillier every breath, and I might have got
as far as blowin' kisses at her if I hadn't pulled myself together and
begun to juggle the Indian clubs, for the second half of my act.

All the ginger had faded out of me, though, and I cut the rest of it
mighty short. As I comes off, Sadie grabs me and begins to tell me what
a hit I'd made, and how tickled she was, but I shakes her off.

"What's your great rush, Shorty?" says she.

"I've got a date to fill down the road," says I, and I makes a quick
break for the dressin'-room. Honest, I was gettin' rattled for fear if
Miriam should get another look at me she'd mesmerize me so I'd never
wake up. I skins into my sack-suit, leaves word to have my bag expressed
to town, and was just about to make a sudden exit when I bumps into some
one at the front door.

"Oh, Mr. McCabe! How did you know where to find me?" says she.

Say, I'll give you one guess. Sure, it was Miriam again. She was got up
expensive, all real lace and first-water sparks, and just as handsome as
a towel rack. But the minute she turns on that gushy look I'm nailed to
the spot, same as the rabbits they feed to the boa-constrictors up at
the Zoo.

"You didn't think you could lose me so easy, did you?" says I.

"What a persistent fellow you are!" says she. "But, after you behaved so
heroically last night, I suppose I must forgive you. Wasn't it silly of
me to be so frightened?"

"Oh, well," says I, "the best of us is apt to go off our nut sometimes."

"How sweet of you to put it that way!" says she, and then she uncorks a
giggle. "You did carry me so nicely, too."

That was a sample. I wouldn't go on and give you the whole book of the
opera for money. It's somethin' I'm tryin' to forget. But we swapped
that kind of slush for near half an hour, and when the show broke up and
the crowd began to swarm towards the buffet lunch, we was sittin' out on
the porch in the moonlight, still at it. Pinckney says we was holdin'
hands and gazin' at each other