we'd planned.

When I gets home that night I finds Sadie all fagged out and drinkin'
bromo seltzer for a headache.

"What's wrong?" says I.

"Nothing," says Sadie; "only I've been having the time of my life."

"Buying tailor made uniforms for the Misses Blickens?" says I.

"Tailor made nothing!" says Sadie. "It was no use, Shorty, I had to give
in. Maizie wanted the other things so badly. And then Euphemia declared
she must have the same kind. So I spent the whole day fitting them out."

"Got 'em something sudden and noisy, eh?" says I.

"Just wait until you see them," says Sadie.

"But what's the idea?" says I. "How long do they think they can keep up
that pace? And when they've blown themselves short of breath, what
then?"

"Heaven knows!" says Sadie. "But Maizie has plans of her own. When I
mentioned the business college, she just laughed, and said if she
couldn't do something better than pound a typewriter, she'd go back to
Dobie."

"Huh!" says I. "Sentiments like that has got lots of folks into
trouble."

"And yet," says Sadie, "Maizie's a nice girl in her way. We'll see how
she comes out."

We did, too. It was a couple of weeks before we heard a word from either
of 'em, and then the other day Sadie gets a call over the 'phone from a
perfect stranger. She says she's a Mrs. Herman Zorn, of West End-ave.,
and that she's givin' a little roof garden theater party that evenin', in
honor of Miss Maizie Blickens, an old friend of hers that she used to
know when she lived in St. Paul and spent her summers near Dobie. Also
she understood we were friends of Miss Blickens too, and she'd be pleased
to have us join.

"West End-ave.!" says I. "Gee! but it looks like Maizie had been able to
butt in. Do we go, Sadie?"

"I said we'd be charmed," says she. "I'm dying to see how Maizie will
look."

I didn't admit it, but I was some curious that way myself; so about
eight-fifteen we shows up at the roof garden and has an usher lead us to
the bunch. There's half a dozen of 'em on hand; but the only thing worth
lookin' at was Maizie May.

And say, I thought I could make a guess as to somewhere near how she
would frame up. The picture I had in mind was a sort of cross between a
Grand-st. Rebecca and an Eighth-ave. Lizzie Maud,--you know, one of the
near style girls, that's got on all the novelties from ten bargain
counters. But, gee! The view I gets has me gaspin'. Maizie wa'n't near;
she was two jumps ahead. And i