of her behind the counter was her head, and her waist
clad in a red blouse, pinned so high to her skirt in the rear that it
almost touched her shoulder blades. The blouse was finished at the neck
with a nice little turn-over collar fastened with a brooch set with
imitation diamonds and sapphires.

"Now, Mame, you know," said the man with assumed pathos, "that it is
only because I'm a poor devil that I don't go kerflop the minute I set
eyes on you. But you wouldn't like to live in boxes, would you? Would
you now?"

"Not till my time comes, and not in boxes, then, less I'm in a railroad
accident," replied the girl, with ghastly jocularity.

"She's got another feller, or _you_ might git her if you've got a stiddy
job," the man said, winking at James with familiarity.

"Just my luck," said James. He looked at the girl, and thought her
pretty and pathetic, with a vulgar, almost tragic, prettiness and
pathos. She was anaemic and painfully thin. Her blouse was puffed out
over her flat chest. She looked worn out with the miserable little
tediums of life, with constant stepping over ant-hills of stupidity and
petty hopelessness. Her work was not, comparatively speaking, arduous,
but the serving of hot coffee and frankfurters to workingmen was not
progressive, and she looked as if her principal diet was the left-overs
of the stock in trade. She seemed to exhale an odor of musty sandwiches
and sausages and muddy coffee.

The man swallowed his second cup in fierce gulps. He glanced at his
Ingersoll watch. "Gee whiz!" said he. "It's time I was off! Good-by,
Mame."

The girl turned her head with a toss, and did not reply. "Good-by,"
James said.

The man grinned. "Good-by, Doc," he said. "I'll call you when I git the
measles. You're a good feller. If you'd been a benefactor I'd run you
out."

The man clattered down the steps of the gaudily painted little
structure. The girl whom he had called Mame turned and looked at James
with a sort of innocent boldness. "He's a queer feller," she observed.

"He seems to be."

"He is, you bet. Livin' in a house he's built out of boxes when he makes
big money. He's on strike every little while. I wouldn't look at him.
Don't know what he's drivin' at half the time. Reckon he's--" She
touched her head significantly.

"Lots of folks are," said James affably.

"That's so." She stared reflectively at James. "I'm keepin' this quick
lunch 'cause my father's sick," said she. "I see a lot of