hardest are not always the first to
arrive.

THE NEW FABLE OF THE SPEEDY SPRITE

One Monday Morning a rangy and well-conditioned Elfin of the Young
Unmarried Set, yclept Loretta, emerged into the Sunlight and hit the
Concrete Path with a ringing Heel.

This uncrowned Empress of the 18th Ward was a she-Progressive assaying
98 per cent. pure Ginger.

Instead of trailing the ever onward Parade, she juggled the Baton at
the head of the Push.

In the crisp introductory hours of the Wash-Day already woven into the
Plot, Loretta trolleyed herself down into the Noise Belt.

She went to the office of the exclusive Kennel Club and entered the
Chow Ki-Yi for the next Bench Show. At the Clearing House for K. M.'s
she filed a loud call for a Cook who could cook. Then she cashed a
check, ordered a pound of Salted Nuts (to be delivered by Special
Wagon at once), enveloped a ball of Ice Cream gooed with Chocolate,
and soon, greatly refreshed, swept down on a Department Store.

A Chenille Massacre was in full swing on the 3d floor, just between
the Porch Furniture and Special Clothing for Airmen. Loretta took a
run and jump into the heaving mass of the gentler Division. She came
out at 10.53 with her Sky Piece badly listed to Port and her toes
flattened out, but she was 17 cents to the Good. Three hearty Cheers!

So she went over to an exhibition of Paintings, breathing through her
Nose for at least an Hour as she studied the new Masterpieces of the
Swedo-Scandinavian School. Each looked as if executed with a Squirt
Gun by a Nervous Geek on his way to a Three Days Cure. Just the same,
every Visitor with a clinging Skirt and a Mushroom Hat gurgled like a
Mountain Stream.

In company with four other Seraphines, plucked from the Society Col.,
she toyed with a Fruit Salad and Cocoa at a Tea Room instituted by a
Lady in Reduced Circumstances for the accommodation of those who are
never overtaken by Hunger.

The usual Battle as to which should pick up the Check and the same old
Compromise. A Dutch Treat with Waitress trying to spread it four ways
and the Auditing Committee watching her like a Hawk. Then a 10-cent
Tip, bestowed as if endowing Princeton, and the Quartet representing
the Flower of America's Young Womanhood was once more out in the
Ozone, marching abreast with shining Faces and pushing white-haired
Business Men off into the Sweepings.

Loretta went to a place with a glass Cover on it and had herself
photoe