n'
this--this place is full o' squealers--gotta watch out all the time.
Hell of a life I say when a fella has to sneak around to eat a bit of
food."

That second afternoon, Kelly stopped in the middle of a gulp of
coffee.

"Say, w'at t' hell's a girl like you workin' for, anyhow? Say, don't
you know you could get married easy as--my Gawd! too easy. Say, you
could pick up with one of these waiters just like that! They're good
steady fellas, make decent pay. You could do much worse than marry a
waiter. I'm tellin' ya there's no sense to a girl like you workin'."

That was an obsession with Kelly. He drilled it into me daily. Kelly
himself was a settled married man. Of his state we talked often. I
asked Kelly the very first day if he ever went to Coney Island.

"Ustta--'ain't been for ten years."

"Why not for ten years?"

Kelly looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. "Got married ten
years ago."

"Well, and w'at of it? Don't you have no more fun?"

"You said it! I'm tellin' ya there's no more fun. Gee! I sure don't
know myself these ten years. I was the kind of a fella"--here Kelly
was moved in sheer admiration to do a bit of heavy cursing--"I was the
kind of fella that did everything--I'm tellin' ya, _everything_. Bet
there ain't a thing in this world I 'ain't done at least once, and
most of 'em a whole lot more 'n that. An' now--look at me now! Get up
at four every mornin', but Sundays, get down here at six" (Kelly was a
suburbanite), "work till three, git home, monkey with my tools a bit
or play with the kids, eat dinner, sit around a spell, go to bed."

A long pause. "Ain't that a hell of a life, I'm askin' ya?"

Another pause in which Kelly mentally reviewed his glowing past. He
shook his head and smiled a sad smile. "If you could 'a' seen me ten
years ago!"

Kelly told me the story of his life more or less in detail some days
later. I say advisedly "more or less." Considering the reputation he
had given himself, I am relieved to be able to note that he must have
left some bits out, though goodness knows he put enough in. But
Kelly's matrimonial romance must be told.

Kelly went with a peach of a girl in the years gone by--swellest
little kid--gee! he respected that girl--never laid hands on her. She
wanted to go back to the old country for a visit, so he paid her way
there and back--one hundred and sixty-five dollars it had cost him.
Coming home from a ball where Kelly had been manager--this at 4