's
after the show. Oh, well, it takes a New Yorker to know how. Honestly,
I feel like a queen when I go out with him. H'm? Oh, nothing like that,
girlie. I never could see that marriage thing. Just good friends."

Gabe had been coming to Chicago four times a year for six years. Six
times four are twenty-four. And one is twenty-five. Gabe's last visit
made the twenty-fifth.

"Well, Effie," Gabe said when the evening's entertainment had reached the
restaurant stage, "this is our twenty-fifth anniversary. It's our silver
wedding, without the silver and the wedding. We'll have a bottle of
champagne. That makes it almost legal. And then suppose we finish up by
having the wedding. The silver can be omitted."

Effie had been humming with the orchestra, holding a lobster claw in one
hand and wielding the little two-pronged fork with the other. She
dropped claw, fork, and popular air to stare open-mouthed at Gabe. Then
a slow, uncertain smile crept about her lips, although her eyes were
still unsmiling.

"Stop your joking, Gabie," she said. "Some day you'll say those things
to the wrong lady, and then you'll have a breach-of-promise suit on your
hands."

"This ain't no joke, Effie," Gabe had replied. "Not with me it ain't. As
long as my mother selig lived I wouldn't ever marry a Goy. It would have
broken her heart. I was a good son to her, and good sons make good
husbands, they say. Well, Effie, you want to try it out?"

There was something almost solemn in Effie's tone and expression.
"Gabie," she said slowly, "you're the first man that's ever asked me to
marry him."

"That goes double," answered Gabe.

"Thanks," said Effie. "That makes it all the nicer."

"Then----" Gabe's face was radiant. But Effie shook her head quickly.

"You're just twenty years late," she said.

"Late!" expostulated Gabe. "I ain't no dead one yet."

Effie pushed her plate away with a little air of decision, folded her
plump arms on the table, and, leaning forward, looked Gabe I. Marks
squarely in the eyes.

"Gabie," she said gently, "I'll bet you haven't got a hundred dollars in
the bank----"

"But----" interrupted Gabe.

"Wait a minute. I know you boys on the road. Besides your diamond scarf
pin and your ring and watch, have you got a cent over your salary? Nix.
You carry just about enough insurance to bury you, don't you? You're
fifty years old if you're a minute, Gabie, and if I ain't mistaken you'd
hav