after supper. One would think that they must drive their pens
fiercely all the afternoon in order to get out such a mass of
correspondence.

The obedient Sid reached the door of Pearlie's little office just off the
lobby as the leading lady came down the stairs with a spangled scarf
trailing over her arm. It was an effective entrance.

"Why, hello!" said Pearlie, looking up from her typewriter as though Sid
Strang were the last person in the world she expected to see. "What do
you want here? Ethel, this is my friend, Mr. Sid Strang, one of our
rising young lawyers. His neckties always match his socks. Sid, this is
my friend, Miss Ethel Evans, of New York. We're going over to the
strawberry social at the M. E. parsonage. I don't suppose you'd care
about going?"

Mr. Sid Strang gazed at the leading lady in the white lingerie dress with
the pink slip, and the V-shaped neck, and the spangled scarf, and turned
to Pearlie.

"Why, Pearlie Schultz!" he said reproachfully. "How can you ask? You
know what a strawberry social means to me! I haven't missed one in
years!"

"I know it," replied Pearlie, with a grin. "You feel the same way about
Thursday evening prayer-meeting too, don't you? You can walk over with
us if you want to. We're going now. Miss Evans and I have got a booth."

Sid walked. Pearlie led them determinedly past the rows of gray suits
and lavender and pink shirts on the benches in front of the hotel. And
as the leading lady came into view the gray suits stopped talking
baseball and sat up and took notice. Pearlie had known all those young
men inside of the swagger suits in the days when their summer costume
consisted of a pair of dad's pants cut down to a doubtful fit, and a
nondescript shirt damp from the swimming-hole. So she called out,
cheerily:

"We're going over to the strawberry festival. I expect to see all you
boys there to contribute your mite to the church carpet."

The leading lady turned to look at them, and smiled. They were such a
dapper, pink-cheeked, clean-looking lot of boys, she thought. At that
the benches rose to a man and announced that they might as well stroll
over right now. Whenever a new girl comes to visit in our town our boys
make a concerted rush at her, and develop a "case" immediately, and the
girl goes home when her visit is over with her head swimming, and forever
after bores the girls of her home town with tales of her conquests.

The ladies of