ir of black satin shoes with mother-o'-pearl buttons. Girls
whose minds were bounded on the north by the nickel theatres; on the east
by "I sez to him"; on the south by the gorgeous shop windows; and on the
west by "He sez t' me."

Oh, I can't tell you how much Louie learned in that first week while his
eyes were getting accustomed to the shifting, jostling, pushing,
giggling, walking, talking throng. The city is justly famed as a hot
house of forced knowledge.

One thing Louie could not learn. He could not bring himself to accept
the V in Sophy's dress. Louie's mother had been one of the old-fashioned
kind who wore a blue-and-white checked gingham apron from 6 A.M. to 2
P.M., when she took it off to go downtown and help the ladies of the
church at the cake sale in the empty window of the gas company's office,
only to don it again when she fried the potatoes for supper. Among other
things she had taught Louie to wipe his feet before coming in, to respect
and help women, and to change his socks often.

After a month of Chicago Louie forgot the first lesson; had more
difficulty than I can tell you in reverencing a woman who only said, "Aw,
don't get fresh now!" when the other men put their arms about her; and
adhered to the third only after a struggle, in which he had to do a small
private washing in his own wash-bowl in the evening.

Sophy called him a stiff. His gravely courteous treatment of her made
her vaguely uncomfortable. She was past mistress in the art of parrying
insults and banter, but she had no reply ready for Louie's boyish air of
deference. It angered her for some unreasonable woman-reason.

There came a day when the V-cut dress brought them to open battle. I
think Sophy had appeared that morning minus the chain and La Valliere.
Frail and cheap as it was, it had been the only barrier that separated
Sophy from frank shamelessness. Louie's outraged sense of propriety
asserted itself.

"Sophy," he stammered, during a quiet half-hour, "I'll call for you and
take you to the nickel show to-night if you'll promise not to wear that
dress. What makes you wear that kind of a get-up, anyway?"

"Dress?" queried Sophy, looking down at the shiny front breadth of her
frock. "Why? Don't you like it?"

"Like it! No!" blurted Louie.

"Don't yuh, rully! Deah me! Deah me! If I'd only knew that this
morning. As a gen'ral thing I wear white duck complete down t' work, but
I'm savin' my last two clea