uess I'll go
with you."

"Good!" Tweet dropped his paper. "This afternoon?"

"No--to-morrow."

"Not on your life! This afternoon."

"Well, I'll tell you in an hour or so. Now--now it's about noon. You
wait here a little, while I go down in the street. Then I'll come
back, and we'll go eat."

Tweet looked at him long and steadily. "Got a date with Lucy, eh?" he
said at last.

"Ye-yes--I saw her at the fire this morning. She said she wanted to
see me when she went off watch at noon--I'll be right back--probably."

Tweet frowned, then laughed. "Go ahead, Hooker," he relented testily;
"go ahead. Got a date with her, eh? I thought maybe you'd just go
down there and gape at her through the window. Go to it--but don't
forget!"

Hiram hurried out.

Again his feet seemed palsied as he neared the restaurant. Was he to
suffer such pangs of stage fright always when about to meet her?

He had not long to dwell on the query. Before he knew it he was face
to face with her. She had been looking in the jeweler's window while
she waited for him, and had turned as he came abreast.

She was smiling. "You're a minute late," she scolded, pointing to the
jeweler's brass clock.

"Yes, ma'am--I was kept."

"Oh, don't look so serious. A minute's nothing."

"No, ma'am--not much."

Silence claimed them for a time.

"Well, what'll we do?" she finally asked a little petulantly, and
turned her back on him to look into the window.

"I dunno," he began; then a sudden wild idea struck him. He had seen
along the curbs automobiles bearing signs which read "For Hire--Four
Dollars an Hour." It was worth it, if only to break this humiliating
situation. "We might take a little spin in a machine," he finished
with a tottery tone of indifference.

"Oh, I'd like that," she said instantly. "But I gotta dress. We'll
get a car and ride 'round to where I room."

They walked to the corner, where was a taxi stand. Hiram engaged a car
by the hour, and they entered. She directed the driver to her rooming
house, and they were off.

The car presently drew up to the curb, and the driver swung the door
open for his passengers. Into a dark, musty little parlor the girl led
Hiram of the butterfly life.

"Sit down," she invited; "and excuse me a minute."

She went back into the hall, and Hiram heard the tattoo of her feet on
the stairs.

It was a grand parlor, Hiram thought. There was a piano, a phonograph,
a whatnot f