ahead, Loo. I--I'll tell Joe you and Harry went on ahead
to-night."

"I gotta half bottle of Hartley's Heart's Ease at home, Ess. Tell your
old lady to have it on me. Don't you worry, kiddo. I used to have heart
trouble so bad I'd breathe like a fish at a shore dinner--and look at me
now! I'll bring it to-morrow--a tablespoonful before meals."

"Good night, Loo. I'll see you Monday."

"Put on a little more color there, Doll, or you'll never get nothin' out
of him. You look as scared as an oyster. Lordy, you can handle him easy!
Lemme know what happens. S'long! S'long!"

"Good night, Loo!"

Miss Birdsong brushed at her soft cheeks with the pink tip of a rabbit's
foot, and the color sprang out to match the rose-colored sateen facing
of her hat. Her lips opened in a faint smile; and after a careful
interval she scrambled into her jacket, flung a good-night kiss to the
doorman, and hurried through the gloomy foyer.

No sham like the sham of the theater! Its marble facade is classic as a
temple, and its dirty gray-brick rear opens out on a cat-infested alley.
The perfumes of the auditorium are the fumes of the wings. Thespis wears
a custom-made coat of many colors, but his undershirt is sackcloth.

Miss Birdsong stepped out of a gold and mauve hallway, through a grimy
side-door, and into an area as black as a pit; and out from its blackest
shadows a figure rose to meet her.

"Joe?"

"Yeh; where's Loo and Harry?"

"I dunno; they--they went on."

"Hurry up, Beauty. I ain't so much of a favorite round this theater that
I can bask in this sunny spot."

"I didn't mean to keep you waitin' so long, Joe."

"Believe me, you're the foist little girl I ever hung round an usher's
exit for."

"Honest, am I, Joe?"

"Surest thing! The stage-door is my pace, and for nothing short of
head-liners, neither. I gotta like a girl pretty well to hang round on
the wrong side of the footlights for her, sweetness."

"Joe, I--I wish I knew if you was kiddin'."

"Kiddin' nothin'!"

They emerged into the white shower from a score of arc-lights; and Mr.
Joe Ullman, an apotheosis of a classy-clothes tailor's dearest dream, in
his brown suit, brown-bordered silk handkerchief nicely apparent, brown
derby hat and tan-top shoes, turned his bulldog toes and fox-terrier
eyes to the north, where against a fulvous sky the Palais du Danse
spelled itself in ruby and emerald incandescents with the carefully
planned effect of green moonlight f