e Essie Birdsong. Gawd, what a name! Why
didn't they call you--"

"They always used to call us the Songbirds at the store."

"Look, will you? Read--'Tango Contest next Monday night!' Are you game,
little one? We'd won the last if they'd kept the profesh off the floor.
Come on! Let's go in and practise for it."

"Not to-night, Joe, please. We're only four blocks from home, and it
ain't right, our keepin' company like this every night for three months
and not goin'. It ain't right."

He paused in the sea of green moonlight before the gold threshold of the
Palais du Danse, whose caryatides were faun-eyed Maenads and AEgipans. The
gold figure of a Cybele in a gold chariot raced with eight reproductions
of herself in an octagonal mirror-lined foyer, and a steady stream of
Corybantes bought admission tickets at twenty-five cents a Corybant.

Phrygian music, harlequined to meet the needs of Forty-second Street and
its anchorites, flared and receded with the opening and closing of
gilded doors.

"Come on, girlie! To-morrow night we'll do the fireside proper."

"You never--nev-er do anything I ask you to, Joe. You jolly me along and
jolly me along, and then--do nothing."

He released her suddenly, plunged his hands into his pockets, and
slumped in his shoulders.

"I don't, don't I? That's the way with you girls--a fellow ties hisself
up like a broken arm in a sling, and that's the thanks he gets! Ain't I
quit playin' pool? Didn't I swear to you on your little old
Sunday-school book to cut out pool? Didn't the whole gang gimme the
laff? Ain't I cuttin' everything--ain't I?--pool and cards--pool and
all?"

"I know, Joe; but--"

"You gotta quit naggin' me about the fireside game, sis. I'm going to
meet your dame some day--sure I am; but you gotta let me take my time.
You gotta let me do it my way--you gotta quit naggin' me. A fellow can't
stand for it."

"She's sick, Joe."

"Sure she is; and to-morrow night we'll buy her an oyster loaf or
something and take it home to her. How's that, kiddo?"

"That ain't what she wants, Joe--it's us."

"I just ain't home-broke--that's all's the matter with me. Put me in a
parlor, and I get weak-kneed as a cat--bashful as a banshee! You gotta
let me do it my way, Peaches and Cream. Just like a twenty-five-cent
order of 'em you look, with them eyes and cheeks and hair. To-morrow
night, sweetness--huh?"

"Honest, Joe?"

"Cross my heart and bet on a dark horse!"

She slid her