5, _Evenin' News_--Mr. Box 25!
Say, can you beat it!"

Mame laughed in her throat, smoothed her frizzed blonde hair, sold a
paper of pins and an emery heart.

"Like fun you'll tell Angie! I got it all fixed to tell her I'm going to
the picture-show with you and George to-night."

"Before I'd let a old grouch like her lord it over me! It ain't like she
was your sister or relation, or something--but just because you live
together. Nix on that for mine."

"She don't think a girl's got a right to be young or nothin'! Look at
me--a regular stick-at-home. Gee! a girl's got to have something."

"Sure she does! Ain't that what I've been tryin' to preach to you ever
since we've been chumming together? You ain't a real old maid yet--you
got real takin' ways about you and all; you ought to be havin' a steady
of your own."

"Don't I know it?"

"Look how you got to do now--just because she never lets you go to
dances or nothin' with us girls."

"She ain't never had it, and she don't want me to have it."

"Say, tell it to the Danes! She ain't got them snappy black eyes of hers
for nothin'. Whatta you live with her for? There ain't a girl up in the
corsets that's got any use for her."

"She's been pretty white to me, just the samey--raised me and all when I
didn't have no one. She's got her faults; but I kinda got the habit of
livin' with her now--I got to stick."

"Gee! even a stepmother like Carrie's'll let her have fun once in a
while. It's Angie's own fault that you got to meet 'em in drug stores
and take chances on ads and all."

"I'm just answerin' that ad for fun--I ain't in earnest."

"I've always been afraid of matrimonial ads and things like that. You
know I was the first one to preach your gettin' out and gettin'
spry--that's me all over! I believe in bein' spry; but I always used to
say to maw before I was keepin' steady with George, 'Ads ain't safe.'"

"I ain't afraid."

"Lola Flint, over in the jewelry, answered one once--'Respectable young
man would like to make the acquaintance of a genteel young lady; red
hair preferred.' And when she seen him he had only one eye, and his left
arm shot off."

"I ain't afraid. Say, if Effie Jones Lipkind can answer one, with her
behind-the-counter stoop and squint, and get away with it, there ain't
no reason why there ain't more grand fellows like Gus Lipkind writin'
ads."

"Come out of the dark room, Til! Effie had two hundred saved up."

"I ain't ashamed of no