a--like a--"

"Don't begin, Angie. A girl's got to have fun once in a while! Gee! the
way you been holding on to me! I--I ain't even met the fellows like the
other girls. All you think I like to do is sit home nights and sew. Look
at the other girls. Look at Mamie Plute--she's five years younger'n
me--only twenty-three; and she--"

"That's the thanks I get for protectin' and watchin' and raisin' and--"

"Aw, Angie, I--"

"Don't Angie me!"

"I--I ain't a kid--the way you fuss at me!"

They turned into their apartment house. A fire-escape ran zigzag down
its front, and on each side of the entrance ash-cans stood sentinel. At
each landing of their four flights up a blob of gas-light filled the
hallway with dim yellow fog, and from the cracks of closed doors came
the heterogeneous smells of steam, hot vapors, and damp--the
intermittent crying of children.

After the first and second flights Miss Angie paused and leaned against
the wall. Her breath came from between her dry lips like pants from an
engine, and beneath her eyes the parchment skin wrinkled and hung in
small sacs like those under the eyes of a veteran pelican.

"You take your time comin', Angie. I'll go ahead and light up and put on
some coffee for you--some real hot coffee."

Tillie ran lightly up the stairs. Through the opacity of the fog her
small, dark face was outlined as dimly as a ghost's, with somber eyes
burning in the sockets. Theirs was the last of a long hall of closed
doors--drab-looking doors with perpendicular panels and white-china
knobs.

Tillie fitted in her key, groped along the shadowy mantel for a match,
and lighted a side gas-bracket. Her dripping umbrella traced a wet path
on the carpet. She carried it out into the kitchenette and leaned it in
a corner of the sink. When Angie faltered in a moment later a
blue-granite coffee-pot was already beginning to bubble on the
two-burner gas-stove and the gentle sizzle of frying bacon sent a bluish
haze through the rooms.

"Say, Angie, how you want your egg?"

"I don't want none."

"Sure you do! I'll fry it and bring it in to you." Angie flopped down on
the davenport. Her skirt hung thick and dank about her ankles, and the
back of her coat and her sleeve-tops were rain-spotted and wet-wool
smelling where the umbrella had failed to protect her.

She unbuttoned the coat and the front of her shirt-waist, unlaced her
shoes and kicked them off her feet. In the sallow light her face, the