man
does I could tell you about--when she didn't have it so good as now
neither."

Miss Ruby dropped her lids until her eyes were as soft as plush behind
the portieres of her lashes; her voice dropped into a throat that might
have been lined with that same soft plush.

"I had a mother for two days--like I said to Mr. Leavitt the other day
up in the country--we was talking about different things. I says to him,
I says, she quit when she looked at me--just laid down and died when I
was two days old. I must have been enough to scare the daylights out of
any one. Next to a pink worm on a fish-hook gimme a red-headed baby for
the horrors! Say, you ought to seen Mr. Leavitt fish! Six bass he caught
in one day--I sat next him and watched; we had 'em fried for supper.
He's some little--"

"What a pleasure you'd 'a' been to your mother, Miss Ruby! Such a girl
like you I could wish my own mother."

"That's just what Mr. Leavitt used to tell me; but, gee! he was a
kidder! I--I oughtta had a mother! Sometimes I--sometimes in the night
when I can't sleep--daytimes you don't care so much--but sometimes at
night I--I just don't care about nothing. With a girl like me, that
ain't even known a mother or father, it ain't always so easy to keep her
head above water."

"Poor little girl!"

"Since the day I left the Institootion I been dodging the city and
jumping its mud-holes like a lady trying to cross Sixth Avenue when it's
torn up. I--oh, ain't I the silly one?--treating you to my troubles!
Say, I got a swell riddle! I can't give it like Leavitt--like Simon
did; but--"

"Always Mr. Leavitt, and now it's Simon yet--such a hit as that man made
with you--not?"

"Hit! Can't a girl have a gentleman friend? Can't you have a lady
friend--a friend like Miss Washeim, who comes in for shoes three
times--"

"Ruby, can I help it when she comes in here?"

"Can I help it when I go to the country and meet Mr. Leavitt?"

"Ruby!"

Mr. Ginsburg slid himself along the bench until a customer for a AA
misses' last would have fitted with difficulty between, and looked at
her as ancient Phidias must have looked at his Athene.

"Ruby--I can't keep it back no longer--since you went away on your
vacation I've had it inside of me, but I never knew what it was till you
walked back this morning. First, I thought I was sick with the heat; but
now I know it was you--"

"What--what you--"

"I--I invite you to get married, Ruby. I got a feeling f