ttering of rain, heavy single drops that fell each with its
splotch, exuding from the asphalt the warming smell of thaw. Then came
wind, right high-tempered, too, slanting the rain and scudding it and
blowing pedestrians' skirts forward and their umbrellas inside outward.
Mr. Alphonse Michelson fitted his hand like a vizor over his eyes and
peered out into the wet dusk. Lights gleamed and were reflected in the
dark pool of rain-swept asphalt. Passers-by hurried for shelter and bent
into the wind.

In Madam Moores's establishment, enlarged during the twelvemonth to
twice its floor space, the business day waned and died; in the workrooms
the whir of machines sank into the quiet maw of darkness; in the
showrooms the shower lights, all but a single cluster, blinked out.
Alphonse Michelson slid into a tan, rain-proof coat, turning up the
collar and buttoning across the flap, then fell to pacing the thick-nap
carpet.

From a mauve-colored telephone-booth emerged Miss Gertie Dobriner,
flushed from bad service and from bad air.

"Whew!"

"Get her?"

"Sure I got her. Is it such a stunt to get an address from a customer?"

"Good!"

"I says to her, I says, 'I seen it standing on the sidewalk next to your
French maid and I wanted to buy one like it for my little niece.'"

"Can we get it to-night?"

"Yes, proud papa! But listen; I wrote it down, 'Hinshaw, 2227 Casset
Street, Brooklyn.'"

"Brooklyn!"

"Yes, two blocks from the Bridge, and for a henpecked husband you got
a large fat job on your hands if you want to make another getaway
to-night. This man Hinshaw shows 'em right in his house."

"Brooklyn, of all places!"

"Right-oh!"

He snapped his fingers in a series of rapid clicks. "Ain't that the
limit? If I'd only mentioned it to you this afternoon earlier, we could
have been over and back by now."

"Wait until Monday then, Phonzie."

"Yes, but you ought to have heard her this morning, Gert; it's not often
she gets her heart so set. To-morrow being Sunday, all of a sudden she
gets a-wishing for one of the glass-top ones like she's seen around in
the parks, to take him out in for the first time."

"Oh, I'm game! I'll go, but can you beat it! A trip to Brooklyn when I
got a friend from Carson City waiting at his hotel to buy out Rector's
for me to-night."

"You go on with him, Gert. What's the use you dragging over there, too,
now that you got the address for me. I would never have mentioned it to
you at a