ven's sake! _Too Berculosis_ is the way the exhibits and the
newspapers say it. L-u-n-g-s is another way to spell it. T.B."

"Too Berculosis!" Sara Juke's hand flew to her little breast. "Too
Berculosis! Hat, you--you don't--"

"Sure I don't. I ain't saying it's that--only I wanna scare you up a
little. I ain't saying it's that; but a girl that lets a cold hang on
like you do and runs round half the night, and don't eat right, can
make friends with almost anything, from measles to T.B."

Stars came out once more in Sara Juke's eyes, and her lips warmed and
curved to their smile. She moistened with her forefinger a yellow spit
curl that lay like a caress on her cheek. "Gee, you oughtta be writing
scare heads for the _Evening Gazette_!"

Hattie Krakow ran her hand over her smooth salt-and-pepper hair and sold
a marked-down flannellette petticoat.

"I can't throw no scare into you so long as you got him on your mind.
Oh, lud! There he starts now--that quickstep dance again!"

A quick red ran up into Miss Juke's hair and she inclined forward in the
attitude of listening as the lively air continued.

"The silly! Honest, ain't he the silly? He said he was going to play
that for me the first thing this morning. We dance it so swell together
and all. Aw, I thought he'd forget. Ain't he the silly--remembering me?"

The red flowed persistently higher.

"Silly ain't no name for him, with his square, Charley-boy face and
polished hair; and--"

"You let him alone, Hattie Krakow! What's it to you if--"

"Nothing--except I always say October is my unlucky month, because it
was just a year ago that they moved him and the sheet music down to the
basement. Honest, I'm going to buy me a pair of earmuffs! I'd hate to
tell you how unpopular popular music is with me."

"Huh! You couldn't play on a side comb, much less play on the piano like
Charley does. If I didn't have no more brains than some people--honest,
I'd go out and kill a calf for some!"

"You oughtta talk! A girl that ain't got no more brains than to gad
round every night and every Sunday in foul-smelling, low-ceilinged
dance halls, and wear paper-soled slippers when she oughtta be wearing
galoshes, and cheesecloth waists that ain't even decent instead of wool
undershirts! You oughtta talk about brains--you and Charley Chubb!"

"Yes, I oughtta talk! If you don't like my doings, Hattie Krakow,
there ain't no law says we gotta room together. I been shifting for
myse