a coach and six. Terry O'Sullivan
was a victorious Prince Charming, and Maggie Toole winged her first
butterfly flight. And though our tropes of fairyland be mixed with
those of entomology they shall not spill one drop of ambrosia from the
rose-crowned melody of Maggie's one perfect night.

The girls besieged her for introductions to her "fellow." The Clover
Leaf young men, after two years of blindness, suddenly perceived charms
in Miss Toole. They flexed their compelling muscles before her and
bespoke her for the dance.

Thus she scored; but to Terry O'Sullivan the honours of the evening fell
thick and fast. He shook his curls; he smiled and went easily through
the seven motions for acquiring grace in your own room before an open
window ten minutes each day. He danced like a faun; he introduced manner
and style and atmosphere; his words came trippingly upon his tongue,
and--he waltzed twice in succession with the paper-box girl that Dempsey
Donovan brought.

Dempsey was the leader of the association. He wore a dress suit, and
could chin the bar twice with one hand. He was one of "Big Mike"
O'Sullivan's lieutenants, and was never troubled by trouble. No cop
dared to arrest him. Whenever be broke a pushcart man's head or shot a
member of the Heinrick B. Sweeney Outing and Literary Association in
the kneecap, an officer would drop around and say:

"The Cap'n 'd like to see ye a few minutes round to the office whin ye
have time, Dempsey, me boy."

But there would be sundry gentlemen there with large gold fob chains and
black cigars; and somebody would tell a funny story, and then Dempsey
would go back and work half an hour with the six-pound dumbbells. So,
doing a tight-rope act on a wire stretched across Niagara was a safe
terpsichorean performance compared with waltzing twice with Dempsey
Donovan's paper-box girl. At 10 o'clock the jolly round face of "Big
Mike" O'Sullivan shone at the door for five minutes upon the scene. He
always looked in for five minutes, smiled at the girls and handed out
real perfectos to the delighted boys.

Dempsey Donovan was at his elbow instantly, talking rapidly. "Big Mike"
looked carefully at the dancers, smiled, shook his head and departed.

The music stopped. The dancers scattered to the chairs along the walls.
Terry O'Sullivan, with his entrancing bow, relinquished a pretty girl in
blue to her partner and started back to find Maggie. Dempsey intercepted
him in the middle of the f