Then, with a happy smile on his lips, Kid Roberts slid through my arms to the canvas in a dead faint.
It was three or four days after we got back to New York again before I had the pleasure of viewin' Miss Mabel Murray, the fascinatin' cigar seller. I went over to the stand to buy a paper, and she presented me with a killin' smile, callin' me up to her end of the counter with a charmin'ly intimate nod. "Say!" she says. "That bird Halliday must of figured I just got shipped in here from Hensfoot Corners or somethin', didn't he?"
"Why?" I says, with the greatest of interest.
"Well," she says, confidentially, "I'll tell you. Y'know, if I do say it myself, there's worse lookers than me, and I gotta stand for a lotta kiddin' duri' the hours I put in here every day sellin' these here Roperinos to the male's sex. I get four-fiushed to death from 8 a. m. to 5 p. m. daily except Sunday, by everything from travelin' salesmen to risin' young bill clerks, which can't control their generosity and crave my company at lunch and so forth. Accordin' to them, they're all millionaires' sons in disguise or black sheeps of grand old families, and none of 'em makes less than $5,000 a week, not countin' tips. Of course all this goes in one ear and out another with me, but I thought this Halliday was different. He's such a good looker, his manners would make a head waiter look like a stevedore, and his language—well, half the time I didn't even know what he was talkin' about! I admit I was on the verge of fallin' for him— Mother mine, how he can dance! But I found out yesterday I'd been bunked again."
