THE VERY TIRED GIRL
other man's cap on her yellow head, and two deliciously timid hands clutched at the coat-sleeves of the two men nearest her. Whenever she bent her head she trailed the fluff of her hair across the enraptured eyelids of the Poet.
Only Noreen Gaudette was missing.
"Where is Miss Gaudette?" probed the Political Economist.
The Masseuse answered vehemently: "Why, Noreen's getting ready to go to the fire. Her paper sent for her just as we came up. There's an awful row on, you know, about the inefficiency of the Fire Department, and there's no other person in all the city who can make people look as silly as Noreen can. If this thing appeals to her to-night, and she gets good and mad enough, and keeps her nerve, there'll be the biggest overhauling of the Fire Department that you ever saw! But I'm sorry it happened. It will be an all-night job, and Noreen is almost dead enough as it is."
"An 'all-night job'?" The Much-Loved Girl gasped out her startled sense of propriety, and snug gled back against the shoulder of the man who sat nearest to her. She was very genuinely sorry for any one who had to be improper.
The Political Economist, noting the incident in its entirety, turned abruptly on his heel, climbed down the tremulous ladder to the trunk-room
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