know me, Tommy. Two years me and the Kid’ve been engaged. Look at that ring. Five hundred, he said it cost. Let him take her to the dance. What’ll I do? I’ll cut his heart out. Another whiskey, Tommy.”
“I wouldn’t listen to no such reports, Miss Lizzie,” said the waiter smoothly, from the narrow opening above his chin. “Kid Mullaly’s not the guy to throw a lady like you down. Seltzer on the side?”
“Two years,” repeated Liz, softening a little to sentiment under the magic of the distiller’s art. “I always used to play out on the street of evenin’s ’cause there was nothin’ doin’ for me at home. For a long time I just sat on doorsteps and looked at the lights and the people goin’ by. And then the Kid came along one evenin’ and sized me up, and I was mashed on the spot for fair. The first drink he made me take I cried all night at home, and got a lickin’ for makin’ a noise. And now—say, Tommy, you ever see this Annie Karlson? If it wasn’t for peroxide the chloroform limit would have put her out long ago. Oh, I’m lookin’ for ’m. You tell the Kid if he comes in. Me? I’ll cut his heart out. Leave it to me. Another whiskey, Tommy.”
A little unsteadily, but with watchful and brilliant eyes, Liz walked up the avenue. On the doorstep of a brick tenement a curly-haired child sat, puzzling over the convolutions of a tangled string. Liz
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