"Honest, am I, Joe?"

"Surest thing! The stage-door is my pace, and for nothing short of head-liners, neither. I gotta like a girl pretty well to hang round on the wrong side of the footlights for her, sweetness."

"Joe, I--I wish I knew if you was kiddin'."

"Kiddin' nothin'!"

They emerged into the white shower from a score of arc-lights; and Mr.

Joe Ullman, an apotheosis of a cla.s.sy-clothes tailor's dearest dream, in his brown suit, brown-bordered silk handkerchief nicely apparent, brown derby hat and tan-top shoes, turned his bulldog toes and fox-terrier eyes to the north, where against a fulvous sky the Palais du Danse spelled itself in ruby and emerald incandescents with the carefully planned effect of green moonlight floating in a mist of blood.

"Joe"--she dragged gently at his coat-sleeve, and a warm pink spread out from under the area of rouge--"Joe, you know what you promised for to-night?"

"What, kiddo? The sky's my limit. I'll taxi you till the meter gives out. I'll buy you--"

"You have promised so long, Joe. Come on! Let's go up home to-night. Be a sport, and let's go. Ma's got a midnight supper waitin', and--"

"The doctor says home cookin's bad for me, sweetness."

He c.o.c.ked his hat slightly askew, stroked a chin as blue as a priest's, and winked down at her.

"Honest, sweetness, I'm going to buy you a phonograph record of 'Home Sweet Home Ain't Sweet Enough for Me'--"

"She's waitin' up for us, Joe; she ain't hardly able to be up, but she's waitin', Joe."

"Ain't I told you I'm going up with you some night when I'm in the humor for it? I feel like a ninety-horse-power dancer to-night, Doll. Whatta you bet I sold more seats for your show to-night than the box-office?

Whatta you bet?"

"Joe--you promised."

"Sure, and I'm going to keep it; but I'm wearin' a celluloid collar to-night, hon, and the fireside ain't no place for me. I wouldn't wanna blow your mamma to smithereens."

"Joe!"

"I wouldn't--honest, sweetness, I wouldn't."

"Joe, comin' to our house ain't like bein' company--honest! When the boys and girls from the store used to come over we'd roll back the carpets, and ma'd play on an old comb and Jimmie'd make a noise like a banjo, and--"

"Hear! Hear! You sound like 'Way Down East' gone into vaudeville."

"Come on up to-night, Joe--like you promised."

"We'll talk it over a little later, sweetness. Midnight ain't no time to call on your best girl's dame. What'll she be thinkin' of us b.u.t.tin' in there for midnight supper? To-morrow night's Sunday--that'll be more like it."

"She got it waitin' for us, Joe. All week she been fixing every night, and us not comin'. She knows it's the only time we got, Joe. She says she'd rather have us come home after the show than go kiting round like this. Honest, Joe, she's regular sport herself. She used to be the life of her department; the girls used to laff and laff at her cuttings-up.

She's achin' to see you, Joe. She knows I we--she don't talk about nothin' else, Joe; and she's sick--it scares me to think how sick maybe she is." He leaned to her upturned face; tears trembled on her lashes and in her voice. "Please, Joe!"

"To-morrow night, sure, little Essie Birdsong. Gawd, what a name! Why didn't they call you--"

"They always used to call us the Songbirds at the store."

"Look, will you? Read--'Tango Contest next Monday night!' Are you game, little one? We'd won the last if they'd kept the profesh off the floor.

Come on! Let's go in and practise for it."

"Not to-night, Joe, please. We're only four blocks from home, and it ain't right, our keepin' company like this every night for three months and not goin'. It ain't right."

He paused in the sea of green moonlight before the gold threshold of the Palais du Danse, whose caryatides were faun-eyed Maenads and aegipans. The gold figure of a Cybele in a gold chariot raced with eight reproductions of herself in an octagonal mirror-lined foyer, and a steady stream of Corybantes bought admission tickets at twenty-five cents a Corybant.

Phrygian music, harlequined to meet the needs of Forty-second Street and its anchorites, flared and receded with the opening and closing of gilded doors.

"Come on, girlie! To-morrow night we'll do the fireside proper."

"You never--nev-er do anything I ask you to, Joe. You jolly me along and jolly me along, and then--do nothing."

He released her suddenly, plunged his hands into his pockets, and slumped in his shoulders.

"I don't, don't I? That's the way with you girls--a fellow ties hisself up like a broken arm in a sling, and that's the thanks he gets! Ain't I quit playin' pool? Didn't I swear to you on your little old Sunday-school book to cut out pool? Didn't the whole gang gimme the laff? Ain't I cuttin' everything--ain't I?--pool and cards--pool and all?"

"I know, Joe; but--"

"You gotta quit naggin' me about the fireside game, sis. I'm going to meet your dame some day--sure I am; but you gotta let me take my time.

You gotta let me do it my way--you gotta quit naggin' me. A fellow can't stand for it."

"She's sick, Joe."

"Sure she is; and to-morrow night we'll buy her an oyster loaf or something and take it home to her. How's that, kiddo?"

"That ain't what she wants, Joe--it's us."

"I just ain't home-broke--that's all's the matter with me. Put me in a parlor, and I get weak-kneed as a cat--bashful as a banshee! You gotta let me do it my way, Peaches and Cream. Just like a twenty-five-cent order of 'em you look, with them eyes and cheeks and hair. To-morrow night, sweetness--huh?"

"Honest, Joe?"

"Cross my heart and bet on a dark horse!"

She slid her hand into the curve of his elbow, her incert.i.tude vanishing behind the filmy cloud of a smile.

"All right, Joe; to-morrow night, sure. You walk as far as home with me now, and--"

"Gawd bless my soul! You ain't going to leave me at the church, are you?"

"I gotta go right home, Joe."

"Gee! Why didn't you tell a fellow? I could have tied up ten times over for a Sat.u.r.day night. There's a little dancer over at the Orpheum would have let out a six-inch smile for the pleasure of my company to-night.

Gee! you're a swell little sport--nix!"

"Joe!"

"Come on in for ten minutes, and if you're right good I'll shoot you home in a taxi-cab just as quick as if we went now. Just ten minutes, sweetness."