"Honest?" she asked. "He’ll let me go? I’d raise hell—sooner than be in a house. It’s the sidewalk for mine—every time. He’d better not try any fancy games on me. I sure would raise hell!" "You wait and see," I said. "He’s on the square." I began writing again, she lit another cigarette and smoked awhile in silence. But presently she came over and sat on the table. "Say. He’ll give me some money, besides the clothes, won’t he?" "You’ll have to arrange that with him." "I’ve got to have two dollars, by ten o’clock." "Wouldn’t you rather have some good clothes than two dollars?" "No. Real money." I leaned back in my chair and looked her over. At last I ventured what was in my mind. "I suppose women’s clothes wouldn’t suit your man. But wouldn’t some red neckties please him as well as money?" "Say"—her eyes narrowed threateningly—"You’re a wise guy, ain’t you? Think you know it all?" "Well," I said, "I know some." I turned back the flap of my coat and showed her the badge of a county detective. She whistled with surprise, but did not seem dismayed. In fact she became suddenly friendly. Everything about her recent experiences, the bath, Norman’s attitude towards her, the meals, the rooms, had been strange and confusing. But a policeman! That came within the circle of familiar. She knew dozens of them. "Gee! I never would have thought you was a cop. Plain clothes man?" I nodded assent and then asked her. "Who are you hustling for?" For a moment she seemed to consider the advisability of answering. But what was the use of trying to hide things from a "cop"? What I did not know, I could easily find out. Her cadet’s _nom-de-guerre_ was "Blackie." She spoke of him without enthusiasm, without marked revulsion—much as we speak of the unavoidable discomforts of life, such as the bad air in the subway, or the tipping system. With a few questions, I got her story—quite a different one from what she had told Norman. Ever since they had come to America, her mother had been scraping out a bare living for herself and her daughter by means of a small fruit business, and by letting rooms behind the store to boarders. One of these men had seduced Nina under promise of taking her to the marionette show. This had happened—"Oh, a very long time ago"—at too remote a date to be definitely remembered. She spoke of this man with foul-worded bitterness. It was not on account of the evil he had done her, but because he had not taken her to the show. "Men always cheat us," she said. "It don’t matter how foxy you are, they beat you to it." She had not burdened her memory with any precise record of her childish amours. They had been without pleasure—for an ice-cream cone, a few pennies, a chance to go to a show. She was a devotee of Bowery drama. "From Rags to Riches" was her favorite. "That," she said, "was something grand!"