"Sure I don't. I ain't saying it's that--only I wanna scare you up a little. I ain't saying it's that; but a girl that lets a cold hang on like you do and runs round half the night, and don't eat right, can make friends with almost anything, from measles to T.B." Stars came out once more in Sara Juke's eyes, and her lips warmed and curved to their smile. She moistened with her forefinger a yellow spit--curl that lay like a caress on her cheek. "Gee! you oughtta be writing scare heads for the _Evening Gazette!"_ Hattie Krakow ran her hand over her smooth salt-and-pepper hair and sold a marked-down flannelette petticoat. "I can't throw no scare into you so long as you got him on your mind. Oh, lud! There he starts now--that quickstep dance again!" A quick red ran up into Miss Juke's hair, and she inclined forward in the attitude of listening. "The silly! Honest, ain't he the silly? He said he was going to play that for me the first thing this morning. We dance it so swell together and all. Aw, I thought he'd forget. Ain't he the silly--remembering me?" The red flowed persistently higher. "Silly ain't no name for him, with his square, Charley-boy face and polished hair; and--" "You let him alone, Hattie Krakow! What's it to you if--" "Nothing--except I always say October is my unlucky month, because it was just a year ago that they moved him and the sheet music down to the basement. Honest, I'm going to buy me a pair of earmuffs! I'd hate to tell you how unpopular popular music is with me." "Huh! You couldn't play on a side-comb, much less play on the piano like Charley does. If I didn't have no more brains than some people--honest, I'd go out and kill a calf for some!" "You oughtta talk! A girl that 'ain't got no more brains than to gad round every night and every Sunday in foul-smelling, low-ceilinged dance-halls, and wear paper-soled slippers when she oughtta be wearing galoshes, and cheese-cloth waists that ain't even decent, instead of wool undershirts! You oughtta talk about brains--you and Charley Chubb!" "Yes, I oughtta talk! If you don't like my doings, Hattie Krakow, there ain't no law says we gotta room together. I been shifting for myself ever since I was cash-girl down at Tracy's, and I ain't going to begin being bossed now. If you don't like my keeping steady with Charley Chubb--if you don't like his sheet-music playing--you gotta lump it! I'm a good girl, I am; and if you got anything to in-sinuate; if--" "Sara Juke, ain't you ashamed!" "I'm a good girl, I am; and there ain't nobody can cast a reflection on--on--" Tears trembled in her voice, and she coughed from the deep recesses of her chest, and turned her head away, so that her profile was quivering and her throat swelling with sobs. "I--I'm a good girl, I am." "Aw, Sara, don't I know it? Ain't that just where the rub comes? Don't I know it? If you wasn't a good girl would I be caring?" "I'm a good girl, I am!"