When the illuminated hands of the illuminated tower clock swung to the wide angle of five o'clock, Miss Marjorie Clark and Miss Minnie Bundt, from the fancy-fruit stand opposite, cast off the brown cocoon of their workaday for the trim street finery which the American shopgirl, to the stupefaction of economists and theorists, can somehow evolve out of eight dollars a week. In the locker-room they met, the placid sky-colored eyes of Miss Bundt meeting Miss Clark's in the wavy square of mirror. "Snowing, ain't it?" "Yep." "Gee! that's a nifty little hat, Min! Where'd you get the pompon?" "Five-and-Ten." "If it 'ain't got the Avenue written all over it." Silence. "Want some my powder, Min? Pink." "Nope." "Want to--want to go to a movie to-night or--or bum around the stores? It's Christmas Eve." "Can't." "Date?" "Yep." Silence. A flush rose to Miss Clark's face, darkening it. She adjusted her dyed-fur tippet and a small imitation-fur cap at just the angle which doubled its face value. Something seemed to leap out from her eyes and then retreat behind a smile and a squint. "Say, Min, if my voice hurt me like yours does, I'd rub salve on it," and went out, slamming the door behind her. But a tear lay on the edge of her down-curved lashes, threatening to ricochet down her smoothly powdered cheek. She winked it in again. The station swarm was close to her, jostling, kicking her ankles in passing, buffeting. From out the swift tide a figure without an overcoat, and a cap vizor pulled well down over his eyes, locked her arm from the rear, so that she sprang about, releasing herself. "For God's sake, Blink, cut the pussy-foot tread, will you? I've jabbed with a hat-pin for less than that." "Merry Christmas, Marj." "Yes, I'm merry as a crutch. What brought you around, Blink?" "Can't a fellow drop around to pick you up?" "Land that job?" "Not a chance. What they want down there is a rough-neck, not a gentleman rubber-down. Say, take it from me; after a fellow has worked in the high-class Turkish baths, Third Avenue joints ain't up to his tone no more. I got to have class, kiddo. That's why I got such a lean toward you." "Cut that." "Come down to-night, Marj?" "Where?" "Harry's." "Well, I guess not." "Buy you a dinner." "But you're flat as your hand." He set up a jingling in his left pocket. "I am, am I?" "Well, I'm not going." "When you going to cut this comedy, Marj?" "I'm not. I'm just beginning." "Breaking into high society, eh? Fine chance." "Yes, with the gang of you down there hanging on like the plague, I got a swell chance, nix." "It's because we know you too well, Marj. Knew you when you had two black pigtails and used to carry a bucket into the family entrance of Harry's place, crying with madness every time your old man sent you. Gad! I can see you yet, sweetness, with your big black eyes blacker than ever, and steering home your old man from off a jamboree."