He burst into the hectic grievances of the pampered and spoiled child. His family was just getting a foothold in Society (with an almost holy emphasis on the word) and now they were disgraced. All was up. Their new, precariously held acquaintances would drop them. In his petulant grief he did an amazing thing; he produced a bunch of clippings from the local society columns, setting forth, in the printed company of the Shining Ones, the doings (mostly charitable) of Mrs. Samuel Berthelin, her daughter, Mrs. Harris, and her son, David, referred to glowingly as "the scion of the wealth and position of the late lamented financier." Mayme was impressed. Like most shop-girls she was a fervent reader of society news. (If shop-girls did not read this fine flower of American democracy, nobody would, except those who wait eagerly and anxiously for their names to appear.) She perceived--not knowing that the advertising leverage of the Berthelin Loan Agency had forced those insecure portals of print for the entry of Mrs. Berthelin and her progeny--that she was in the presence of the Great. Capacity for awe was not in Mayme's independent soul. But she was interested and sympathetic. Here was a career worth saving! "Let's go over to the station-house," said she. "I know some of the cops." To the white building with the green lanterns they went. The shoplifting case, it appeared, had already been bailed out. Furthermore, everything would be all right and there was little fear of publicity; the store itself would see to that. Vastly relieved and refreshed in spirit, David Berthelin began to take stock of his companion with growing interest. She was decidedly not pretty. Just as decidedly she was quaint and piquant and quite new to his jejune but also somewhat bored experience. From the opening passage of their first conversation he deduced, lacking the insight to discriminate between honest frankness and immodesty, that she was a "fly kid." On that theory he invited her to breakfast with him. Mayme accepted. They went to Thomson's Élite Restaurant, on the corner, where David roused mingled awe and misgivings in the breast of Polyglot Elsa, the cashier, by ordering champagne, and Mayme reassured her by declining it.