"It's--it's been awful--me away from her all day like this. But, anyways, I got news for her when I go home to-night about her five weeks' benefit money. Old Criggs was grand. He's going to send the committee to see her. Anyways, that's some good news for her." "I just can't get her out of my mind, neither. Seems like I--I just can see her poor blind face all the time." "M-me, too." "They say the girls up in the ribbons been crying all day. She was no love-bird, but they say she wasn't bad underneath." "God knows she--she wasn't." "That's the way with some folks; they're hard on top, but everybody knows hard-shell crabs have got sweeter meat than soft." "Nobody knows that she was a rough diamond better than me. I got sore at her sometimes, but I--I know she was always there when I--I needed her, alrighty." "Now, now, little girl, don't cry! You're all worn out." "She--she was always there to stand by me in--in a pinch." "Honest, Miss Sadie, you look just like a pretty little ghost. What you need is some spring air, girlie, some spring air for a tonic. Wouldn't I just love to take you all by your little self down the river to-night on one of them new Coney boats, where we could be--right quiet. Say, wouldn't I?" "No--no!" "I wanna talk to you, Miss Sadie. Can't you guess? I wanna get you all by yourself and talk to you right in your little ear." '"Shh-h-h! You mustn't talk like that." "That's the only way I have of trying to tell you how--how I feel, Miss Sadie--dearie." '"Shh-h-h!" "When I call you that it means--well, you know, dearie, you know. That's why I wanna take you to-night, dearie, all by your little self and--" "No, no, Mr. Meltzer! I can't leave her alone like that. I promised I would never leave her alone in the dark if--if I could help it." "Ain't I the dub? Sure you can't leave her. We gotta stick by her now, dearie. 'Ain't we? 'Ain't we?" A red seepage of blood surged across his face and under his hair. Beneath his little hedge of mustache his lips quivered as if at their own daring. "We gotta stick by her, dearie." All her senses swam, nor could she control the fluttering of her hands. "Oh--Mr. Meltzer--Max!" "What you and poor old Dee Dee need is some of this spring air. Gee! wouldn't I love to take you--and her down the river to-night on one of them new Coney boats? Gee! would I? Just you and--and her." "Max--oh, Max dearie!" "HEADS" By the great order of things which decreed that about the time Herod, brother to no man, died, Jesus, brother to all men, should be born; and that Rabelais, moral jester, should see light the very year that orthodox Louis XI passed on, by that same metaphysical scheme reduced to its lowliest, Essman's drop-picture machine, patent applied for, was completed the identical year that, for Rudolph Pelz, the rainy-day skirt slumped from a novelty to a commodity.