Given a checked suit, a slender bamboo cane, and a straw Katy slightly askew, Charley might have epitomized vaudeville. He had once won a silver watch-fob for pre-eminent buck-dancing at a Coney Island informal, and could sing "Oh, You Great Big Beautiful Doll!" with nasal perfection. "Yes, sirree, Lil; you got a fine pianner-player fer a husband!" She squirmed away from his touch and carried the coffee-pot to the little set-for-two table. The chops steamed from a blue-and-white plate. Her husband, unburdened with subtleties, straddled his chair and scraped up to the table; his collapsed collar, with two protruding ends of red necktie, lay on the window-sill; the sleeves of his pink shirt were rolled back to the elbow. The meal opened in a silence broken only by the clat-clat of dishes and the wail of suffering babies. "Poor kiddies, they ain't got a chance in a hundred. Gee! If I had the coin, wouldn't I give them a handout of fresh air and milk? I'd give every one of the durn little things a Delmonico banquet. I'd jest as soon get hit in the head as hear them kids bawl." Suddenly he glanced up from his plate and pushed himself from the table; his wife was making bread-crumbs out of her bread. "Say, Lil, I ain't never seen you like this before! Ain't you feeling good? Come on--tell a feller what's the matter with you." He rose and came round to her chair, leaning over its back and taking her cheeks between thumb and forefinger. "Come on, Lil; what's the matter? You ain't sore at me, are you?" "Can't a girl get tired once in a while?" she said. "Poor little pussy!" He patted her hair and returned to his place. "Guess what I got!" groping significantly in the direction of his hip-pocket. "Something you been havin' your heart set on fer a long time. Guess!" "I dunno," she said. "Aw, gwan, kiddo! Give a guess." "I can't guess, Charley." "Well, then, I'll give you three guesses." "I dunno." "Look--now can you?" He showed her the top of a small, square box tied with blue cord. It bore a jeweler's mark. "Can you guess now, Lil? It's something you been aching fer." "Lemme alone!" she said. He looked at her in frank surprise, slowly replacing the box in his hip-pocket. "Durned if I know what's got you!" he muttered. "Nothing ain't got me," she insisted. He brightened. "Poor little girl! Never mind; next summer I'm goin' to grab that Atlantic City job I been tellin' you about. The old man said again yesterday that, jest as sure as he opens his sheet-music bazar down there next season, it's me fer the keyboard." "His schemes don't ever turn out. I know his talk," his wife objected.