She did not ask who the nice girl might be nor did he offer to tell her. In that ancient age--the latter decades of the last century before this one--there was a code for which nearly everybody of whatsoever station had the proper reverence. In some places--bar-rooms, for example, and certain other places--a gentleman did not bring up the name of a young lady. It was never the thing to do. "Here, Jerry," she said next. "I'll be kind of sorry to say good-by, but I want you to know I wish you mighty well. Not that you need my good wishes--you're going ahead and you'll keep on going--but I want you to have them. Because, Jerry, if it was my dying words I was speaking I'd still say it just the same--you've always been on the square with me, and that's what counts with a girl like me. You never came down here drunk, you never used rough language before me, you never tried to bilk me or take advantage of me any kind of way. Yes, sir, that's what counts. Even if I don't never see you face to face again I won't forget how kind and pleasant you've been towards me. And I'd die before I'd make any trouble for you, ever. You go your way and I'll go mine, such as it is, and that'll be all there is to it so far as I'm concerned. "Now then, you've told me some news; I'll tell you some. I'm fixing to buy out Miss Carrie. She wants to quit this business and go over to Chicago and live decent. She's got a married daughter there, going straight, and anyhow she's made her pile out of this drum and can afford to quit, and I don't blame her any, at her age, for wanting to quit. But me, it's different with. I've got a little money saved up of my own and she's willing to take that much down and take a mortgage on the furniture and trust me for the rest of the payments as they fall due. And just yesterday we closed up the bargain, and next week the lease and the telephone number and all go in my name. So you see I'm trying to get along, too, the best way I can." She lifted the glass of beer that she was holding in her hand. "Here's good luck!" She took the draught down greedily. Her full lips had the drooping at their corners which advertises the potential dipsomaniac. Face to face, through the rest of her life he never did speak to her. To be sure, there were at irregular intervals telephone conversations between them. I'll come to that part of it later. Anyhow, they were not social conversations, but purely business.