He stood with his feet apart and his toes turned out. Fanny observed how his knees flexed inward, how his legs aburst in their drab trowsers flexed and gave her mind the same thought as his ruffled hands and hair: made her smile. “Well now,” he was saying, “you two said anything yet to each other? get acquainted yet? no explanations?” He turned from the one woman to the other. “You’ll be friends. O all of us’ll be friends. What could be more companionable after all than to engage in the business of soft drinks ... making Delight Drinks for the thirsty people....” Miss Lonergan struck a key of her machine. _Click_, she smiled.--I can’t wait for your nonsense. _Click clicket click...._ “You see,” went on Mr. Johns, “the people get hot and what cools em off is ice. But they wont pay for ice. Not much! Ice is ice ... nameless. We don’t furnish ice. They pay for our lovely game of names,” he handed Fanny a list. “So we send the names in the liquid forms, to the candy men and the soda men: and _they_ put in the ice: and the ice cools the people: and the people pay us.” He flourished clumsily. His face glowed open about his clear blue eyes. “Will you come, Mrs. Luve?” His head serious now thrust back. “I want to show you the girls you are here to take care of.” * * * * * “Why I live on Twenty-First Street. That’s right near.” “Let’s walk,” said Clara. New York was open letting the calm day in. An afternoon of May ... made of the scent of far young grass, the swayings of far trees, the slopings of far hills ... lay above the streets where Fanny and Clara walked: came down, feathery certain into the open City, into their eyes and limbs. They walked languorous through a sleepy city lying like a brittle-kneed woman under the loved day. The City glowed with half responses ... new. The angle of a street falling away from the straight street where they walked was a gesture of pleasaunce. Above the clotted people the dim houses leaned gently together, making a haze of memory above the urgence of people. The streets turned angles leisurely: a Square beyond them was an invitation like a hand open or a mouth relaxed, the swerve of the Elevated train on the near Bowery was a stroke that caressed. “You are from the South, I can hear that. Have you been here long?” “About a month,” said Fanny. “I was born here. I wonder what it’s like, coming to New York.” “New York is easy to come to.” “Do people come here happy?” Fanny did not want to look at Clara. The day was lazy and round, falling into night. “Why do you ask that?” she said. “O I don’t know.... I was just wondering--why do they come to New York.” “Why did your parents come?”