“I should say as much,” responded the admiring Nailer. “He ought to be sellin' gold bricks. He's talked th' Dropper an' th' Wop into a hard knot.” The Dropper was not to be quelled, and insisted that Jimmy was conversing through his sou'wester. “I don't think so,” broke in Jew Yetta; “I strings wit' Jimmy. Take a tumble to yourself, Dropper. If you was to marry one of them money dames, you'd have to go into high society. An' then what? W'y, you'd look like a pig on a front porch.” “Don't youse bet on it,” declared the Dropper loftily. “There's nothin' in that high society stuff. A smart guy like me could learn his way t'rough in a week.” “Could he?” said the Nailer, and his tones were tones of derision. “That's w'at I says!” replied the Dropper. Then, heatedly: “W'y, do you geeks think I've never been north of Fourteenth Street? Youse make me tired, Nailer. While you was up-th'-river, for toinin' off that loft in Chambers Street, don't I go to a shindy at th' Demmycrat Club in honor of Sen'tor Depew? There was loidies there--th' real thing, too. An' wasn't I another time at th' Charlie Murphy dinner? Talk of high society!--if that ain't high society, what is?” Having squelched the Nailer, the Dropper proceeded more moderately. “I remember th' scare that's t'run into me at the Depew racket. I've been put up ag'inst some hot propositions, but if ever I'm faded it's then when, for th' foist time, I lamps a full-blown dame in evenin' dress. On th' dead, I felt like yellin' 'Police!'” “Phwat was it scared yez, Dropper?” asked the Wop. “It ain't that I'm so scared as rattled. There's too much free-board to them evenin' dresses.” “An' the Charlie Murphy banquet,” said Pretty Agnes, wistfully. “Didn't yez get cold feet?” “Naw, I don't git cold feet. I admits I falls down, I don't try to sidestep that; but it wasn't my fault. Do it over again, an' I'd go t'rough wit' bells on.” “How did youse fall down?” “It's be accident; I takes th' wrong steer, that's all. I makes it a point, knowin' I'm none too wise, to plant meself when we pulls up to the feed opposite to a gilded old bunk, who looked like ready money. 'Do as he does, Dropper' I says to meself, 'an' you're winner in a walk!' So, when he plays a fork, I plays a fork; if he boards a chive, I boards a chive; from soup to birds I'm steerin' be his wake. Then all of a sudden I cops a shock. We've just made some roast squabs look like five cents worth of lard in a paper bag, an' slopped out a bunch of fizz to wash 'em down, when what does that old Rube do but up an' sink his hooks in a bowl of water. Honest, I like to 've fell in a fit! There I'd been feelin' as cunning as a pet fox, an' me on a dead one from th' jump!” “Did any of them smart Alecks give youse th' laugh?” asked the Nailer. “Give me th' laugh,” repeated the Dropper, disgustedly. “I'd have smashed whoever did in th' eye.”