So Micky was conveyed across the room and formally knocked down to Miss Maisie Muldoon. The end was well worth his enterprise. Small and prettily formed, with eyes of truest Irish blue, the loveliest shade of brown hair extant and a complexion of milk and roses, she was charming. She was simply gowned in duck skirt and an airy confection of diaphanous white waist, which revealed tantalizing glimpses of sweet white neck and arms. Micky mentally registered her "a dream." "Will you dance?" he asked, crowding into a seat beside her. "Oh, I don't know, Mr.--er--O'Byrn," she answered. "My card seems to be full already. I might give you an extra, if they have one," with a mischievous glance. "You might scratch half a dozen of those names," suggested Micky easily, "and substitute mine. It looks prettier." "I believe you're a newspaper man, aren't you?" freezingly. "Seems to me I've heard so." "How do you like 'em?" he demanded, his impudent eyes twinkling. "If you're any sample, they seem to have a crust," witheringly. "So does any good thing," he chuckled. "Don't you like pie?" She laughed in spite of herself. "Say," she acknowledged, turning her charming face toward his freckled one with decided interest, "you ain't so worse! I almost wish I had a dance for you." "Maybe one of 'em will die," said Micky hopefully. "If I can be of any help--" "The music's starting," she interrupted. "It's a two-step and I've got it with Billy Ryan. He's rotten on that. Are you?" "I'm probably the ripest peach of a two-stepper," averred Micky, "that ever triangled down a floor. I'm a pippin. Where is your gazabe?" "I don't know," she replied, looking about frowningly. "Maybe he won't come." Micky waxed complacent at the discreet hope lingering in her tone. The dance was well under way. Dick shuffled past, the big blonde in his arms. He seemed enjoying himself. Micky grew impatient. "Went out for another drink, I guess," remarked Miss Maisie disgustedly, in another moment. "Come on, I sha'n't wait for him," and she rose. "Went a block for a beer with a Manhattan right inside," murmured Micky, as they prepared to start. "Oh, you g'wan!" she laughed, and they swung into the revolving circle. Micky's boast of terpsichorean ability made good, (he had picked up the art long before, as readily as he did everything else,) he was rewarded with two more regulars and an extra before the affair ended. One of the regulars was originally scheduled with the recreant Ryan, who appeared for it in due course and retired congealed, with a black look at the grinning O'Byrn. The other regular had originally been Miss Muldoon's cousin's. She transferred it airily, but the cousin bore it with the equanimity of a mere relative. "I suppose you've got company home?" inquired Micky, with a certain mournful hesitation, as they were finishing the last dance.