One night last March, after I'd come back from the other side, I happened into a little theatre on Broadway where a burlesque was running. It's a rowdy little place--a music hall--but nice people go there because, though it's stuffy, it's kept decent. _She_ was in a box with two men--one old and one young--and an older woman. As soon as I saw her she had me lashed to the mast in a high sea, with the great salt waves dashing over me. I never took much stock in the tales about its happening at first sight, but they're as matter-of-fact as market reports. Soon as I looked at her it seemed to me I'd known her always. I was sure we knew each other better than any two people between the Battery and Yonkers, and that I wasn't acting sociable to sit down there away from her and pretend we were Strangers Yet. Actually, it rattled me so I had to take the full count. If I hadn't been wedged in between a couple of people that filled all the space, and then some, it isn't any twenty to one that I wouldn't have gone right up to her and asked her what she meant by cutting me. I was udgy enough for it. But I kept looking and after awhile I was able to sit up and ask what hit me. She was dressed in something black and kind of shiny and wore a big black hat fussed up with little red roses, and her face did more things to me in a minute than all the rest I've ever seen. It was _full_ of little kissy places. Her lips were very red and her teeth were very white, and I couldn't tell about her eyes. But she was bred up to the last notch, I could see that. Well, I watched her through the tobacco smoke until the last curtain fell. They were putting on wraps for a minute or so, and I noticed that the young fellow in the party, who'd been drinking all through the show, wasn't a bit too steady to do an act on the high-wire. They left the box and came down the stairs and I bunched into the crowd and let myself ooze out with them, wondering if I'd ever see her again. I fetched up at an exit on the side street, and there they were directly in front of me. I just naturally drifted to one side and continued my little private corner in crude rubber. It was drizzling in a beastly way, the street was full of carriages, numbers were being called, cab-drivers were insulting each other hoarsely, people dashing out to see if their carriages weren't coming--everything in a whirl of drizzle and dark and yells, with the horses' hoofs on the pavement sounding like castanets. The two older people got into a carriage and were driven off, while she and the young fellow waited for theirs. I could see then that he was good and soused. He was the same lad they throw on the screen when the "Old Homestead" Quartet sings "Where Is My Wandering Boy To-night?" I could see she was annoyed and a little worried, because he was past taking notice.