"I guess I was kind of scared you wouldn't care much for Joralemon, after New York." "Why, Carl, you mustn't say that to me!" "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, Gertie, honestly I didn't. I was just joking. I didn't think you'd take me seriously." "As though I could forget my old friends, even in New York!" "I didn't think that. Straight. Please tell me about New York. That's the place, all right. Jiminy! wouldn't I like to go there!" "I wish you could have been there, Carl. We had such fun in my school. There weren't any boys in it, but we----" "No boys in it? Why, how's that?" "Why, it was just for girls." "I see," he said, fatuously, completely satisfied. "We did have the best times, Carl. I _must_ tell you about one awfully naughty thing Carrie--she was my chum in school--and I did. There was a stock company on Twenty-third Street, and we were all crazy about the actors, especially Clements Devereaux, and one afternoon Carrie told the principal she had a headache, and I asked if I could go home with her and read her the assignments for next day (they called the lessons 'assignments' there), and they thought I was such a meek little country mouse that I wouldn't ever fib, and so they let us go, and what do you think we did? She had tickets for 'The Two Orphans' at the stock company. (You've never seen 'The Two Orphans,' have you? It's perfectly splendid. I used to weep my eyes out over it.) And afterward we went and waited outside, right near the stage entrance, and what do you think? The leading man, Clements Devereaux, went right by us as near as I am to you. Oh, _Carl_, I wish you could have seen him! Maybe he wasn't the handsomest thing! He had the blackest, curliest hair, and he wore a thumb ring." "I don't think much of all these hamfatters," growled Carl. "Actors always go broke and have to walk back to Chicago. Don't you think it 'd be better to be a civil engineer or something like that, instead of having to slick up your hair and carry a cane? They're just dudes." "Why! of course, Carl, you silly boy! You don't suppose I'd take Clements seriously, do you? You silly boy!" "I'm not a boy." "I don't mean it that way." She sat up, touched his shoulder, and sank back. He blushed with bliss, and the fear that some one had seen, as she continued: "I always think of you as just as old as I am. We always will be, won't we?" "Yes!" "Now you must go and talk to Doris Carson. Poor thing, she always is a wall-flower."