I arose to go; just as I did so, I caught the eye of a creature whose smile showed in itself just how much of an effort it cost for the woman to present it. I lingered by the chair, and she approached me timidly. Her action, combined with her appearance, served to mislead me. I mistook her for a novice; on account of her seemingly natural shyness I looked upon her as being wholly out of place. Her general appearance too was far above the ordinary “she frequenters” of this place. She was young, well preserved, modestly dressed and talked with a degree of sense and moral refinement unknown to the patrons of the establishment. Notwithstanding the fact that circumstances were against her, I believed her when she told me that she was not an habitue of this particular resort. “But why are you here tonight?” I asked. “Oh, I have the blues, good and plenty,” she said, as she dropped into a chair. “For why?” was my bantering query. It was then that I was treated to a square look into her face. She was pretty to say the least. Her soft hazel eyes denoted everything but viciousness; her full, round face carried the freshness of youth and she made feeble attempts to smile pleasantly, at which time she showed a set of white, firm, but very short teeth. She gazed at me for a full moment, then with an air of wisdom she said: “I suppose you are fixing to make a raid on all the ‘joints’?” “No, I am not,” was my honest reply, the meaning of which was so well taken that this girl admitted that I was surely “off my beat.” “You do not look like a man who chose his society from the ranks of these people,” said she, with a look around the room. “I should think you would know whether you had ever seen me around here before,” said I. “Nothing strange in that, for this is the first time I was ever in this place in my life.” By this time I had convinced her that I was not a “fly cop.” She had caused me to believe that she, too, was telling the truth. I finally invited her to have a drink. “No. At least not here; this is too tough for me,” she said as she arose. “But I want to talk to you.” “I am willing to talk, but not here and if you will meet me at the next corner in the basement, I will talk as long as you like. It is better and cleaner there,” she added. “Shall I go with you?” “No, I will go alone. You follow.” After she had gone out, I viewed myself in the dingy mirror. I wondered if I really looked easy to that sly lady. I was not inclined to follow her into any basement den and run the chance of her having told some of the gang that I had insulted her, so they might have an excuse to beat me into insensibility, rob me and throw me into the gutter, from whence I would be gathered up by the kind hearted policeman and carted away to the station more dead than alive and be called upon to answer to the charge of drunk and disorderly conduct, the next day, and pay tribute to the tune of a big fine, while my assailants were waiting for more “suckers.”