He seized Commissioner O'Neill's suitcase from the operating-table, with a panic show of hurry. Kern's voice took on a cheering inflection. "Don't you mind, Mr. V.V. All the swells'll be late. D'you want me to help you, sir? Don't you want me put in your studs 'r something?" Mr. V.V. set down the suitcase, dealt a mortal blow. "I have no studs," he said, in a quiet, scared way. A little exclamation without was followed by: "Can I come in, sir?" "Yes, yes; come in. But this is rather serious. I confess I--don't see how it's going to work out...." The door opened and Kern tripped in with a little kick, and a flash and tinkle of jewelry at neck and waist. She never merely walked when it was possible to dance. "My regular shirts," said the young man, standing on the floor and brushing his hair with a worried hand, "have the buttons sewed on, of course.... Seems to me O'Neill might have thought of this contingency." Kern repressed a desire to giggle at Doctor's air of helplessness, and controlled her itching feet. She was not wanting in the resourcefulness of the poor. "I'll get you studs, Mr. V.V.," said she, eagerly. "Less see now--where'll I get 'em?... I'll get 'em at Lazarus's--that's where! I'll have 'em here in five minutes, and right in your shirt." Lazarus? Why, they shut up at six o'clock. Yes, but Willie Walter, he slept behind the counter, and was abed right now, on account of getting up so early. Just let her bang the door in the alley a couple of times, that was all. Moreover, Walter being obliging, it agreeably developed that the studs would come as a temporary loan, if desired. An evening's wear out of them, and then back on the card and into stock again, the same as new, and nobody the wiser. Lazarus would do the same. "It's very nice of you, Corinne," said the young man, picking up the suitcase again. "Something in pearl or plain gold, perhaps. Come straight back now. I don't like at all for you to be running the streets at night--" "Maybe I won't come back at all," said Kern, improvising a barn dance about the long office. "Maybe I'll run off with a count and go to Europe on a steamer like, and have mand'lins played under my winder by moonlight, and sit at a gool' writin'-desk all day and make up po'try." "That would be rather hard on the count, wouldn't it?" said Mr. V.V., absently; and added at once: "What makes you do that?" "Stitch in me side," said she, impishly. "Machineetis, _I_ call it. Like 'pendicitis, y' know? It's gone now. I don't get tired when I dance."