All Story Magazine, December 1913 — page 73: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A THIEVES’ COMEDY. laughed. I admit that I am rather fair. Della glanced up at Jimmy, but played right on. “A seltzer an’ milk for theirs, gar- song!’’ some one called to a waiter. “Lump o’ sugar in it.” “ Say, sweetie! Howza mama? ” “Lamp the little. guy, will ye? Don’t he hate hisself ?”’ “ Aw—can the chatter! ” “G'wan! I jus’ love a man what can raise a muus-tache like Blondy. Room at your table, honeybug? ” “ Ain’t he the baby-doll? ” Evidently in a laudable attempt to drown the hail of comment, for which, I regret to say, the ladies were almost entirely responsible, Della repeated the chorus of the thing she was playing, fortissimo, and the singing began again loosely. Leaning idly against the piano, Jim- my smiled upon the scene, and, though our eyes met, he gave no sign of recog- nition. Rollins, palpably nervous, sat with his back to the door, principally be- cause I forced him to by getting to the other side of the table first. Sitting side-on, I could watch both the signal- lights‘Campbell had designated and the piano. One would have thought there were pins in Rollins’s chair. It was quite plain that he had never been in a place like that before, He even seemed afraid of the waiter when that individ- ual approached and barked: ““What'll ye have?” Rollins ordered brandy, and looked as if he needed it. I trusted to Camp- bells proprietorship and took my “usual.” A generously built, straw-haired girl and a lithe young man swung out into the center of the floor as Della plunged the piano keys into the throes of the turkey trot. -Whether she intended it or not, the dance took a great deal of attention from us, and the first couple to answer the call was joined quickly by as many more as the floor space could uncomfortably accommodate. 783 The straw - haired girl sneaked my hat as she pirouetted past our table and clumped it back on my head the next time she visited us, blowing a kiss to me as she slid away. Her partner did not mind, * Ain’t she fresh? ” a dark little gir at the next table queried of her escort, a heavily built, beetle-browed individ- ual who was laboriously consuming a large cigar to the detriment of the al- ready stifling atmosphere. “ She ain’t got no call to hand out that rough stuff to strangers.” The man awoke from the state of in- difference with which he had regarded his surroundings and growled: “* Aw—that’s nothin’; an’ I don’ no- tice the stranger gettin’ on his ear about it. What's eatin’ you, anyway?” “No lady would of done what she done—an’ you know it, Bill Gregg!” Gregg laughed in the depths of his great chest, demolished his beer at a gulp, and, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, grinned across the table at his partner. “Can the hot air, Tillie, an’ come down to oith. You been grousin’ about my frien’s since I brung you in. Rosie Paler’s one swell skoit. If there wussent so much o’ her I’d hang up my cady—” He didn't finish. \WVith surprising suddenness the dark little girl rose, gripped the glass of beer at her hand, and flung the contents, with all the force her fury gave, into Gregg’s face. “You would!’ she- screamed pas- sionately, as if the flood-gates of her wrath had been opened as a result of considerable pressure. ‘“* You'd make a monkey outa me—you big stiff!” Gregg spluttered and almost swal- lowed his cigar, which sizzled and went out. The music and the dancing stopped. Tillie glared about her like a hunted thing as the dancers closed round her, and Gregg, blinded and infuriated by the beer that stung in his eyes, swore and lunged wildly across the table. comliclooolks.com