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 Such a blind one was Eddie Collins. He had come to the Lotus Garden solely to eat chow mein, and he went about his business with a steady, systematic motion. Frequently he raised his tea-cup and when he did his eyes dwelt for one disinterested moment on the surroundings. His gaze would lower again with the cup, and Eddie Collins would once more apply himself vigorously to the bowl before him.

His companion was different. Her eyes sparkled as she watched other couples swing by in the rhythm of the dance. There was an anxious vividness about her. She wanted to be part of the swaying, squirming mass. Herbert Yet Sim Nom could see that the atmosphere had claimed her. Great splashes of color glowed on her cheeks, and she smoked her cigarette in a manner that marked her as a girl who only smoked on special occasions.

Yet Sim Nom strolled past them. They had been served by a new waiter, and the practiced eye of the owner quickly took in the table. The only impression that he carried away with him was that the stupid, sandy-haired youth had scorned the ash tray and was arranging a wet gray semicircle of cigarette stubs on his saucer.

The music stopped, and the dancers hurried back to the chow mein, growing cold and pasty in the course of many encores. A girl with lazy eyelids and dewy vermilion lips floated past the table where Dot Haley sat with Eddie. A vagrant cloud of perfume surrounded her. It seemed to spiral from her fluffy black bob to the heels of her slippers. They were red slippers.

"I know her," said Dot. "Her name is Maude McLaughlin. She went to school with me, and we used to go out together after we started to go to work, but she got going with a fellow steady, and she didn't have no more time for girl friends."

"Is that the fellow?" Eddie asked, looking curiously at

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 a slim, dapper youth who wore a dark suit with a light gray vest smiling through.

"Yeh, that's him. His name is Ted Monroe. He bets on horses and he always wins, Maude told me."

Eddie laughed a little. "He's in a class by himself," he remarked.

"Well, I guess he's a clever fellow, Eddie. Maude's going to marry him. She told me she would have married him the first week she met him, only he didn't have enough money."

"No horses running that week?"

"I don't know. Maybe— Oh, Maude sees me. She's coming over."

Eddie kept his seat. If a coach of social etiquette had been there and said, "Eddie, why don't you arise?" he would have promptly replied, "Why? I ain't goin' no place."

Maude greeted Dot effusively and turned a careful appraising smile upon Eddie.

"How do you do," she said.

Eddie didn't know whether to shout "How do you do" right back at her challengingly or to say "I'm feeling well"; so he said nothing, which was quite all right, as Miss McLaughlin's interest in him had already flagged.

She was very different from Dot. Eddie felt the difference. She wore a large yellowish diamond and a dress with heavy sophisticated folds of satin.

"Why, Honey, I haven't seen you in ages. You should have come over to the house, you dear kid. You knew I'd always be glad to see you."

Her flood of affability embarrassed Dot. She floundered. "I— I supposed that you were always busy."

Maude smiled importantly. "Of course there's always a crowd around, but they're just a lot of hangers-on that don't mean much. You should have come over, Dot. Ted

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 was just saying one night about a month ago that he wondered what had ever become of that nice little Haley girl."

Eddie didn't like Maude. He didn't like the way she acted toward Dot. There was probably a word for it, but he couldn't think what it was. She was acting as though she was giving Dot something. Eddie wished he could think of that word so he could tell Dot later.

"I'll get Ted to come over here and we will have a foursome. How would you like that, Mr. Collins?"

"Try anything once," Eddie responded gloomily.

Ted came over. It was obvious at once that he had never asked anything at all about that nice little Haley girl. He didn't remember having met her before and two minutes after his second introduction had forgotten her name.

"This is a rotten place," Maude said. "I'm glad I have the car downstairs so I can get away from it quick."

"Is it your car?" Dot asked in awe.

"Yes, of course. That is, practically. It's mother's car really."

If Maude had gone a little further she might have reached the truth. The car, a three-year-old Buick, really belonged to a friend of Maude's mother. A most intimate friend of Maude's mother. A friend, in fact, whose intimacy with Maude's mother good people could only deplore.

The orchestra was at work again, but neither of the couples noticed it. Eddie was smoking a cigarette and listening to Maude McLaughlin. He wished he could think of that word. Ted was drinking tea with a certain masculine grace that showed off his soft, well-kept hands. Dot fashioned narrow golden skirts of pineapple with the side of her spoon and thought of Maude at the age of seven sitting on the steps of the teachers' entrance, holding forth on the subject of where babies come from.

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 She wasn't telling "secrets" now, though there would always be a certain aura of naughtiness surrounding Maude's words. It was because her eyes carried forever with them the look of an easy and unrepented surrender.

"And you, dear, what have you been doing?" Maude had finished discoursing on what she termed a perfectly ghastly summer, and she was ready to listen now in case anybody else had anything to say.

"Oh, I've been working," Dot responded. "That's about all I ever do."

"You poor thing. I simply couldn't stand an office routine. I nearly went mad rushing downtown every day. If I hadn't quit I'd have had a nervous breakdown, I feel sure."

Eddie moved uneasily and lit another cigarette.

"Hold the light," Maude said. She lifted a cork-tipped cigarette to her lips and put cool white fingers on Eddie's hand to steady it. A faint, light breath crossed Eddie's cheek, and the match was out.

He withdrew his hand. "That's my last match," he said, and he turned to blow smoke out at the dance floor.

The waiter brought the checks. Ted Monroe covered them with one hand and endeavored to look unconcerned under Eddie's steady gaze. He was ready to begin the popular good-humored argument when Eddie said quietly, "Let me have my check, Monroe."

Ted passed it over, smiling as he did so. This Collins was a strange guy, obviously low-class. Ted looked at his own check and asked Maude for three dollars and eighty cents.

Eddie got up noisily. His chair hesitated for a brief moment on its two back legs, then settled down to normal with a bang. The three at the table eyed him disapprovingly. Dot looking up from her powder compact to do so.

"Come on," he said to her. "Quit fussing. You'll look just as bad when you're finished."

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 Dot closed her vanity with a hasty little snap and jumped to her feet. Maude was still seated, and Eddie was starting away.

"I'm going, Maude. See you again," Dot said, stopping for a moment at Maude's side.

Maude laughed. "Your rough Romeo has you trained," she said. "Do you jump through hoops for him? I was going to have you both come home with me for a while. Wouldn't you like that?"

"Oh, sure, that would be swell." Dot's ready smile disappeared as a doubting look overspread her face. "But maybe Eddie wouldn't come. Wait, I'll ask him."

He was leaning up against the door at the top of the restaurant stairs. His hat was on his head, and his cigarette burned close to his fingers.

"Ready to go now?" he asked.

"Eddie, Maude wants—" Dot gulped; he was looking at her coldly—"wants me to go over to her house."

"Well?"

"I thought you'd like to go, too."

"You thought ," he returned, opening the door. "What'll I do with that jane and her sweet boy? You go."

He was over the threshold. Dot caught his hand, and the door closed behind them. They were at the head of the stairs, looking down at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street.

"Eddie, I came out with you and I'm going to stick with you. I ain't like that Higgins girl."

His sulky eyes blinked, but he never faced her. He was watching the light on his cigarette creep closer to his hand.

"Please come, Eddie. Maude and Ted want you and I want to go so badly."

"Well, go," he said, flinging what was left of his cigarette to the little tile foyer below. "They're your friends

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 Results: The NAS review concluded that, "We are unanimous in the opinion that this has been a very credible effort to apply… techniques of science to the solution of the UFO problem."

Carter Administration Tasking to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (1977)

Background: Dr. Frank Press, Science Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, sent a letter to Dr. Robert Frosch, NASA Administrator, on July 21, 1977, suggesting that a panel be formed by NASA to see if there had been any new significant findings on UFOs since the Condon Report.

Results: Five months later, NASA responded by stating that it was not warranted "to establish a research activity in this area or to convene a symposium on the subject."

Roswell Investigations/Inquiries (1992–2001)

President Clinton and Chief of Staff Podesta Inquire about Roswell (1992–2001) The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert (1995) The GAO Roswell Report (1995) The Roswell Report: Case Closed (1997)

Background: According to press reports, President Clinton tasked former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger to determine if the USG held aliens or alien technology. President Clinton said, "As far as I know, an alien spacecraft did not crash in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947… if the USAF did recover alien bodies, they didn't tell me about it… and I want to know."

In 1993, Congressman Steven H. Schiff (R-New Mexico) made inquiries about the Roswell incident to DoD. The Roswell incident refers to the July 1947 recovery of metallic and rubber debris from a crashed military balloon near Roswell Army Air Field personnel that sparked conspiracy theories and claims that the debris was from an alien spaceship and part of a USG cover-up. He asked the General Accounting Office (GAO) (subsequently renamed the Government Accountability Office) to determine the requirements for reporting air accidents, such as the crash near Roswell, and to identify any government records concerning the Roswell crash.

The USAF conducted a systematic search of numerous archives and records centers in support of GAO's audit of Roswell. As part of this review, the USAF also interviewed numerous people who may have had knowledge of the events. Secretary of the Air Force Sheila E. Widnall released them from any security obligations that may have restricted the sharing of information. The USAF then published The Roswell Report in 1995, which included: "The Report of the U.S. Air Force Research Regarding the 'Roswell Incident'" by Col Richard L. Weaver, and the "Synopsis of Balloon Research Findings" by 1st Lt James McAndrew.

Results: The report stated that the USAF's research did not locate or develop any information that indicated the "Roswell Incident" was a UFO event, nor was there any "cover


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 and I suppose it means something to you to go calling on them. It means nothing to me."

Dot's teeth wandered from one finger to another in vain search for a scrap of nail to bite. She turned her head away from Eddie and looked at the wall, an uninteresting but safe view.

"It means nothing to me either," she said finally, "unless you go, too."

He did not answer. There was silence on the landing for a second; then a strange, smothered sound reached Eddie's ears.

"Say, are you crying?" he demanded. "You make me sick, crying 'cause you want to go to some dame's house and won't."

"Oh, it isn't that, Eddie."

He could see her face now. Her eyes were unbecomingly red. The lips that were warm and full were misbehaving. She could hardly make him hear, so low did she speak to keep her voice from ending in a silly little sob.

"It's because you're so mean, Eddie. You speak so cross to me. I guess you don't like me, Eddie."

"Aw, for Christ's sake!" he said, drawing the words out slowly so as to get the maximum amount of contempt in each. "If you want to go to that dizzy broad's house that bad, come on."

"Oh, you're a darling," Dot said, brightening up and making a dive for her compact.

Eddie said nothing. He fumbled for another cigarette and was scratching a match on Herbert Yet Sim Norn's frosted glass panel when Maude and Ted joined them.

"Has Air. Collins decided to favor us?" asked Maude. Her eyes sparkled with amusement, and she broke into a little light laugh when Dot answered:

"Yes, he says he'll go over for a while, Maude."

Ted was already in the car. There was a small pucker

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 of discontent between his dark brows as he watched Maude come downstairs with Eddie and Dot. Why did Maude do such things? he wondered. What amusement could she derive from entertaining that little ? And if the girl wasn't bad enough, there was this Collins with the manners of a ditch-digger.

"Your friend can sit with Ted," said Maude as they reached the car. "I have so much to tell you, Dottie."

Wordlessly, Eddie climbed into the seat beside the wheel. Ted sat expressionless and silent, waiting for the girls to get seated in the rear.

"Wanna go right home?" he asked Maude.

"I have to," she answered. "I may get a long-distance call from mother. She's in Atlantic City," Maude explained to Dot. "Then Sue Cudahy is going to drop in for a minute. You know Sue, don't you, Dottie?"

"Oh, sure. She's the girl who couldn't graduate, ain't she? She had to get her working papers."

"Yes," Maude answered, sudden compassion oozing into her voice. "Poor Sue. I give her all my cast-off clothes. She's coming in for some I promised her tonight. Don't let on you know about it. She's sensitive."

"Oh, I wouldn't," Dot promised.

The car started, and for a moment no word passed between the occupants. Motoring was a rare treat for Dot. She loved the motion of the machine, the wind in her face, the feeling of luxurious privacy. She felt sure that if ever she owned a car she would ride throughout the night. Not alone, of course. Somebody would have to be with her; so she would take Eddie. Maybe sometime they would ride all the way to California. Dot had heard of people doing that.

"She's a telephone operator now," said Maude.

"Oh, yes—Sue." Dot got in step with Maude again.

"She's got a sweetheart who is simply impossible." The

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 dewy vermilion lips came together in a long, thin disapproving line. "He's a drug clerk, so they say, but I think he's just a plain soda jerker. Poor Sue, she'll probably marry him and have six children and wear my clothes for the rest of her life."

"Yes," Dot said rather stupidly. She was thinking of Sue Cudahy as she remembered her. Big, blonde Sue who had once whispered a wickedly fascinating tale having to do with Maude McLaughlin and a boy in the Junior High. So wickedly fascinating was the tale that it spread like a plague throughout the school. There was no one in the building that did not hear, and Maude went about her business with her dark eyes leveled at scholars and teachers alike and a brazen inquiry in the depths of them. That was six years ago. Now Maude was Sue's best friend. But was she? It certainly was kind of her to give Sue charity. Not so kind, though, to talk with careless freedom of Sue's circumstances. That could be avoided. Still the fact remained that Maude said nothing ill of Sue and had acted generously toward her. Dot was puzzled. People were hard to understand. It was like a riddle: "When is a friend not a friend?"

"How do you think I look?" Maude asked suddenly. She had lighted a cigarette and was leaning back, idly blowing smoke.

"Gee, fine," said Dot. "Swell diamond you got."

Maude smiled contentedly. She liked other girls to notice her ring. "Isn't it lovely?" she said. "I didn't want Ted to go over a thousand dollars, but he is such a silly."

Dot gasped. Over a thousand dollars! Maude was trying to look very casual after having delivered that piece of information. Girls didn't usually take it like Dottie. They generally made an effort to match Maude's casualness. One had said, "Well, he'd have to go over a thousand, Maude. A girl wouldn't wear what a fellow could

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 get for a thousand." But Dot was so frankly dazzled that for a second Maude was afraid that she had made it a little too strong. She grew easier as she saw Dot getting back to normal but decided not to tell Dot that her winter coat was costing thirty-five hundred dollars. Eighteen hundred would do nicely in this particular case.

"When are you going to get married?" Dot asked.

Maude threw her cigarette away and drew closer to Dot. Her voice sank to little more than a whisper as she said, "I have another offer. There's a man forty-two years old, a banker, who's simply wild about me. He has a hundred-thousand-dollar home and four Rolls Royces. He's divorcing his wife simply in the hope that I'll take him."

"Oh, Maude, you wouldn't marry an old man?" Dot asked, horrified.

Maude adopted the woman-to-woman attitude. "I don't know, Dot," she said. "To be perfectly frank with you, I'm not sure I wouldn't. What have I if I marry Ted, although I do adore him? Suppose he does have an income of, say, three or four hundred dollars a week. What's that, after all? It's nothing compared to what Mr. Shaw could give me."

"Shaw is his name?" Dot asked.

"Yes, George Bernard Shaw," said Maude. "Isn't that distinguished?" For a second she hung in dizzy suspense. The name had a too familiar ring. Suppose it was the name of a movie actor? But presently Maude breathed regularly again. There was no inkling of suspicion in Dot's expression. Maude smiled to herself. What if George Bernard Shaw was a movie actor? Dot was so darn dumb it wouldn't make any difference.

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car stopped before a house on Alexander Avenue. The street was very quiet. The atmosphere of the Bronx had never invaded this small street. Here one would find no steps full of gossiping uncorseted Jewesses, no squalling, dirty-faced babies. The quietness of Alexander Avenue demanded quiet, and noisy, ill-bred families who came "looking for rooms" were always repelled by the aloofness of the old brown houses. Here and there a couple stood in a doorway. One did not think this significant on Alexander Avenue, such an air of respectability hung over everything. One felt that the rooming-houses were refined and proper. Perhaps the air of propriety emanated from the shingles of aged doctors whose last patient had died years before.

The two couples left the car, Ted and Eddie without having exchanged a single word. Maude rummaged in her geld mesh bag for a key and rushed up the stoop, her white knees flashing in the darkness as she ran.

"Don't mind the house," she said as she threw the doors open. "Bella hasn't been here to clean since mother went away. You pay a nigger twenty-five dollars a week and you can't get service anyhow."

The others had reached the vestibule now. Maude drew them in and switched on the lights. Cheaply stained stairs rose at the foyer's side in a straight, simple line. Ahead was the living-room—huge, but cluttered even so. Dust lay thick over the piano and chairs. The trays on the smoking-tables had been filled beyond endurance with cigarette stubs, and the carpet around had graciously catered to the overflow. In the corners the pattern of the

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 parquet floor was well concealed, and two glasses redly sticky suggested that Ted and Maude might have had a drink some days before. Clothes, obviously Maude's clothes, lay over chairs and divan. A dressing-gown of masculine cut was draped across the piano like a scarf.

"It's filthy," said Maude somewhat unnecessarily.

Dot and Eddie found seats. Maude flung her hat on the floor and herself on the divan.

"Be a cherub, Ted, and mix a cocktail," she said.

"What's the matter with you?" he returned. "Crippled?"

"You cute thing," Maude gurgled, "I could eat you up when you try to be gruff wif oos own ikkle Maudie."

Maude mixed the cocktail.

Eddie refused his glass. "Never use it," he explained.

"Mr. Collins suspects your private stock, Ted," said Maude.

Dot sipped experimentally at her drink. It was a golden shade and served in a thin-stemmed glass that shimmered with a dozen colors. Dot was disappointed at the bitter taste of the cocktail. It seemed sad that such a beautiful thing should taste so awful.

She looked at Maude. Her cocktail was gone, and Ted's was fast disappearing.

"Very good," he said to Maude.

Dot sighed regretfully as she relinquished the glass to the tray. She'd never be like Maude.

"What's the matter, honey?" Maude asked.

Dot was embarrassed. "I don't like it," she faltered.

Maude and Ted laughed. "Oh, go on," Maude said, "you'll get to like 'em." She took the glass and started toward Dot with it. "Here, drink this and you'll love the next one."

"I'm afraid I can't," Dot said.

"Oh, sure you can."

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 Dot was glad that the front doorbell rang. She had visions of Maude holding her while Ted spilled the lovely, horrible drink down her throat. Eddie was sitting near the piano smiling at her confusion. She felt that he could be relied on, but there was no comfort in that. She didn't want Ted and Eddie pummeling each other all over the room. The cocktail was forgotten, however, when Maude returned with Sue Cudahy and Pat Macy in tow.

Sue was big and blonde, as Dot remembered her, with small blue eyes under thin, undeveloped brows. Her nose was well shaped, but her mouth was large, and her teeth, when she smiled, looked like three sides of a square.

Pat, who was suspected of being a soda jerker, had extremely red hair and a small nervous face. It was impossible to guess at the color of his eyes because he kept blinking them continually.

He sat down near Eddie. They felt kindly toward each other, but neither knew why, nor were they conscious of a bond.

Cocktails were not mentioned to the newcomers. Sue watched Maude drink the one Dot had refused, and there was a slight shadow of amusement in her eyes.

Ted leaned back in his chair and surveyed Maude's friends wonderingly. What did she want of them? What did they give her?

His glance shifted to Maude. She was talking to Sue.

"Oh, Sue, I found some of the loveliest hats and dresses for that friend of yours who needs them." Maude looked at Sue meaningly as she spoke. Her gaze was as sharp and significant as an elbow thrust. She wanted there to be no question in Sue's mind of the kindness of her old school chum.

"That so?" Sue said, carelessly.

"There's one hat in particular, I think will be very becoming—" Maude went on.

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 "That so?" Sue said again and turned to ask Dot if her brother was still single.

Over near the piano, conversation turned to radio.

"I wish I was brilliant enough to know something about that marvelously interesting subject," said Maude. She was piqued—these two stupid couples ignoring her!

"I'm gonna tell a smutty story," she announced. "I'm not interested in radio or Dot's brother."

It was milder than Dot had expected. She laughed a little and looked at Eddie. He was not amused.

"Mr. Collins didn't like my story," Maude giggled wickedly.

"Oh, yes, I did," Eddie returned, "the first time I heard it."

His reply drew a bigger laugh from Sue and Pat than Maude's story.

"Here's one you never heard," said Maude.

Throughout the second story, Dot focused her gaze on the rug. She lived a hundred years waiting for Maude to finish. When Maude finally did, Dot knew it only by the laugh of Pat Macy. Dot couldn't find a bit of sense in the line that had brought Pat's laugh. Again she looked at Eddie. He wasn't laughing either, but she could see that he had found sense in Maude's joke. Eddie was staring curiously at Ted. There was a middle-class oath forming in his brain. "He'd be God damned if a woman of his would ever tell a filthy story."

Dot knew he was displeased. She whispered to Maude that they had to go. But Maude was just beginning to enjoy herself. She insisted that they stay, and Dot's misgivings were routed by her hostess's purring arguments. Maude told another story. This one carried a faint whiff of stale beer and free lunch. What the girl in the Pullman said to the man who had shared her berth struck Dot like a slap across the mouth. She couldn't have believed it of

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 Maude. Dot sat silent while Ted chipped in with a yarn about the woman who didn't want any more children.

Her glance met Eddie's, and there was a blush on Dot's face that made her turn from him. Were these people her friends? She had wanted to come there. She couldn't let Eddie see that she hated them, hated being in this dusty, smoke-filled room with the vulgar and shameless Maude. And so they stayed while Maude fed a score of cigarettes to her amber holder. Sue waited with honest boredom for the bundles which were for her "friend."

It was Pat Macy who at length yawned sleepily. "It's twelve o'clock," he said. "Time to go, Sue."

"Yes," she agreed, walking toward the table where she had laid her hat. "Where are those boxes, Maude? Can I get them?"

She could. Maude directed her upstairs and turned her attention to Dot.

"Are you going, too?" she asked, noting that Dot had risen from her chair.

"I must. I should have gone an hour ago." There was a frightened look in Dot's eyes. Her brows were drawn together nervously.

"What are you scared of? The dark?" Maude laughed. "I'm sure Mr. Collins could be persuaded to take you home."

Sue reappeared with a hat box and four flat oblong boxes tied together. She handed them to Pat and wasted no time saying good night to her benefactress. A brief "So long," and Sue was walking down the steps to Alexander Avenue.

The others followed.

"Thank God that's over," Sue said. "I hate that house worse than poison."

"It's like all the other houses in the row," said Dot.

"Oh, I mean I hate Maude and Ted and their actions."

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 Dot said nothing. Her eyes roamed undirected to the boxes which Pat carried piled up in front of his face like a moving-picture comedian.

"Sure she gives me clothes, but say, how she enjoys it! I owe her nothing," Sue declared. "You could tell her what I've said and she'd still continue to pass on her castoffs to me. I could kill her sometimes, she's so damn patronizing."

"Patronizing!" Eddie suddenly exclaimed. "That's the word."

Nobody noticed him. Dot was absorbed in what Sue was saying. Open dislike of any one who had been kind was entirely new to Dot.

It occupied her mind till Pat and Sue turned off toward the subway and Eddie and she were alone. There was no word spoken between them. They walked on, their heels sounding hollow and sad on the deserted pavements. They passed a bakery and the odor of fresh loaves rose up, seeking to lure them into the shop where a blatant white light spread itself over marble-topped tables and raisinstudded coffee rings.

"Want some coffee?" Eddie asked.

"No, thank you," Dot returned firmly.

They walked on, their steps growing slower as they neared Dot's door.

"Well?" Eddie prompted as they stopped.

"What well?"

"Gonna see me again?"

"That's up to you."

"No, it ain't."

"Sure it is."

"I ain't gonna argue at this hour. I got to get some sleep. You call me up tomorrow. I gave you the number in the Chinee joint, didn't I?"

"Yes, I have it."

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 "Well, use it. I'll be waiting tomorrow for you."

He caught hold of her hands and pulled her to him. She kissed him without question or coquetry.

"Good night, Kid, I'll expect your call."

He started away from her and was arrested by her hand on his sleeve. He turned and found her eyes brimming with tears.

"What the hell—"

"Oh, Eddie, don't think I'm crazy. If you get mad at me I'll have to walk around all night alone. I won't go home, Eddie, I can't. I'm scared to go upstairs."

He took her hand and led her into the brown-and-white foyer. She was crying carelessly now and clinging to him.

"I wasn't gonna tell you, but I had to—"

"What's the matter?"

"I can't go upstairs. It's half past twelve and my brother will kill me." The last few words were accompanied by an agonized sob.

"Don't be crazy," said Eddie, his face suddenly hardening. "Your brother won't kill you. Tell him you were at a friend's house. Don't he know Maude? He won't holler."

"Oh, he will, he will, Eddie. He hit me once something awful just because I went to Coney Island and didn't get home till twelve."

Eddie's eyes narrowed and his hands slipped into his pockets. "I'll go up with you," he said. "Come on."

"Oh, that would be twice as bad. He'd think I was no good being with a fellow till this hour."

"I hope he says so," Eddie spoke out of the side of his mouth. "Come on."

"Oh, no, Eddie. You'd hit Jim and he'd put me out."

"Then you'd go with me."

"With you? Where?"

"Where I go, Stupid. Come on, every minute makes you later." Eddie started up the marble stairs. He was

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 impatient to see the end of this. Dot clutched his hand and pulled him back.

"I don't want to be bad friends with Jim. He likes me in his own way. You'll hit him, and whether he clouts the devil out of you or you lick him, he'll throw me out anyway."

"Well, I said that you can come with me." Eddie's eyes looked out of the narrow space he allowed them and found Dot's. For a moment he held her gaze; then she looked away.

"There's my father, too," she murmured incoherently.

"All right. I won't fight with your darling brother. I'll explain like a movie hero that we were dee-tained and I hope he will forgive me for keeping you so late and all that bull."

"Oh, no, Eddie, if he sees you he'll kill me—"

"What do you take me for? Do you think I'd let anybody in the world hurt you or any other dame I happened to be with? I'll start nice, and if he goes to hit I'll—Jesus Christ, I'll tear him apart."

"Then he'll put me out."

She leaned against the wall and gave herself up to a series of dry, racking sobs.

"Well, what are you going to do?" Eddie asked, brusquely. "Stay down here and cry all night or face the music? Come on, don't be a fool."

"No, Eddie, I can't go up with you and I can't go up alone."

"What else is there to do?"

"Will you walk over to Edna Driggs' with me? I'll wake her up and she'll come over."

"What good would she be? If your brother was to hit you she couldn't help."

"But he won't hit if Edna's there. He does what she says."

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 Eddie made an exclamation of disgust. He walked back and forth in the grimy foyer, giving Dot a look of complete bafflement now and again. He wanted to climb the stairs. He wanted to see Dot's brother, and he wanted Dot's brother to say that Dot was no good.

Instead he followed her out into the street and walked in disapproving silence to the house of Edna Driggs. It was a squat gray stone building that tenanted eight families. Edna lived on the first floor and answered the bell at once. She was fully clothed and did not register the nth degree of alarm which Eddie expected of her. She simply said, "Hello, Kids, where's the trouble?"

Dot had ceased crying. Eddie knew it was the confidence that she had in Edna that had quieted her. Dot was able to state the situation briefly; so he contributed not one word to the story.

"Sure," said Edna in answer to Dot's request. She got her cape and walked back to Dot's with them.

"You've been with me since nine-thirty, Dot," Edna schemed as they walked. "I was taken with pains like ptomaine and you didn't dare leave me, but I feel fine now. Thank God, we have no phones," she added.

No one spoke again till they reached their destination.

"You better run along, Eddie," Edna advised. "Jim will take me back home again. Everything is going to be all right now with Dot."

"Oh, yes, Eddie," Dot assured him. "I'll be all right now."

Eddie grunted his good night. Dot and her champion passed through the big glass doors and he remained on the sidewalk watching as they climbed the first flight of steps. Dot was game now to face her angry brother. She hadn't trusted him to go with her. She had to have Edna Driggs. He spat the name mentally. Edna would buy Dot's safety with lies and smiles. Eddie would have

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 assured it differently. His hands closed into white, bloodless fists. Angrily, he turned toward Willis Avenue.

Damn Edna Driggs for being alive. The trolley had passed over the bridge and was going west when Eddie suddenly remembered that he should have slammed Haley anyhow for the other time—the time Dot had gone to Coney Island.

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lay black and shining in the rain of an October night. The trolleys groaned along One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street and the lights of Proctor's and the Harlem Grand Motion Picture. Theater lay in dank and yellow reflection in the puddles. Harlemites, their faces covered by umbrellas, hurried along the street. They prodded and bumped into each other, scowled, and rushed on to the movies.

Dot stood outside of Loft's candy store waiting for Eddie. An old felt hat was pulled low over her eyes and the collar of her coat pinned tight around her neck. Her slippers were heavy with wetness and the sleazy silk stockings clung to her insteps. Dot's umbrella was closed. It was useless. The rain was coming from the direction in which Dot wanted to watch. Why was Eddie late? She glanced into the candy store. Even with its tiled floor tracked with countless pairs of dripping rubbers it seemed inviting. She went in and asked for a pineapple sundae. Certainly by the time she had consumed it Eddie would be there. She stood at the counter with the little mound of ice cream and pineapple shreds. From the tables she couldn't see the street, and she wanted to see the street. Perhaps Eddie would come, and not finding her, would go away again. Gee, that would be fierce.

The pineapple sundae disappeared and Dot took up her post again beneath the red electric specimen of Mr. Loft's handwriting. She might have stayed in the store, but a person gets so restless waiting. There's a painful sort of solace in watching each new figure that appears, and in

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 trusting and believing until the perfect stranger draws close enough to rout all hopes. The disappointments and the courage that flares anew with each blighted expectation.

One dark outline a block away, slim and slight as Eddie, caused Dot's heart to pound delightedly. She framed her words; she knew just how she would greet him. "You're not late by any chance?" she would say. But it wasn't Eddie. A sickening chill passed over Dot as the outline materialized into a well-dressed unknown. He said "Hello, Cutie" to Dot as he passed.

The sickening chill persisted. There was a heavy conviction bothering her now, a conviction that Eddie would not come. Half an hour late! He had never done this before. At least thirty times they had met at this corner, and Eddie had always been prompt. It had been raining, too, on other occasions. It wasn't the weather that delayed him. Dot bit her lower lip till it was sore and bleeding. Oh, where was Eddie? There was positive agony in die glance that she directed unwaveringly eastward. Another figure. This one might be Eddie, she assured herself. As the man, one she had never before seen, walked under a bright light, Dot suffered no disappointment. She was conscious of the fact that she had really known from the start it was not Eddie. Stupid, to try to fool herself.

Well, she would wait no longer. He wasn't coming. She knew what she had to do. She had to go to his house and find out what had kept him. She couldn't go home and sleep without knowing. Perhaps he was sick—Dot hastily snipped her thoughts off there. She was going to give him a piece of her mind, that's what she was going to do. How did a guy get that way? Letting her stand out in the rain like a sap. She wouldn't do that for the Pope. Where did he get that stuff, anyhow?

She knew his house though she had never before been

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 in it. Madison Avenue. The inevitable brown stone that needed no "Vacancy" sign in the window to identify it. On either side, similar houses flaunted similar announcements.

A girl in a bright blue slicker ran up the stairs whistling, took a key from her pocket, and opened the door. Dot thanked her as she too passed into the house. The bright blue slicker disappeared into the gloom at the top of the green-carpeted steps. Dot stared around at the hatrack where a deserted-looking shawl drooped drearily, at the dusty rolling doors that undoubtedly concealed the inevitable business couple in the inevitable "front parlor." From behind a door at the end of the passage Dot heard voices. One voice, a woman's, was shrill and grating. Dot recoiled from the idea of looking that voice straight in the eye and asking for Mr. Collins. Still she had to know why he hadn't come. Perhaps she could find the girl who whistled and wore a bright blue slicker. Dot climbed the stairs and looked around. Five doors. All closed. No sound from anywhere. Dot tried one flight higher. This floor had six closed doors to make the situation more baffling. She leaned against the banister rail trying to decide what to do. Then all at once there was music. An orchestra abruptly burst into music, oddly enough choosing the last six bars of a popular song to begin with. Dot was momentarily amazed. Then she smiled. A radio set. Probably Eddie's set, too. She was trying to place the room from which the music came when it was discontinued as suddenly as it had started. A second later it began again, loud but not clear as before. There was a shocking distortion to it now. Silence again. Then after a time, the music once more, loud and with perfect clarity, but only for a moment or two; then in the quiet that followed, Dot heard some one walking about. The door farthest away from her opened, and Eddie rushed out like

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 a cyclone. He was half-way downstairs before she could call him.

"Eddie."

"Oh, gee, Dot," he said and came up the stairs again.

"I was worried about you," she said. "I thought maybe— But say, you got a deuce of a nerve letting me stand in the rain while you play your set."

"They stuck me with it, Dot; at the last minute the boss wanted me to fix it. I brought it home. I can work better here. I thought you'd know I'd get there. I figured you'd sit in Loft's till I come."

"Well, I couldn't. How'd I know you'd come?"

"Well, Gosh, I never gave you a stand-up, did I? You seen just now how I was breaking my neck to get to you, didn't you?"

"Yeh," admitted Dot slowly.

"Gee, that set was a pipe to fix"—Eddie smiled reminiscently as he spoke—"once I found out what was wrong." He was silent for a time, thinking in terms of condensers and grid leaks. Dot watched him sulkily. He had enjoyed working on the set. He hadn't cared at all that that half hour could have been spent with her. "Want to see it?" he asked, brightly.

Dot followed him into his room. She knew it wasn't considered "nice" to go into a man's room, but with Eddie so enthusiastic over his mechanical skill she thought it would be placing a high value on her charm to object. She could fancy him saying, "Don't worry, Kid, I'm so interested in that set you don't look like anything to me!"

He closed the door and turned on the lights. Dot looked about and gathered an impression of a tiny room, a narrow white bed, a chiffonier, and radio parts that trailed their disks, coils, and plates over every visible flat surface. The window sill, the top of the chiffonier, the single chair, the floor, and the table that stood at the

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 window each bore a burden of radio equipment. Only the bed was saved, and Dot guessed that that was because Eddie hated to subject his treasures to constant rearrangement.

The set which he had repaired stood on the table in a space which had been hurriedly cleared for it. The floor whereon lay an overturned ash tray and many strange drawings with weird symbols testified to the swift, deft motion with which Eddie had provided a landing-place for the set.

"Ain't she a beaut?" asked Eddie.

"Sure is," Dot agreed, dully.

"Super het," Eddie announced.

"Is that so?"

"Bring in anything from KGO to 2LO."

"No kidding?"

"Sure. Wanna see inside?"

Dot looked obligingly inside. A lot of bulbs gleamed up at her and an unintelligible mass of metal and wire sat snugly, confident of admiration.

"Neat, eh?"

"Sure is." Dot yawned.

"See what I did on it?" asked Eddie.

Dot lost her patience then. "How the hell should I know what you did to it?" she asked. "For God's sake, I'm not Marconi or Edison or whoever discovered radio. I stand like a sap out in the rain waiting for you while you're getting everything from KGO to 2LO; then you have the crust to make me look at the damn thing."

Eddie walked away from the set and found a cigarette.

"All right, Dot, my mistake. It's my job, you see. I thought you'd be interested."

"I am interested, Eddie, but I can't know these things just natural. They got to be explained. Let's go to the movies, Eddie. Gee, I don't want you to be sore at me."

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 "I'm not sore at you. You're right. I'm a coocoo."

He walked to the window and stared vacantly for a second before saying "Look," in a low, disgusted tone. Dot looked. The rain was beating in slim gray sheets against the window, hitting the pane and spattering into thin, colorless wavy lines, trailing drearily for a second before joining other colorless wavy lines only to wiggle wetly into oblivion. Dot watched the drama silently.

"It's raining like hell," said Eddie. "Can't you wait till it lets up?"

"We'll wait downstairs, huh, Eddie? I feel funny here. Suppose your landlady should find me? She'd think I was a burn or something."

"She won't find you," said Eddie. "They don't expect nothing raw here. This ain't a twelve-dollar-a-day hotel."

Dot laughed a little nervously. She didn't want to splash through the streets again. She hated the thought of a movie with the smelly dampness of a thousand drenched coats. But it was dangerous, being here alone with Eddie. She knew it was dangerous. Often as they stood in her vestibule with their bodies pressed tightly against each other, she had been glad of the people who at intervals passed through the hall and forced them to spring guiltily apart. Here there would be no saving interruptions. Here there would be only Eddie and herself—only Eddie and herself. A happy tingle came over her as she realized their aloneness. Conclusive proof of the danger.

"Let's wait downstairs, Eddie."

"Go on. You crazy? It might rain for an hour yet. Who's gonna sit on the steps in that dirty hall when they can stay here where there's ash trays and things?" asked Eddie, stamping his cigarette into the rug with a practiced heel.

"Ah, come on, Eddie."

"No, you're crazy. Take off your things and wait here."

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 "Gee, Eddie, you're mean."

Dot walked to the chiffonier and gazed sulkily into Eddie's shaving mirror. Not a trace of powder remained to suggest the careful toilet she had made before going to Loft's corner. Solemnly she found her compact and daubed at her nose and chin. Her lipstick next, then a little vindictive yank at a wave that had slunk into obscurity beneath the soaked felt hat.

"Coming downstairs?" she asked, coldly.

"No, what's the use of that?"

"Then I'm going home," said Dot.

Eddie took a step toward her and surveyed her questioningly. He was sincerely puzzled at the tremendous point Dot made of getting downstairs. A dangerous situation to Eddie was a bulging hip pocket or a length of lead pipe. Anything else was a dame's excuse to pick a fight. Eddie didn't feel like quarreling now.

"Aw, stay a while, Dot. Look," he said with sudden inspiration, "wait here fifteen minutes, and if it ain't stopped raining I'll do whatever you want, or if it has stopped we'll go dance or something. What do you say?"

Dot hesitated and he followed up quickly: "Get your coat and hat off and smoke a cigarette with me. It'll do you good."

"Well, only fifteen minutes," Dot gave in.

She took off her coat and laid it over the iron foot of the bed. Her hat she perched on Eddie's clothes-tree, and he smiled at seeing it there. It looked funny as hell, he said to her. Dot's dress, blue satin with yards and yards of shining braid, was new, but he didn't notice it. Dot didn't expect him to. She would have told you that men never notice clothes.

"Sue Cudahy called me up at the office today," she said. "Pat's got a new job. He's up at a store on Washington Heights. They want us to go to the Poppyland Dance

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 Hall with them Saturday night. She said it would be better than last time. They got a new band there now. I told her I'd ask you about it."

"It's all right with me," Eddie said.

He sat down on the bed, and Dot moved restlessly about the room, pausing at the mirror and the window to pass disparaging comments on her reflection and the weather at each stop.

"Come here," said Eddie, suddenly.

"What for?"

"Come here."

Dot went to him, successful in her attempt to look wholly unaware of what he might possibly want. He pulled her down on his knee and kissed her. Dot laughed and scrambled to her feet.

"Oh, that's what you wanted! Gee, I thought you had something important to say or something. If I had known I wouldn't have come."

"Wouldn't you?"

"I should say not." But she was still laughing.

"It was a hell of a kiss with you busy trying to get away, and the first one tonight, too," he complained. "Let's try it again."

Dot shook her head.

"Well, sit down anyway," Eddie said. "You got me crazy, walking around like a wild animal."

She came over and sat beside him, knowing full well that he would kiss her again. Far better than Eddie did she know that tonight he would be difficult to manage. There were no sinister plans or expectations in his mind. There had been none when he had urged her to stay.

His arm went around her, and for a minute of silence they stayed so, leaning against each other. Eddie looked blankly at the wall. Dot busily pleated the braid on her dress. Neither of them knew how the next kiss happened.

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 Perhaps Dot suddenly raised her lips, or maybe Eddie stooped to them. It was a long kiss. It ended with both his arms around her and Dot's weight heavy against him.

"Getting hot in here," he remarked as they separated.

Dot giggled. Eddie always said that after the first lingering kiss, and Dot always giggled.

"Where's that cigarette you so rashly offered me?" she asked.

"Oh, I forgot." Eddie produced a package of Lucky Strikes and Dot took a cigarette. Eddie watched her as she lighted it.

"You'll choke to death," he said.

She was painfully conscious that he continued to watch her as she made a brave effort to inhale the smoke. Gee, let's see now, how did Maude do it?

"Here, quit torturing that cigarette." Eddie was grinding the sparks into the carpet, and Dot's objections counted for little.

"You don't know how to smoke, and there ain't no sense in learning, but there are some things come natural." He smiled at her and kissed her lips.

Dot's arms, so young and so pitiably anxious, despite her inner knowledge of what that night might mean, curled eagerly about his neck. His mouth was warm against hers. His face could be no closer to her; yet she had the sensation that he was drawing nearer, nearer. It was only when the kiss was over, that she found he had gently forced her head down on the pillow. She knew that she ought to sit up and pull the new blue dress with all its yards of braid down over her bare knees. She knew she ought to. She knew she ought to.

Another kiss, hot and heedless, made her breath come faster. She saw Eddie's eyes blue and narrow close to her, a vein in his temple throbbing spasmodically. He closed his eyes. To shut out the sight of her? Was he trying to

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 get himself under control? The thought perished when Eddie stretched himself beside her.

"Eddie, we must get up."

"Why?"

Yes, why? Well, because things happen, had happened to other girls. She tried to sit up, but he held her with one surprisingly strong arm.

"Eddie, I can't stay here. Maybe you don't know or don't believe that I'm a good girl."

"Who said you weren't?"

"You ain't acting as though you thought I was. You're making me lay here."

He withdrew his arm swiftly. "All right, Kid," he said. "I'm sorry. I thought you knew that with me you'd always be as safe as you wanted to be."

"Oh, Eddie, I didn't think you'd—you'd make me do anything."

He continued to look injured; so she kissed him, bending over him and running one hand through his hair. Again and again she kissed him till his arms were once more around her and she was lying with her breasts crushed against him and swelling just a little above the square-cut neck in the satin dress.

"Eddie, I love you so."

It was hardly more than a breath, but he heard her, and his embrace tightened. He knew what she wanted him to say. He ought to say it, but, damn it, he couldn't. Once said, the words would belie their sincerity, sound hollow and false and theatric. They embarrassed Eddie with their inadequateness. She waited, and he said nothing.

"Oh, I do love you." Dot fell back on the pillow and turned her face away.

Eddie lay with his eyes closed, one hand palm outward against his forehead.

In the moment of silence the long, wet fingers of the

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 rain tapped with dismal insistency at the window. Neither of them heard. Dot turned and looked at Eddie. Her hand wandered to his and crawled under his cuff, snuggling warmly against his pulse.

"I have to touch you if you're going to lie there," she said.

He smiled and pulled her to him. Their mouths melted together. Dot felt his hand on her knee. It was indecent. She could not discourage it without shaking off his kiss, and the kiss was very sweet. She wondered: if her stockings were not rolled, would it be so awful? She did not try to stop him and discovered almost immediately that that was a mistake. At this stage of the game, silence was obviously encouragement.

"Eddie, don't. You mustn't."

She felt that there was no ring of conviction in her voice. Certainly there didn't appear to be.

"Dot!"

"What? What's the matter, Eddie?"

"Nothing. Just—Gee, don't this get you at all?"

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you feel that we—that there should be more?"

"Eddie!"

"Oh, I know I oughtn't to have said that, but, God! Dot, I'm a wreck. You see, I ain't used to stopping. Do you get what I mean?"

"Yes, I get it."

"Well, it looks like a kiss or so is all you want out of this thing. You're not upset if we stop after hot loving."

"Is that so?" asked Dot, unexpectedly.

"Are you? Do you feel that there should be more?"

He sat up suddenly on the edge of the bed and looked down at her with hope and incredulity mingled in his expression. She said nothing. She was thinking of what it would be like to be a bad girl. People would know about

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 it perhaps. Eddie might tell. Then she'd have to go away to a place where nobody knew her.

"Dot, answer me."

She said what was on her mind. "I'd be a bad girl."

"No, you wouldn't. A bad girl is something different. You'd never let anybody else touch you, would you?"

"I don't know," she said after a minute's hesitancy. "I never thought I would let you go the whole way with me."

It took time for the full meaning of her words to penetrate. When it did he looked at her face and found that her eyes had been waiting to meet his. "Do you mean that you are going to let me?"

"I guess so, Eddie." Pause. "Yes, I'm going to let you."

"Now?"

"If you want to."

"If I want to? Gee, Kid, you say crazy things."

The girl in the bright blue slicker was the first one in the house to discover that the rain had stopped. She charged down the stairs, feverishly anxious to be out of the small, dusty room that was her home.

"It isn't raining any more," she shouted to her friend who had the first floor front.

"It will be teeming again in a minute," was the gloomy response.

"Don't be silly," said the girl in the bright blue slicker. She swung down the hall singing cheerfully. "It ain't gonna rain no more, no more. It ain't gonna rain no more. How in the world can—"

The front door closed with a firm and solid sound, cutting off any further repetition of Wendall Hall's weather forecast.

Upstairs, Eddie and Dot looked at each other with timid little smiles hovering about their mouths.

"Do you remember—" began Dot.

"Yes," said Eddie.

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the brown-and-white foyer she clung to him, and he knew that she was crying.

"Gee, Dot, don't do that. What's the matter? You make me feel like a dirty dog. It's my fault. I oughtn't to have talked you into it. Come on, you gotta go upstairs, Kid. Cut it out and powder your nose."

He hugged her silently. At the moment she needed a worldly lover who would tell her not to notice the herd save to pity them. She needed assurance, enlightenment. Eddie could not speak, for now in the sane, cold light of afterwards he, too, saw Dot as a poor misled creature whose reckless surrender must darken every hour of her future.

"I wish everybody didn't think it was wrong," said Dot, very low.

"I guess other people have wished that." He sighed heavily.

"Don't you suppose," Dot asked, "that somewhere there are nice people who would think it was all right?"

"Maybe in France," Eddie replied, doubtfully. "Even the high-toned people over there are kind of loose, I've heard."

"Gee, Eddie, I'll feel awful down at work. I bet the girls will be able to tell right off that I've gone bad."

"You gone bad? Gosh, Dot, don't say such things."

Dot fumbled for her compact. Tears had left slim, wavering traces in her rouge, and moisture had gathered her lashes into four dark points above each eye. Eddie surveyed her anxiously. Her brother was sure to know that she had been crying. He watched silently as Dot

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 spread the tiny cerise puff over her cheeks and touched her mouth uninterestedly with the lipstick. The powder failed her in her moment of need. Tears were apparently a poor powder base.

"Do I look all right?" she asked.

Had he risen to the occasion with a cheerful affirmative she might not have broken down again and cried, but he couldn't send her upstairs to that brother of hers with pitiful pink circles beneath her eyes.

"Oh, Eddie, Eddie, I can't bear it. He'll see it on me. He'll know what I've done and he'll kill me."

"The hell you say. Come on, Kid, this is the time I'm taking you all the way home."

"No." She shook her head miserably. "We went through all this once before, Eddie, and besides if you were there and he accused me of being no good, what answer have we got?"

Eddie kicked at the leg of one of the pensioner chairs.

"We could say we were going to be married," he replied.

"What good would that be? He'd find out we weren't going to be when we didn't do it."

Eddie shot a look at her under the brim of his hat. "I mean we would get married. Don't you want me, Dot? Wouldn't you marry me?"

"Oh, yes, Eddie, I'd love to. You'd never be sorry nor nothing. But I didn't think you meant that we'd really be married. I didn't think that you'd want me."

"I wanted you an hour ago, didn't I?"

She answered quickly. "That's something different. You've wanted other girls like that."

"Yeh, you're right, Kid. I got no argument and I can't explain. I'm too dumb. But this is different."

"But it's all right to tell them I'm going to be married?"

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 "Sure. Want me to go with you?"

"No. I'm not afraid now." There was a new note in her voice. She was almost the girl who had played the ukulele aboard the Burma. "I'll go up right away. Gee, Eddie, nothing matters now. When will we be married?"

"In the morning. We'll go down to City Hall and do it. I'll take the day off. Gosh, Dot, I'm happy, too. I never thought you'd—"

The rest of the sentence was lost as she flung her arms around him and kissed him. She ran up the stairs quickly and laughed down at him from the first landing. She had forgotten that she was a bad girl. Eddie had made everything all right.

"Good night, Kid."

"Good night, Eddie—darling."

Dot found Edna Driggs in the apartment. She was hanging curtains, or at least that is what she would have said she was doing. Really she was standing six feet away from the curtains telling Jim to pull up a little on the left side. Mr. Haley was reading the third installment of a thrilling serial.

"Hello, daughter," said he. "Are your feet wet? Better change your clothes at once."

"Oh, I'm all right." Dot brushed his solicitude lightly aside. She waved to Edna as she passed through the front room to lay her hat and coat away. Jim and she exchanged no greeting.

Dot lingered a while in her room, eyeing herself curiously in the mirror. Her eyes gleamed with unusual brightness, and Dot admitted to herself that any one who looked at her would know that she was carrying a secret which had suddenly become a very gladsome secret. She combed her hair vigorously. She felt terribly alive. She wanted to take a long walk or become otherwise energeti-

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 cally engaged. She was anxious to hear what Jim would say.

With her hair dancing in a gleeful little bush about her face, she returned to the parlor. Jim had stepped down from the chair and was regarding the curtains speculatively.

"Why the hell ain't you around once in a while to give a hand?" he asked Dot.

"She's more handicap than help," Edna returned swiftly. Dot smiled at her. Good old Edna.

"I got some news for you," Dot said to Jim.

"Spring it," he said.

"For you, too, Dad," Dot said. "Put your book down."

Mr. Haley set aside his magazine resignedly. Children were a trial at times. Edna waited and did a little guessing. She anticipated Dot's announcement.

"I'm going to get married."

Jim eyed her coldly. "Is that the way you let us know about it?" he asked. "I thought girls always brought their fellows around and showed them off first to their families."

Dot had backing now. It wasn't hard to answer Jim sharply. "I guess girls do," she said, "in families where they ain't treated like prisoners by their brothers."

Jim walked over to her. "See here," he said, "maybe you don't know it, but I've been a God damn good brother to you."

"In some ways," said Dot.

"In all ways. I've stood for murder from you. Many a fellow who was practically supporting his sister would have thrown her out if she came home at twelve o'clock from Coney Island after bumming around with God knows who. I guess you've forgotten that little happening."

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 up" by the USG. Rather, the materials recovered near Roswell were consistent with a balloon of the type used in the then-classified Project Mogul. No records showed any evidence that the USG recovered aliens or extraterrestrial material.

 * The USAF subsequently published a follow-on report in 1997, The Roswell Report: Case Closed, with additional materials and analysis which supported its conclusion that the debris recovered near Roswell was from the U.S. Army Air Force's balloon-borne program.

 * The alleged "alien" bodies reported by some in the New Mexico desert were test dummies that were carried aloft by U.S. Army Air Force high-altitude balloons for scientific research.

 * Reports of military units that allegedly recovered a flying saucer and its "crew" were descriptions of Air Force personnel engaged in the dummy recovery operations. Claims of "alien bodies" at the Roswell Army Air Force (RAAF) hospital were most likely the result of the conflation of two separate incidents: a 1956 KC-97 aircraft accident in which 11 Air Force members lost their lives; and a 1959 manned balloon mishap in which two Air Force pilots were injured.

The GAO's 1995 report on the results of its investigation found that that the U.S. Army Air Force regulations in 1947 required that air accident reports be maintained permanently. Four air accidents were reported by the Army Air Force in New Mexico during July 1947. All involved military aircraft and occurred after July 8, 1947—the date the RAAF public information office first reported the crash and recovery of a "flying disc" near Roswell. The military reported no air accidents in New Mexico that month. USAF officials reported to GAO that there was no requirement to prepare a report on the crash of a balloon in 1947.

Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program (AAWSAP) (2009–2012)/Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP)

Background: At the direction of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NM), the Defense Appropriations Acts of Fiscal Years 2008 and 2010 appropriated $22 million for the DIA to assess long-term and over-the-horizon foreign advanced aerospace threats to the United States. In coordination with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, DIA established AAWSAP in 2009, which was also known AATIP. The contract for this DIA-managed program was awarded to a private sector organization.

The primary purpose of AAWSAP/AATIP was to investigate potential next generation aerospace technologies in 12 specific areas—such as advanced lift,


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 "No," said Dot. "I haven't forgotten it." She touched her cheek gently, reminiscently.

"Yeh, I know I hit you," said Jim. "For your own good."

"Thanks," said Dot.

"I've supported this house, and I've been father and mother to you because Ma is dead and the old man ain't well. You got a hell of a nerve to tell me I've been a good brother in some ways and to calmly say you're going to be married."

"Why do you object?" asked Dot. "You don't even know the fellow.

"That's just why. He's some mug that you've picked up on a street corner, I suppose."

Dot flushed. Her eyes wandered to Edna for help, but Edna had strangely become the audience. For once she seemed no part of the Haley scene.

"I'll tell you what," said Jim. "Bring your boy friend up here. Let him meet your family like a decent fellow would want to do. After six months or so, when I've gotten to know him, if I think he's all right you can marry him."

"After six months!" gasped Dot.

"Yeh, after six months. What's your hurry?" Jim bent suspicious eyes upon her. "In a rush, eh? I thought so."

"What do you mean?" Dot's eyes were brighter now, and her cheeks red and hot.

"You know what I mean. I bet you gotta marry this guy. You probably should have been married to him months ago, you little bum."

"Jim, please." Dot studied the carpet, and in the silence that followed she added, "You don't know that I've done anything wrong."

"Don't I? Say, I wasn't born yesterday. You ain't the

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 strong, determined kind of girl. You wouldn't fight me. You'd give in and wait six months sooner than quarrel if you weren't forced to marry fast. Six months is no time to a girl who ain't expecting trouble."

"Jim, you're rotten."

"Yeh. Well, you can prove that you're not. Have the fellow call around and keep company for a while. If I like him you can marry him. If you say you won't do it that way I'll know it's because you have to marry him, that you've fallen for him."

Mr. Haley ceased looking agonized long enough to look disapproving. "Jim," he admonished.

Jim didn't hear his father. He plunged on, talking down into Dot's small, feverish face. "And if you make me believe that you went to this guy without being married to him, then, God damn it, I don't want you in this house!"

Dot flinched. "You're hard, Jim," she said. "It may be that I love him too much to wait."

"I know all those stalls, too. Well, are you going to have him call here and give me time to look him over?"

Dot shook her head.

"Then it's just like I thought," said Jim. "You'll do me a great favor if you get the hell out of here."

"Jim, where'll I go?"

"Go to your sweetheart. His bed will probably hold two."

Dot didn't move. She couldn't believe that Jim was ordering her from the house.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked.

She turned resolutely to her room. One could pack and pray that during the interval thus consumed Edna would speak.

"Where are you going?" Jim roared.

"To pack," Dot said weakly.

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 "To pack, eh? You touch nothing that's in that room, hear me? I paid for every damn rag you own. What you earn wouldn't 'a' kept you in bread and butter if I hadn't treated you a damn sight better than you deserved. You'll touch none of those clothes. You'll clear out of here as you are, and if you haven't any money you can probably get some before morning."

Dot stifled a sob. She turned to her father and searched his eyes appealingly.

"You heard your brother," said Mr. Haley. "If you have sinned, Dorothy, you must take your punishment."

"Sure she must take her punishment," Edna said. "And she'll get it, too. I'm surprised at her. Such a nice girl, too. Now that she's cut herself away from her brother she'll probably end up in the streets. Wasn't that what you were thinking, Jim?"

"Yes," answered Jim, "just about. And I'll not be sorry for her if she does."

"One wouldn't expect you to be, Jim," Edna went on. "But don't let her have it on you that you were cheap. Let her have her clothes."

"I paid for them," Jim objected.

"Yes, but don't be cheap. Let her find out that there'll never be another man who'll treat her as white as her brother did. Let her have her clothes."

Jim turned his attention to the curtains. "Get your dothes and hurry up about it," he spat at Dot. "Be out of here in twenty minutes and don't ever let me lay eyes on you again."

Dot packed. The two shabby, paper-thin valises that she used on her vacations were routed out from under the bed and dusted. Dresses, step-ins, stockings, hats, costume slips, sweaters. Everything was crushed into the bags. Dot wondered where she was going. She had just a dollar. To think that her life with her father and Jim

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 was to end this way. And Edna! Thoughts failed her on the subject of Edna.

She was ready now. Ready to walk through the parlor without a word to any of them. Ready to rove the streets till morning. She couldn't go to Eddie like this. The felt hat, still coldly damp, pressed against her temples. The coat, wet and heavy, depressed her.

In the parlor she paused for a speeding second. Mr. Haley was reading again with self-conscious absorption. Jim was yanking spitefully at the curtains, and Edna, bent over a sofa pillow, was plucking interestedly at the embroidery.

Dot walked slowly through the hall. Her valises were heavy. So was her heart. Suppose Eddie failed her now? Then there was only the poorly paid job and the fact that she was a "little bum."

The door closed upon her with a sad, muffled little sound. The trio in the front room changed their attitudes as her footsteps died away on the marble stairs. Mr. Haley looked up from his thrilling serial story and stared ahead of him with a blank, fixed look. Jim mumbled a curse and slumped into a chair. Edna grabbed up her coat and hat.

"Where are you going?" asked Jim.

"After the kid, of course, you hypocritical louse. You called her a bum, didn't you? And just because you merely suspect that she gave herself to a man. Well, you know that I did; so I just got an idea what you really feel about me. I'm sticking by Dorothy, see?"

And the door closed again, this time with a hard, firm slam that obviously carried the courage of its convictions.

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the corner Edna found Dot. She was standing in front of a shoe store that had been a saloon a few years before. The empty streets were drying gradually, sulkily, and a moldy-looking moon moved sluggishly between gray stripes of sky.

Dot said nothing. She watched Edna's approach curiously over the rumpled handkerchief that fluttered between her eyes and mouth with unnecessary, important little jerks.

"What are you waiting for?" asked Edna.

"Car."

"Where do you think you're going?"

No answer.

"Come on home with me, Kid."

Dot neither moved nor answered, and Edna laughed a low, reassuring laugh.

"Don't be foolish now, Dottie. You'll be better off at my house for the night than sitting around Penn Station."

"Aw, Jim'll be over to your place yelling some more."

"No," said Edna. "Jim won't be over." She put a hand on Dot's arm and pushed her into action.

"Look here, Edna. I ain't ashamed of nothing, see? Get that straight. I'd 'a' told Jim how it was if my father hadn't been there. Don't do me any favors thinking I'm the goat of Jim's peeve. He's right. I—I did fall for Eddie Collins."

"Oh, don't I know it, Kid? Come on, forget it."

"How do you know it?"

"I knew it the night you came over and got me to square things with Jim."

"It hadn't happened then, Edna."

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 "No, but I knew it was going to. It happened tonight."

"Yes, it happened tonight. And," said Dot, finding Edna's eyes in the glare of an are light, "I'm glad."

"Who you arguing with, Dottie? Who you trying to convince? I don't care a row of pins that you signed over all you have to Eddie Collins. All I'm asking is, will you sleep at my house tonight?"

Dot picked up her valise, and together they walked down Willis Avenue. Silently they marched past the dairies and lingerie shops, past butchers and milliners, grocers and hardware. At the crosstown tracks they paused for a moment to let a weary trolley take itself westward. It passed them, uttering a strange, weird noise peculiar to trolleys on damp nights.

Across the street the lights of Beck's bakery blinked affably.

"Let's get coffee and peach pie," said Edna.

Dot wordlessly followed her into the shop.

"Good evening, Mrs. Driggs," said the baker. "How's the little fellow?"

"Oh, he's fine," said Edna, "fresh as ever."

"Well, just like the rain tonight, you gotta take the bad with the good." Curious indeed is the hankering of the uptown tradesman to strew the path of his customer with gems of philosophical wisdom.

Dot was already seated in the back at one of the tables. She had unbuttoned her coat and was gnawing thoughtfully at a thumb nail.

"Say?" she asked when Edna had joined her. "Why did you seem to be on Jim's side up in the house?"

"Gee, you Haleys are dumb. I wanted you to get your clothes."

Dot smiled apologetically. "I thought sure you'd left me flat, Edna. I might have known that you wouldn't. Gosh, what'll Jim say to you when he finds out that you and me

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 are still friends?" Dot was too young and too interested in the string of events that had suddenly unwound themselves in her placid existence to notice Edna's expression or to give her a chance to reply. "I never thought I'd get married so soon," she said.

"Well," said Edna, marry in haste and repent at leisure,' or 'he who hesitates is lost.' Take your pick, Dot."

Dot smiled over at Edna. She felt cheerful and thrilled. Tomorrow she would be married to Eddie. Tonight she would sleep at Edna's house. Edna was her friend. Yes, tonight was all mapped out and tomorrow was her wedding day. The day after? Well, that would be passed in a sort of dreamy and very delightful stupor. She would be Eddie's wife. Nothing annoying was ever going to happen again. Nothing annoying—

"The first week I was married," said Edna suddenly, "I damn near starved to death."

"But I'll bet you didn't mind," said Dot.

"What do you mean, didn't mind? I could 'a' killed Marty. He lost his job right before the wedding, and I didn't want to postpone it. By the way, did you and Eddie get around to talking about anything besides how sweet you were?"

"He never says I'm sweet, Edna. He's a funny fellow. Funny that I should be so crazy about him. It ain't as though he was handsome either. But gee, Edna, he's so nice."

"Down to earth, Kid. Has he got any money saved?"

Dot blushed uncomfortably. This wasn't at all nice of Edna.

"Gosh, I don't know. He didn't tell me nothing about that, and how can you ask a fellow such a thing?"

"I'll ask him," said Edna.

"Oh, Edna, don't you dare. He'd be wild. He'd think that you were awfully nosey."

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 "No doubt," said Edna. "He's not crazy about me now; so I guess I'd better wait till you start to get slim before asking you over to dinner."

"It won't be that bad," said Dot, seriously. "I'll keep my job, and Eddie gets a nice salary. I'll bet it'll be grand."

"Well, if it ain't," said Edna, "it won't be because you looked on the dark side."

The coffee and pie arrived. Coffee in heavy mugs. Pie, a generous chunk with the crust lying loosely above the thickened mess of peaches. Edna picked up her fork with a brisk, businesslike gesture. Dot was less interested. After all, this was the eve of her wedding.

The pie disappeared. The coffee lingered.

"Edna," said Dot, "was the night you got married the first time Marty ever touched you? You know what I mean."

"Yes, and we'd kept company for three years."

"You were good, weren't you? Better than me."

"But I'm sorry now. Look how short a time I had him."

"Tough, Edna! Gee, it must be awful. I couldn't stand it if anything happened to Eddie."

Edna looked over at Dot's very young, very solemn face.

"You'd stand it, Kid. You'd be surprised what these old beans of ours will stand. But you probably won't lose him unless a blonde comes along."

The cue was given. It was time for the conversation to jump back to pointless pleasantries, but Dot still had another momentous comment which had to be made.

"I'd kill him if there ever was another woman," she said. "I might even kill them both."

Edna was happily absorbed in watching her empty plate. "Some more pie, Dot?" she suggested.

"No, I got enough pie. Sure, I'd kill the both of them."

Edna got up from the table. "Come on, Dot," she said.

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 "You won't get any sleep tomorrow night; so you'd better come along now."

Dot's quick blush rushed into action, and Edna laughed. She paid Mr. Beck his forty cents, remarking as she did so, "Miss Haley is getting married tomorrow."

"Fine. Good wishes," said the baker amiably. "Did you get a good man?"

"The best in the world," said Dot.

Mr. Beck's fat stomach shook delightedly, and his blond mustache quivered in sympathy.

"That's what they think, eh, Mrs. Driggs? A year from now she'll be saying— Ah, well."

A sudden sigh caused the happy stomach to rise and then fall dejectedly into still dignity. "Young love is beautiful, but like the flowers and sunshine, it passes quick."

"You old crêpe-hanger," said Dot.

"Ach, your love will be different. It will last for ever." The twinkle in his eye was of the variety which fears it will be overlooked.

In silence, Dot and Edna continued their walk. Dot still felt thrilled. She looked up at the skies. It seemed the thing to do with all this exultation. The sky was not a promising sight, but nothing could have quenched her buoyant spirits so long as she knew that shortly she would be Eddie's wife.

Edna's house. She had a hall, too. A long hall through which one had to tiptoe because the baby was asleep in the back room. Edna called him the baby, but of course he wasn't, although one did have to tiptoe. At the end of the hall there was an abrupt turn; once around the turn, everything was all right. Visitors could make all the noise they wanted to. They could play the Victrola or scream conversation at some one who might be right in front oi

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 the baby's door. Once around the turn, everything was all right.

The room found there was cut glass, or at least that was a first impression of it. There was an astonishingly large cut-glass lamp on the table, that had no proportionable relation to the rest of the room. The sideboard fairly sagged beneath the weight of nappies, ice tubs, and fruit bowls. The china closet flashed a glimmering, glassy smile, and on the window sill a vase with the fashionable "daisy cut" posed haughtily like a white and dazzling mannequin.

There were portières made of green plush ropes and a couch with a red, green, and yellow cover. The red predominated, and the couch opened—two items which had brought the couch and its cover to be part of the household effects of Mrs. Edna Driggs.

The wall paper was blue. The landlord had permitted Edna her own choice with the renewal of her lease two years before.

"The wall paper goes with my rug," she often pointed out to friends on their first visit.

Sue Cudahy had said, "It didn't go with your rug to the cleaners," and Edna had sort of lost pride in her wall paper since then.

Dot threw her hat and coat on the couch and sat down beside them.

"Hey, get up," said Edna. "What do you think we're going to do? Sit around all night and talk about what you would do if you caught Eddie with another girl? Get up. I'm going to make the bed."

"Aw, let's talk a little while, Edna, I ain't sleepy."

"That's tough, because I am. You can sleep next to the window where you can talk it over with the breezes."

Edna's words came from the closet, where she was tidily leaving her coat upon a hanger. Dot watched her as she rushed about, pushing the chairs this way and that

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 to make room for the ever-ceremonious opening of the couch. When the chairs had been grouped about in a perfectly suitable manner, Edna gathered her sheets and pillows together so that all would be in readiness.

"Look out," she said to Dot. Then, presto, the couch was a bed large enough for two. Edna could ill conceal the pleasure she felt at having played so important a part in this startling exhibition of modern magic.

"I wouldn't be without one of these sliding couches," she said, trying to make her voice sound casual.

"I could stand you being without one tonight," said Dot. "I bet I don't close my eyes."

"Well, if you insist on talking once I've said good night, I'll close them for you," Edna warned her. "Now hop out of your clothes and sleep your last time away from Eddie."

Dot undressed leisurely. Edna watched her from the bed and kept up a rapid flow of disgusted comments.

"Say, are you dying? Come on. You don't have to sew that ribbon now. Turn out the light, will you? I'm sleepy. Listen, Dot, tomorrow you'll be dying for another hour's sleep, and once my kid is up, your morning's rest is just naturally finished. Come on, will you?"

"I'll turn out the light, Edna, but I don't think I'll get in for a while."

"What are you going to do? Sit by the window and commune with yourself? Come on."

And in the end Dot climbed into bed and was asleep an hour before Edna.

The new day began with Floyd Driggs yanking impishly at Dot's hair. He was a solemn-eyed child, strangely unsmiling and incongruously mischievous. There was something vaguely Japanese in the small, wise face.

"Wake up, Dottie, wake up. You gotta be married. Who you gonna marry?"

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 Dot sat up briskly. No sudden realization of this day's significance dawned upon her. She had been conscious even in her sleep that this day was to be different from all others.

"Is Eddie here?" she asked.

The little boy shook his head gravely. "No one's here but me and Mamma and you."

Dot smiled. Of course Eddie wasn't here. He didn't know that she had spent the night at Edna's.

"Where's your mother?"

"Mamma's gone to the drug store to telephone. She says she's gonna tell your boss that you're very sick. Are you very sick, Dottie? Mamma says no use in you losing your job just because you lost your head. Did you lose your head, Dottie? Don't look like you did."

"Hush, darling," said Dot. "You talk too much."

"So do you and Mamma," said Floyd, in the tone of one who remarks on an interesting coincidence. "Why do we all talk too much?"

Dot lay down again. No use asking Floyd to go away while she dressed. She would have to wait for Edna to return and call off her child. Meanwhile it was pleasant just to lie there and think of Eddie.

The door at the end of the hall banged, and Floyd ran to meet his mother as though she had just returned from a tour of the Far East.

Dot jumped from the bed and slipped into a kimono which she found on a chair beside her. The storks flying across the crinkly material with gay disregard of what is expected in a stork's flight were supposed to conjure up visions of sparkling-eyed geishas and the flowery kingdom, but Hans Andersen was still too fresh in Dot's memory. It was Hans Andersen of whom Dot thought while Edna repeated her conversation with Dot's boss.

"I said to him, "Miss Haley has a terrible toothache and

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 she hasn't slept a wink all night and she's just drowsed off now and I hate to wake her.' 'Well, don't wake her,' he says. 'Let her sleep and tell her not to come in until she feels perfectly all right again.' That was nice of him, wasn't it?"

"Oh, he's a nice old duck," said Dot. "Shall I tell him tomorrow when I go in that I got married?"

"I would," said Edna. "He'll probably think it's a good joke about your friend pretending you had a toothache."

Dot sat down and began to pull on her stockings. If you rush downtown every morning at eight o'clock, you haven't the daily bath habit. You put on your stockings and then your pumps. You keep your nightgown on while you slide your chemise up under it. Then you take off the gown and go to the bathroom. You wash your face, neck, and ears and brush your teeth. Then you wash your hands and arms. Sometimes if there is a comb near the basin you experiment with different parts in your hair before the medicine-chest mirror. But whatever you do at that mirror doesn't count. Back in the bedroom, the actual hair-dressing is done. But before that you powder, your forehead first, working downward to your neck; then rouge on your cheeks, and next your lipstick is applied. Then you do your hair, and last you get into your dress, slipping it over your feet so as not to disarrange the hair. Now you're dressed.

"Edna, I think I'll go out and phone Eddie."

"Have your breakfast first."

"No, I'll be right back. It'll only take a minute. I think I'll phone the rooming-house. I don't think he went to work today and he's probably waiting for a call."

Dot went then, singing as she walked down the hall:

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 At the drug store she changed her dollar into silver and picked out a phone booth. She knew Eddie's number. In a minute the shrill annoyed tones of the landlady came over the wire.

"Could I speak to Mr. Collins, please?"

"Who?"

"Mr. Collins."

"Mr. Carlton?"

"No, Mr. Collins. Eddie Collins."

"Oh, no. He isn't here any more. He moved."

Silence.

Then Dot heard her own voice asking, "Are you sure? He lived there last night."

"Yes, I know. He moved early this morning."

"Oh," said Dot.

The landlady was back in her kitchen feeding her family of cats before Dot remembered to hang up the receiver.

Steady. No panic now. One more place to get him. He must be there. He must be. Dot waited, listening intently. Every click on the wire made her brows draw together nervously. She stared into the blackness of the mouthpiece, waiting—waiting.

"Hello," said a curt businesslike voice.

"Hello," said Dot. "Is this the Uptown Radio Shop?"

"Yes."

"Is Eddie Collins there?"

"Who?" The voice had grown surly and less businesslike. This female obviously was not going to buy a radio set nor even have her battery charged.

"Eddie Collins."

"No."

"Do you know where I could get him?"

"Nope."

"Does he—does he still work there?"

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 propulsion, the use of unconventional materials and controls, and signature reduction.

Although investigating UFO/UAP was not specifically outlined in the contract's statement of work, the selected private sector organization conducted UFO research with the support of the DIA program manager. This research included: reviewing new cases and much older Project BLUE BOOK cases, operating debriefing and investigatory teams, and proposals to set up laboratories to examine any recovered UFO materials.

AAWSAP/AATIP also investigated an alleged hotspot of UAP and paranormal activity at a property in Utah—which at that time was owned by the head of the private sector organization—including examining reports of "shadow figures" and "creatures," and exploring "remote viewing" and "human consciousness anomalies." The organization also planned to hire psychics to study "inter-dimensional phenomena" believed to frequently appear at that location.

DIA did not seek, nor specifically authorize, this work though a DIA employee set up and managed the contract with the private sector organization.

On 24 June 2009, Senator Reid sent a letter to then Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn III requesting that AAWSAP/AATIP be made a DoD Special Access Program. Deputy Secretary Lynn declined to do so based on the recommendation of then-Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, James R. Clapper, Jr., that such a designation was not justified.

Just prior to DoD's cancellation of the program, the private sector organization proposed as a new line of effort to host a series of "intellectual debates" at academic institutes to influence the public debate, which included hiring supportive reporters and celebrity moderators. The goal of this proposed public relations campaign was to assume that "E.T. visitations are true" and that the moderators would steer debate away from "dead-end discussions" and the "morass" about discussing "evidence." A stated goal of this proposal was to increase public interest in government "disclosure" around the "E.T. topic" and explore the consequences of disclosure on the public.

Results: The AAWSAP/AATIP contract with the private sector organization produced exploratory papers addressing the 12 scientific areas tasked in the contract's statement of work. These scientific papers were never thoroughly peer reviewed.

AARO has yet to uncover any other substantive UAP case work conducted by AAWSAP/AATIP. Instead, AAWSAP/AATIP reviewed a large number of Project BLUE BOOK and private cases and conducted interviews of UAP observers and conducted unrelated work on alleged paranormal activities at the private sector organization's property in Utah.

AAWSAP/AATIP was terminated in 2012 upon the completion of its deliverables due to DIA and DoD concerns about the project.


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 "Who wants to know?"

"I do. I'm the girl he's engaged to."

"Oh, no. He won't work here no more. I fired him this morning for robbing the cash register."

Here was humor. Dot recognized but did not welcome it.

"Did he leave?" she inquired.

"No, I'm telling you I fired him."

Dot hung up the receiver after having said thank you. One would never discover from this feeble wit whether Eddie had quit his job or was still there. This was the sort of man who is convulsed at the mention of twins and who slips castor oil into his friends' coffee cups.

Dot went back to Edna's. She had left the door unlatched, and quietly she walked down the hall to the living-room. In the kitchen, Edna was chastising her son.

"And if you ever do it again I'll give you another slap. The idea! A whole pound of butter! Do you think butter grows on trees? I told you to put a piece of butter in the frying-pan."

"Well, that was a piece, Ma."

"And no back talk either. The idea!"

In fact it seemed that the idea was the thing which irritated Edna more than anything else, the principle of the thing, as it were.

In pursuit of a tablecloth, she came into the living-room. Dot was sitting at the window staring out at the clothes lines heavy with frolicsome white shapes.

"Can you beat that?" demanded Edna. "A whole pound of butter the kid throws into the frying-pan."

Dot had gathered as much. She turned and offered a horrified shake of her head in comment.

"The whole pound. I wasn't watching him, and before I knew it, it's all melted. Did you get Eddie?"

"No."

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 "No? Where is he?"

"I don't know and I guess he don't want me to know either."

"What's this?" The tragic fate of a whole pound of butter suddenly seemed very unimportant.

"He's moved from his house without leaving a message for me, and they wouldn't tell me nothing at the radio shop."

"Hm." Edna sat down. Her face wore an expression of deep reflection. She was recalling her glimpses of Eddie, what he had said, how he had acted. In the end she patted Dot's hand comfortingly.

"He'll be here. There's a mistake somewhere."

"Yeh," said Dot bitterly. "Last night."

"Oh, you're one of those trusting girls, eh? When you can see everything you believe it, but if the light goes out for a second you begin to doubt."

"No, but oh, Edna, don't it look funny? He's moved away, and if he wanted to find me, how could he? He don't know I've left home."

"Don't be a mug, Dot. What's more natural than that he should come here?"

Dot got up from her chair and walked to the couch. "It's more natural," she said, "that he wouldn't want to marry me at all. He's like all the rest of the men."

Edna laughed. "Listen to Experienced Agnes," she said to the daisy-cut vase.

"Well, gee, Edna, you don't have to have gone with a million men to know that they don't want to marry you after you've fallen for them."

"Movies, Kid, movies. This is real life, and Eddie's a real fellow. If he didn't want to marry you, he'd never have told you he would."

Dot's lids drooped over her eyes. "You're just trying to cheer me up," she said sulkily. "You don't like Eddie

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 and it ain't natural you'd be praising him so if you were saying what you really think."

Edna's lips curled with exasperation. "Right," said she. "I'm just being Pollyanna. Eddie's a filthy skunk. He never intended to marry you, and by now I'll bet he's half-way to Australia. What should he marry you for? He done his dirty work and is probably laughing a whole string of ha-ha's. You might as well become a streetwalker now. That's all that's left for you. As for myself, I'm going to the kitchen to save that piece of salt pork from Floyd. All men are up to destruction."

So saying, Edna disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. Dot considered the room uninterestedly. What was it all for? Something that Sue Cudahy often said came back to her: You're born, you kick around here for a while, and then you die. Sue Cudahy indeed! That she should complain! It wouldn't have been Sue to let one rainy night ruin the rest of her life. And if, by any chance, Sue had been frail, it would have been like her to spend the night in her lover's bed in order to get him down to City Hall early.

Edna called from the kitchen, "Come on, Dot, have some eggs and coffee."

"No, I don't think I want any, thanks. I'm going out for a while."

Edna appeared on the threshold. Her eyes were no party to the expression of disgust with which her lips were twisted.

"What do you mean, out? Where will you go?"

"Oh, for a walk."

"Don't be a fool. Have some coffee."

Suddenly Dot was crying. Great, splashing tears fell unhampered to the gay little pink ruffle that trimmed her dress.

"Oh, Edna, I'm so miserable."

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 "I know it, Kid, but Eddie will come. I know he will."

"He won't. He won't. Why should he?"

"Because he's wild about you."

"He couldn't be wild about anybody, Edna, he isn't that kind."

Dot's head fell to her arm, and she surrendered with a perverse delight to being as miserable as the situation called for. Floyd came from the kitchen to watch. He was interested but rather hoped that Eddie wouldn't come. If Dot got married she'd never be able to stay over night at his house any more. Floyd knew.

Dot's sobs continued. Edna smoothed the silky brown bob and murmured encouraging words, to no avail.

"Snap out of it, Kid," said Edna. "I'll have the neighbors in asking what's the matter if you don't shut up."

For answer Dot's weeping increased.

"You never do things by halves, do you?" Edna asked.

Dot raised a tragic face from her sleeve.

"No, I wish I did, and I wish I hadn't given in to him."

Edna envied Dot. She herself was past the age where there was compensation in dramatizing a bitter disappointment.

"Get this straight, Kid," she said, catching Dot's tearfilled eyes. "Whether you go through life with Eddie or without him, remember that you didn't give in to Eddie. You gave in to yourself."

"Yes, but he ought to come. I want him so."

"He'll come."

"Never—never—never."

The doorbell rang. Dot jumped and made a frantic daub at her eyes. "Probably a peddler," she said, but not very successfully. Floyd ran to the door, Edna followed more leisurely, and Dot stood in the doorway, looking down the long hall.

It was Eddie. Edna had been right. She wasn't, how-

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 ever, the sort of person to turn to Dot and announce triumphantly, "I told you so." What she said was to Eddie, and it was very low. Dot at the end of the hall thought it sounded like "You're a fine bozo."

"Eddie's here, Eddie's here," shrieked Floyd.

Eddie followed Edna into the apartment. He clutched Dot's hand as he passed her, and they walked into the living-room.

"I was up to your house," said Eddie. "The old man was there. When I told him I was gonna marry you today he looked kind of like he didn't believe it. He said you'd moved; so I come on here. Anything wrong? You been crying."

Eddie planted a foot on one of Edna's chairs and rested contentedly.

"Well, it looked funny," Dot explained. "Your landlady said you'd left there, and the radio man wouldn't tell me anything. Gee, I didn't know what to think."

Eddie laughed easily. "Gosh, women are fools." He looked at Edna as though expecting her to agree. "You didn't think I was going to take you to live in a room the size of a closet, did you? With a single bed and one chair." If the mention of the single bed was out of order, nobody noticed it, and Eddie continued. "My landlady didn't have a double room; so I moved across the street. She was mad, that's why she didn't tell you. I'd 'a' got here earlier only the boss had a couple of jobs he wanted me to look at and I thought it would be just as well if I didn't lose my job today."

Edna and Dot exchanged glances.

"Now, Dorothea, do you suppose you could stand the sight of some coffee?" asked Edna, witheringly.

Dot smiled from Edna to Eddie and back again. They met her smile indifferently. It wasn't a very encouraging bridal party. Edna looked as though she had had just

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 about enough nonsense, and Eddie, having taken his foot off Edna's chair, wandered about uneasily.

"Come on, Dot," he said. "Never mind coffee. We'll get it somewhere outside."

"Her master's voice," remarked Edna.

"Edna has coffee waiting for me," said Dot, unhappily.

"Oh, don't bother about that," Edna hastily answered. "Run along, I'll be glad to see you on your way."

"Aren't you coming with us?" Dot paused in the act of planting her cloche firmly on her head and stared at Edna.

"With you? I should say not. What, me go all the way to City Hall with what I got to do today?"

"Please, Edna, to see me married."

"No. Just bring back the certificate and I'll believe it."

Dot's eyes wandered to Eddie. He was sitting on the window sill, tapping the floor with his foot. She telegraphed him a message of distress to which he responded feebly.

"Sure, come on with us, Edna."

Edna shook her head. "No, you'll manage fine without me."

Eddie bore her refusal heroically. He shrugged his shoulders, and his eyes remarked that you couldn't force a person into accompanying you to your wedding. Dot picked up her suitcase, and Eddie took it from her.

At the door she flung her arms around Edna's neck and kissed her. "By, Edna, darling, thanks a lot for everything and I'll be up to see you tomorrow night."

"Good-by, dear. Good-by, Eddie."

By," said Eddie.

Floyd's impromptu nine thousand, four hundred and eighty-two followed them out to the street.

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