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 because it was right across the rue from the place where we'd have to draw on our letters of credit from time to time. The nearness to our pieces-of-eight was all this inn had to recommend it and, really, the prices were positively brutal!

Well, for years both me and Hazel had heard what a wild and wicked village Paris was and we set forth to look it over with delicious little quivers of anticipation romping up and down a couple of backs that would give Kitty Gordon pause. We're rarin' to go where deviltry was rampant and we wished to be thoroughly shocked or get our money back, one or the other!

However, as neither of us is in the habit of commuting between Gotham and Paris, we didn't know where to look for a thrill. Several sightseeing invitations were filed with us by the usual tourist parties from Idiotic, Nebraska, and Senseless, Iowa, but these were rejected with thanks. We'd watched these scissorbills perform on the way over and neither of us had any desire to deliberately take punishment in habit-forming doses.

A sign outside the hotel manager's office boasted that they had somebody inside on exhibition who could speak English. That was a barefaced lie, as we found out when we interviewed this braggart. His name was Duprez and he rolled a nasty eye at us and shrugged a vicious shoulder, but honestly he spoke English as if

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 he had picked it up in Afghanistan! M. Duprez gave us the only two chairs in his office and bowed incessantly, while Hazel opened her "French in a Twinkling" and hastily scanned the pages.

"Listen, Mister Monseer," she says, "parley vous English, siv vous play?"

"But yes," says this master mind, "and Mademoiselle spiks vairy well Français, no is it not?"

"I love that!" says Hazel, a bit steamed. "What are you doing—clowning?"

"Oh, not of the all, Mademoiselle, not of the all!" says Dizzy. "Of how do you must have my assistance?"

"We crave excitement!" says Hazel. "We got a yen to see Paris and see it right, get me? Eventually, why not now? Where do we go?"

"Ah?" says Duprez, with plenty hand waving. "I would offer the Champs Elysées, the Louvre, the Arc-de-Triomphe, la Place de la Concorde, le Palais de Justice, le"

"For crying out loud!" butts in Hazel impatiently. "We don't wish souvenir post-cards, we want to step out and get some laughs. We'd like to personally inspect the Latin Quarter, the Montmarte, the Dead Rat Café, the Follies—eh—Bergerear, or what have you?"

A wicked grin appeared slowly on the face of M. Duprez and he commenced to swell up like a mump.

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 He gazed longingly first at me and then at Hazel and winked, quite suggestively. Hazel's lovely eyebrows lowered and then without any preliminary she stepped over and soundly slapped the gentleman's face.

"Keep your thoughts out of your eyes, Frenchie!" she says, three icicles on each word.

To my great surprise, our charming vis-à-vis didn't appear to be the least bit offended at being smacked in the profile. Really, he seemed to take it as a matter of course and simply distributed a pleasant smile evenly amongst us both. Then, having failed to build himself up with us, he suggested that we hire a guide for a week and we'd see all the Paris we could take. We decided that was a good thought and ordered one. Still smiling, Duprez pressed a button. It worked and pretty soon in came Mr. Guide.

Honestly, this specimen was about the size and complexion of a demi-tasse and looked like an escaped murderer, hungry for another victim. But Duprez assured us that the newcomer knew more about Paris than Victor Hugo and likewise spoke sixty-nine languages, or two more than there are. We found out later that he spoke the last two better than the others. He was a wow, no fooling!

Hazel sternly commands M. Duprez to proposition our guide in English, so we'll know whether we're getting a pushing around or not.

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 "But certainment Mademoiselle!" says Duprez and turns to the guide. "Pig!" he says courteously, "prepare now to escort those lady from here to there with the utmost speed and precision. Comprenez vous? Do you afford them enough of the merriment they will enrich you with two hundred francs. Show them the this and show them the that. Do you but call me one improper name, I will have those gendarmes at your heels. Allez!"

The guide let forth a moan and wagged his head from side to side. "Playmate of dogs!" he says to M. Duprez, with characteristic old world politeness, "cochon, descendant of thieves—I ask three hundred francs for those magnifique service I do for those beautiful mademoiselles. Name of a name of a name of a"

"We'll give you one hundred francs and not another nickel if you cry your eyes out!" I cut him off. "Come on, guide, do your stuff!"

"Yes," says Hazel, stamping her foot, "finish your act some other time. Let's go places!"

"Allons!" says the guide—and the panic was on!

Well, to dwarf a tall story, we frittered away almost a week and two barrels of francs seeing Paris, and really I must say that we were a bit disappointed with the results. The well known town just didn't click! Most of the time it rained day and night in a way that

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 nobody but Noah could appreciate and we both caught beautiful colds. The population conducted itself quite decorously, as far as me and Hazel were able to see—musical comedies, Americanized French farces and joke books to the contrary. In fact, Hazel gloomily remarked that she'd had much more fun in Paterson, N. J., and she don't think the vin ordinaire of La Belle France is a fearful lot better than the drug store gin of La Belle United States. Well, really, that's what I call carrying patriotism to the extreme. I've been in Paterson and I've also tasted that pharmaceutical poison!

Our guide, who got intimate enough with us to disclose his name as Georges and his home as Morocco, took us to theaters and cafés in Montmartre alleged to be the deadfalls of the apaches and their wild women. Tomato sauce! As Hazel and me are case-hardened Broadwayites we found the jollity and attempts at the daring a bit forced. To tell you the truth, the greatest excitement we were having was trying to order a meal in a language we neither spoke, read, wrote nor understood. Honestly, the so called wicked Montmartre as displayed to us by Georges of Paris and Morocco reminded me of Philadelphia with a bun on!

We were fed up with the French capital and about ready to check out of it when along came William and we learned about Paris from him.

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 Hazel blew into our hostelry from a shopping expedition one afternoon with a gentleman escort, and as that was not what she told me she was going shopping for, I sat erect and took observation. Busy doing nothing, I'd been waiting for her in the reception room and that's where she introduced me to her find as William Richardson Van Cleve II, son of the billionaire near-beer king. I threw him a smile and shook hands pleasantly enough, but that didn't mean I was positive he was really as advertised. Bill was young and distinguished looking and there was something about his face that was strangely familiar to me. I was satisfied I had seen this fellow somewhere before, but I couldn't remember where. Ever have a face slip your memory like that and annoy you to death?

Strangely enough, a swiftly passing glint of recognition likewise lighted up William's eyes as he saw me—in fact, we both remarked on the thing but were unable to place each other, then! When the charming Hazel introduced me to William as "Gwendolyn Calhoun, of the Virginia Calhouns," I was a bit startled to say the least! A few minutes afterwards I got another shock when Hazel's heavy boy friend called her "Miss Deveraux." Although I was plenty amused and much mystified by this strange thomas foolery on her part, I remained loyal to the young lady and played

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 up to the deception, though intending to ask her for the answer at my earliest convenience.

William worked fast and managed to make a dinner engagement with us for the following night—not a difficult feat. Almost immediately afterwards he bowed out, carelessly remarking that he must hasten away to cable his brokers "regarding a million dollar deal" he was negotiating in the rue Wall, New York. As William airily made this announcement, the hypnotized Hazel, who hates money the same way J. P. Morgan dislikes a ticker, looked at him swooningly. But really, as I've met two hundred thousand of these boys at the St. Moe switchboard whose patter is the same as William's, I regarded his vanishing shapely back through narrowed eyes and began to get thoughtful. Oh, lots thoughtful!

In the privacy of our boudoir that night, Hazel furnished me with a complete inventory of William Richardson Van Cleve II. From Hazel's prejudiced viewpoint, Bill was something more than the feline's haberdashery and she had stumbled across him under double romantic—almost movie—circumstances. While shopping in one of Monsieur Rue's cute little alleys, she had mislaid her sense of direction, and her inability to talk any more Paris than a rabbit had made her predicament real serious. As if that wasn't more than ample to drive our heroine to distraction, along came

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 one of those desperate apaches we'd been dying to see, snatched Hazel's purse and was running away with it, when Hon. William Richardson Van Cleve II appeared on the scene. William ran the thief ragged, caught him, cuffed him soundly and restored the wide-eyed Hazel's purse. You can't laugh that off and Will knew it, so still working with smooth and effective speed he then introduced himself to Hazel and took her to luncheon. There you are—simple, wasn't it?

But really I've learned to become millionaire-proof and was only mildly interested in William, who so far had thrilled me about as much as it thrills a camel to look at some sand. What I was exceedingly interested in was in keeping the fun-loving Hazel from harm in gay Paree. So I cut in on her cooings about William the great.

"Listen, young lady," I says severely, "I have a few questions to ask you. What's the big idea of tagging me 'Gwendolyn Calhoun of the Virginia Calhouns' and telling that big—eh—your boy friend William that your name's Deveraux?"

Hazel smiles like a baby—an impish one.

"What's wrong with those names?" she asks me. "I think they're real cute."

"Outside of the fact that they're not ours, there's nothing the matter with them," I admit. "But if you

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 wanted to give William a-run around why not say we were Cleopatra and Salome and be done with it?"

"Too common," pronounces Hazel. "And anyhow, neither of us are those kind of girls and you know it! But you take Miss Deveraux and Miss Calhoun and there's a couple of names that mean something. There's—well, there's stuff to them, if you know what I mean. They're aristocratic and they just ooze Fifth Avenue. I certainly wasn't going to tell William Richardson Van Cleve, second, heir to the near-beer millions, that I'm Hazel Killian, a show girl, and you're merely a phone operator!"

"Why not?" I demanded, commencing to burn a trifle. "I've been connected with some of the best families in New York!"

"By telephone!" sneers Hazel cattily. "No, the switchboard operator and the chorus girl thing is out and if you tell William different I'll be off you for life. I'm not going to kill this cotillion leader's interest at the very start, when I'm more than an even money bet right now to drag him to the altar!"

"I think you're hysterical myself!" I says. "If you wanted to offer a tasty cognomen for William's enjoyment, why didn't you introduce me by my real name—isn't there a world of class to Gladys Murgatroyd?"

Hazel looked pensive. "That name does smack of the drawing room," she says, "but then it also has

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 a phony sound. It's always struck me as apple sauce and I wouldn't risk it with such a judge of aristocratic names as anyone entitled William Richardson Van Cleve second must be!"

Don't you love that?

Well, honestly, Hazel raved about sweet William until something like two Her lifelinglifelong [sic] ambition had been to pull a Follies, viz., a first class elopement with the handsome handicap of some wealthy family, and Mr. Van Cleve II looked like a wonderful opportunity.

"Maybe we'll continue around the world from Paris on our honeymoon," she remarks dreamily, "I'd love to see the road to Mandalay that Shakespeare wrote that song about."

"It wasn't Shakespeare, it was Longfellow," I corrected her. "Do you mean to tell me that this William asked you to marry him on a three hour acquaintance?"

"Well—yes and no," says Hazel. "He hasn't asked, but he's certainly looked matrimony and don't think he hasn't!"

I realty couldn't give Hazel an argument on that. My girl friend has baby-stared into plenty masculine corneas and she certainly should know!

Nevertheless, I wasn't satisfied that William Richardson Van Cleve II was all he appeared to be on the surface. Somehow I distrusted his too self-assured manner and I was no little suspicious of his nonchal-

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 ant use of the noun "millions." The familiarity of his face puzzled me, too. I began to feel some real alarm for my enthusiastic roommate.

"Hazel," I says seriously, "you better go slow or you'll win yourself a lot of grief. Paris is full of these sleek young wolves who prey on innocent little girls like us. I'll bet the first thing you know that synthetic millionaire's son will be putting the bee on you for beaucoup francs. He"

"What an awful squawker you're getting to be!" butts in Hazel, burning up. "Always putting in a rap for somebody. I imagine you think Dempsey used a hypodermic on Firpo! Listen, tend to your own knitting. I'm nobody's fool and any member of the needless sex who could get a dime from me could also send a flock of camels galloping through the eye of a needle!"

The debate over William got so warm that I finally turned the light out and stumbled asleep, leaving the angry Hazel talking matters over with her own sweet self.

However, although me and Hazel have known each other personally for years we're still good friends, so as usual the next morning we declared an armistice, spending most of the afternoon dolling up for our dinner engagement with William. We'd each had the presence of mind to imbibe in evening gowns of a most

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 intoxicating nature, and both of us can wear anything and start an epidemic of neck-stretching anywheres from beach to ballroom. When William arrived in immaculate evening dress, as the saying goes, he really seemed to be a bit dazed by the combined effect of me and Hazel on his vision. He bucked up manfully, however, and took us to Ciro's for nourishment.

Well, except for the irritation I felt at being unable to remember where I had seen this young lady-killer before, the evening was a success of the first water. Me and Hazel attracted as much attention as a lump of sugar would from a famished fly, the handsome William was two feet past perfection as a host, the dinner was a famine victim's dream and the wine exceedingly better than the Long Island Scotch current in New York. As I was supposed to be something from Virginia, I switched my patter from Broadwayese to "you-all" and "suh," and I was careful to call a door "doah." This had Hazel on the verge of convulsions but seemed to goal Mr. William.

Will spoke French as if he'd been born in the Louvre, so we wisely left the selection of the foodstuffs to him. That was certainly a good thought, because the near-beer king's descendant turned out to be an artist of the old school at making a menu mean something. Never in my young life have I witnessed anyone order food with the care and deliberation that Mr. William Rich-

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 ardson Van Cleve II used to pick each dainty from the bill of fare. Honestly, you'd think our lives depended on the result of each decision he made from soup to nuts. He captured the open respect of the haughty head waiter, while our own garçon fairly fawned on such a master at eating. The various wines, different for each course, came in to William in their original baskets to be discussed at length; the meat, fish and fowl were first brought in uncooked direct from the admiring chef, etc. Oh, this boy was good, he was for a positive fact!

Hazel couldn't get her adoring eyes to focus anywhere but on William during the entire evening and even I began to get slightly impressed. The young man's table talk was chiefly financial—really, he used dollar marks for punctuation. According to his own story, he squandered six months of each fiscal year in Europe, mostly at one of his father's flock of châteaus and villas. He wished we could see his male parent's little place at Nice, or perhaps the villa in Italy would be more interesting to a couple of aristocrats like us, or again we might find the castle in Burgundy more fascinating. Honestly, he had us dizzy!

By the time we began to toy with the coffee, William had reached the top of his game. Waxing confidential, he remarked that his billionaire father headed a syndicate that was negotiating with the German government

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 to pay their debt to the Allies. Just one thing held matters up, he confided to the breathless Hazel. His dear old dad insisted on fifty-two percent interest and the sweet old Germans couldn't see into it. We mustn't breathe a word of this, though—might cause international complications and that sort of thing. This sensational insight into diplomatic affairs put Hazel right into a trance and if William had asked her to wed him at that minute he would have certainly got service! All I could think of was that dish you make by boiling apples.

At first William divided his attention evenly between us, but finding me the hardest to promote he aimed his heavy artillery at the already overboard Hazel. They got along like brandy and soda. After the feast he suggested that we go to places and dance. No argument there. We accepted a taxi and the future money king took us to see what he called "the real Paris." He seemed to know the successful French hamlet like Nanook knows the North. William showed us all the devilish places we'd read about but had failed dismally to find ourselves, and really he spent important money like the next morning he was going to be executed. Most of his tips must have caused the recipients to throw up their jobs and open their own places, and said tips came from a bankroll that would baffle a particularly agile greyhound when it came to leaping over

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 it. When he said by-by to us at our hotel around four we were forced to admit we'd had a marvelous time. Hazel had a field day kidding me about my suspicions of the young man, and as I like fairness I had to confess that to date William checked up as bonded goods.

Well, William then began rushing us in deadly earnest, and honestly, trying to get rid of him was like trying to get rid of a cold in the head. He said it with everything from flowers to bonbons and was likewise a constant caller at our hotel, by phone or in person. His unusual mastery of the French language was of wonderful assistance in our enjoyment of our stay in Paris and his knowledge of where to go for the laughs didn't hurt either. I wanted to check out and leave the field clear for Hazel, but Hazel was indignant at the idea of me being a wall flower and William added protests that sounded sincere enough. So the three of us stepped high, wide and handsome all over Paris. Will was a glutton for punishment, taking us motoring, dining, dancing, to all the shows, fashion centers and even to the races, where we won a thousand francs each on his tip in the Grand Prix de Paris. Hazel, of course, was just one big smile surrounded by girl and even I had to grudgingly admit that as an all-around entertainer William Richardson Van Cleve II was mighty good company!

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 "I'd like your boy friend better, though, Hazel," I told my little pal as we prepared to retire the night following the races, "if only he would talk about something else once in a while besides himself, his family and his father's uncountable millions. I crave a little variety in conversation, if you know what I mean."

Hazel is pouring herself into a negligée that belonged in La Vie Parisienne and nowhere else. She sneers at me.

"Blah!" she says, "He's spent about three thousand dollars keeping us from yawning since we met him. I don't care what he talks about!"

That's the tip-off on Hazel.

A few evenings later we had a date with the faithful William to go motoring, but Hazel broke out with a terrible headache in the afternoon and by nightfall she was pretty low. So the auto ride was out as far as she was concerned, but she insisted that I go along with our mutual friend and not stay in on her account. She said she wished to write some letters and go to bed early; also, she most earnestly desired me to go with William so that I could find out what he really thought of her and report back. Really, I didn't like the job, but I do like Hazel, so with some misgivings I gave Will a treat by accepting.

O sole mia!

We rode to a cute little inn on the outskirts of Paris

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 and tore off another one of William's marvelous dinners, with some wine that was positively heavenly. I indulged very sparingly in the beverage. But William tied into that wine as if he's just staggered in from a week on the desert, and after either the third or the fifteenth bottle he got what I have often heard described as "mellow." He moved over beside me and captured my hand. I told him to be himself and drew it away, when to my great indignation he tried to kiss me. Boys will be boys!

When I repulsed William, he got more indignant than me. He said he couldn't understand why I should object to a mere innocent kiss, especially as Hazel hadn't! That last boast made me sit up and I regarded him with blazing eyes.

"You have kissed Hazel?"

"Dozens of times!" says William airily, and pours himself another Pol Roger.

Well, honestly, I was simply furious and I just sat there and glared at him. It wasn't jealousy of Hazel that got me red-headed, as William failed to panic me, but to me the most contemptible thing in the wide wide world is the Lothario who kisses and tells! I jumped up and ordered a rather frightened William to take me back to the hotel at once. All the way home he did aothing but beg me not to tell Hazel he had wanted to kiss me, but I gave him no satisfaction. Outwardly

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 I was cold and non-committal, but inwardly I was fit to be tied.

After thinking everything over, I made up my mind to rid Hazel of the kissing William, who I was positive would only make her unhappy. Knowing Hazel's disposition and temperament I realized it would be double useless to attempt to get her to give William the air on my say so, so I determined to bear down on William myself and make him like it.

When I got to our room, Hazel reared up sleepily in bed. "Well," she yawns, "did William talk about me?"

I gave her a queer smile. "I'll say he talked about you!" I says—and nothing more.

The very next morning I sent a long cable to a trustworthy friend in New York asking him to cable back the following to William Richardson Van Cleve II:

That, I expected, would be the end of Bill as far as me and Hazel were concerned!

A couple of nights later William took us to dinner at

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 his hotel and the cable was delivered to him at the table right before the dessert. Honestly, I was just quivering with excitement and never took my eyes off his face while he read it. For the shortest of moments William's brow contracted and then he flashed us a dazzling smile.

"By Jove!" says William, "I've just made half a million in wheat. We'll drink all the wine in Paris tonight!"

With sparkling eyes Hazel leans over and pats his back, laughing joyously, but I was absolutely dumfounded by his 42-carat nerve! Of course I knew how that cable actually read, since I composed it myself, and I had half a mind to ask him to let me see it and then show him up. On second thought I decided not to for various reasons, one of which was the thousand-to-one shot that William really had put over a fast one in the stock market.

However, the next day while Hazel was out on one of her endless shopping trips, William paid me a call. Really, he was an entirely different person from the boasting, free-spending, smiling young man of the past. His first act was to pull out the cable he got the night before and show it to me without a word. As I expected, it read exactly as I had written it. He then handed me another one, saying he had just received it. This one read:

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Honestly, I was positively flabbergasted by this coincidence. Imagine his getting a legitimate cable making him a total loss just after I had faked one doing the same thing! I regarded him coldly.

"Well?" I says.

"Well," says William, "the funny part of this is that I have no father and no mother. I'm an orphan!"

Heavens above!

While all I could do was to stare at him in amazement, William told his tale. It was one for the book, it was for a fact! His name was not William Richardson Van Cleve II, it was William Simmons, and he was by no means the heir to the near-beer billions; he was a waiter!

As if that wasn't enough, this young man calmly tells me he knows I'm a phone operator and no "Calhoun of Virginia" and that Hazel is a show girl, because he saw us both frequently when he worked in the main dining room of the Hotel St. Moe. That's the reason his face was so familiar to me. It also explains his ability to plan a kingly dinner—why shouldn't a waiter know how to order food?

"William," I says, when our hero stopped momentarily for breath, "with your undiluted nerve you should

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 be able to sell electric fans to the Eskimos! Why put on the dog with us and tell us all those fairy tales about yourself?"

"It's been my ambition for years to come to Paris," he says, coolly taking a cigarette from a box of Hazel's on the dresser, "and this trip represents my life savings. You girls happened to come along and I put over a harmless deception to satisfy a romantic yearning, that's all. Besides, didn't you also deceive me about your social position?"

"Well, really—I—we" I began to stammer, a bit confused.

"That's all right," interrupts William, with a lordly wave of his hand. "Don't apologize. I guess we're about even—except for one thing. I blew all my money on you and your girl friend and now I'm flat broke! I don't know anybody in Paris, and as the high life is all over for me I must get back to the United States and go to work again. If you'll loan me the fare, I'll look you up at the St. Moe when you come back and repay it. If you don't, I'll just about starve to death, that's all!all!" [sic]

Honestly, as I sat there thinking this amazing young man over I was as much sorry for him as I was angry. After all, he did spend a flock of money on me and Hazel. He pleaded with me for nearly an hour, and though I felt I was insane to do it I finally loaned

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 him three hundred dollars on his promise to go back to America at once.

Not two hours later a messenger comes up to my room with a neat little package. In it is three hundred dollars and the following note:

I had scarcely finished reading the missive and counting the money when Hazel flounces into the room I thought I might as well get things over and be done with it.

"Hazel," I says, "I'm awfully sorry for you, but you might as well forget about William. He's gone out of our lives forever!"

To my great surprise Hazel appears highly pleased.

"Good!" she says. "I was afraid we'd have trouble giving that big clown the gate, but my scheme must have worked!"

"Your scheme?" I says dizzily.

"Sure!" says Hazel complacently. "I sent him a cable supposed to have come from his mother, saying he was cut off without a dime!"

Honestly, I'm at the gasping stage!

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 "I thought you were overboard over William," I says. "What happened?"

Hazel hesitates and looks confused.

"Well, Gladys," she says, "I—of course, what you do is your own business and—I—oh, well I just got disgusted with him when he tried to kiss me and said he had kissed you!"

Then we got together and compared notes on this gentleman.

I told Hazel of William's confession and when the astounded Hazel learned she had been seeing Paris with a waiter, really, she went right up in flames. She raved around the room for half an hour and then suddenly grew quite calm.

"Well, one consolation is that Mr. Waiter will be in the Bastile here tonight!" she says. "He took me for three hundred to get back to the United States, and being sore over that stuff about him kissing you I gave him the money in marked bills. He's going to be arrested for masquerading as Van Cleve's son, and when they find that marked sugar on him—good night!"

At that I sat right up straight in my chair. A wild thought had suddenly struck me.

"Hazel," I asked with deadly calm "when did you loan William that three hundred?"

"About two hours ago. Why?"

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 "Just a minute!" I answered and dashed into the other room.

Feverishly I opened my purse and dragged out the money William had sent back to me. As I feared, each bill was marked with Hazel's initials!

Well, it didn't take me long to figure things out, and although I was plenty enraged, I had to give William credit for a rather cute performance. He had borrowed three hundred from each of us, saw that Hazel's money was marked and promptly used it to pay me back! Not bad, what? My sense of humor rose above my anger and I handed the raging Hazel $150.

"Hazel," I says, "I don't blame you for being sore. That's the way I feel too. But I really think we might as well split William between us and charge the difference to experience!"

"And he told me we'd spend our honeymoon in Camembert!" moans Hazel, cramming away the bills and wiping her tearful eyes.

"You're crazy," I says. "Camembert's a cheese!"

"Well," says Hazel, "so was William!"

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or three days ago me and Hazel, suddenly getting a rush of gray matter to the head, decided we should begin overhauling ourselves, mentally and—excuse me—physically. Our first imitation was to appear au naturel before some assorted and exorbitant specialists on this and that, passing the critical eyes of the medicos with flying colors. In fact there was plenty color flying in our cheeks when we left!

Well, as the charming doctors enthusiastically corroborated the report of our pier glass, we saw no reason to attempt improving two such physical masterpieces as ourselves, so we took up the subject of mental culture by hauling off and buying a set of the literary classics. Incidentally we ran into a booklegger from who Hazel bought a few suppressed gems at twenty-five dollars each and delivery right to your home in the original covers. Most of them were just one-half of one percent to me, really!

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 Being on the wagon as far as moonshine novels are concerned, I personally began getting scholarly with a cunning little volume entitled "Evangeline" from the busy pen of Harry Longfellow. None of it rhymes but it's much better than the film. Hazel said it was apple sauce to her and a steal on veronal for narcotic purposes. Still, as I twice caught Hazel cheating by passing up the dignified immorals—no, I don't mean immortals—for a copy of "Racy Stories," I can't give her much as a critic.

However, in wading gamely through "Evangeline" I came across the following:

Really, I was a bit surprised to find that Mr. Longfellow was superstitious, everybody speaks so well about him. But mentioning horseshoes reminds me of Mike McGann and Mike McGann reminds me of so many things that—well, I'll tell you about Miguel and the equine's boots.

If you laugh it's your own fault!

We stumbled across Mike McGann on the way back from Europe. Our meeting with the highly entertaining Michael was a bit unconventional and that sort of thing, I mean to say, as the jolly old Londoners remark—in books. Hazel insisted on coming back by the via

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 novelty; a work may be original even though it closely resembles other works so long as the similarity is fortuitous, not the result of copying.”). No one argues that Wildflower Works was copied; it plainly possesses more than a little creative spark.

The judge was also at a loss to discover “what about the exhibit is original. Is it the elliptical design? The size? The use of native instead of non-native plants? The environmentally-sustainable gardening method to which ‘vegetative management system’ apparently refers?” Kelley, 2008 WL 4449886, at *6. It is true that common geometric shapes cannot be copyrighted. See, § 503.02(a)–(b) (1984); 2  § 4:17 (2010). And “[i]n no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such a work.” 17 U.S.C. § 102(b).

The Park District suggests that Wildflower Works is an uncopyrightable “method” or “system,” and is also ineligible because its design uses simple elliptical shapes. The first of these arguments is not well-developed; the second is misplaced. Although Wildflower Works was designed to be largely self-sustaining (at least initially), it’s not really a “method” or “system” at all. It’s a garden. And Kelley is seeking statutory protection for the garden itself, not any supposed “system” of vegetative management encompassed within it. Regarding the use of elliptical shapes, an author’s expressive combination or arrangement of otherwise noncopyrightable elements (like geometric shapes) may satisfy the originality requirement. Roulo v. Russ Berrie & Co., 886 F.2d 931, 939 (7th Cir.1989); 2 § 4:17 (Geometric shapes or symbols cannot themselves be protected, but an original creative arrangement of them can be.).

The real impediment to copyright here is not that Wildflower Works fails the test for originality (understood as “not copied” and “possessing some creativity”) but that a living garden lacks the kind of authorship and stable fixation normally required to support copyright. Unlike originality, authorship and fixation are explicit constitutional requirements; the Copyright Clause empowers Congress to secure for “authors” exclusive rights in their “writings.” art. 1, § 8, cl. 8; see also 2  § 3:20 (2010) (“[T]he Constitution uses the terms ‘writings’ and ‘authors;’ ‘originality’ is not used.”); id. § 3:22 (2010); 1  § 2.03[A]–[B] (2004). The originality requirement is implicit in these express limitations on the congressional copyright power. See Feist, 499 U.S. at 346, 111 S.Ct. 1282 (The constitutional reference to “authors” and “writings” “presuppose[s] a degree of originality.”). The Supreme Court has “repeatedly construed all three terms in relation to one another [or] perhaps has collapsed them into a single concept”; therefore, “[w]ritings are what authors create, but for one to be an author, the writing has to be original.” 2 § 3:20.

“Without fixation,” moreover, “there cannot be a ‘writing.’ ” Id. § 3:22. The Nimmer treatise elaborates: "Fixation in tangible form is not merely a statutory condition to copyright. It is also a constitutional necessity. That is, unless a work is reduced to tangible form it cannot be regarded as a “writing” within the meaning of the constitutional clause authorizing federal copyright legislation. Thus, certain works of conceptual art stand outside of copyright protection."


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 of Great Britain, in the hope that the cute Prince of Wales would peg her and forget about Buckingham Palace.

"There's a boy that's going to get somewhere," says Hazel. "I predict a great future for him if he works hard and tends to his knitting!"

The good-looking H. R. H. Edwards is sitting pretty at that, now isn't he?

Well, we did see the Prince of Wales at the Shawftsbury Theater, but though by actual count he once glanced in our direction, Mr. Wales was Hazel-proof, in spite of the fact that Hazel is the real McCoy and has been a disturbance amongst the annoying sex since she tossed away her rattle for a powder puff. So having failed to panic royalty and being as homesick as Robinson Crusoe, we checked out of London and started for the Gem of the Ocean.

A bone-chilling, foggy drizzle was falling and by the time we slid into Southampton it was coming down the same way it does at Niagara Falls. Hazel, the demon shopper, became crazily infatuated with a silk and lace shawl in a shop window and insisted on buying it, in spite of my advice to the opposite. Really, we had more trunks as it was than a herd of elephants! They were all full of stuff to delight the customs boys and while me and Hazel have singly and together smiled our way out of many a critical situation, these

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 hard-boiled customs inspectors can't be bribed with mere eye work. They have too strong a sense of duty, if you know what I mean. That's just a near pun, so don't bother with it.

Anyway, Hazel has a bad habit of being as close as a tie game when it comes to circulating her own dimes, even if she has been the reason for lots of other people's gulden changing hands. Haggling over the price of this shawl ate up so much time that when we were about to leave the store and a hoarsely fatigued saleslady, we discovered to our horror that we had just twenty minutes to make our boat!

We dashed madly outside in the downpour of rain and gazed wildly around for a taxi. There was exactly one in sight and we yelled at it just as a similar yell came from across the street. The cab skidded dizzily to a stop and lifting our skirts we braved the elements and such male eyes as were passing, including the taxi chauffeur's. I yanked open the door of the cab, telling the goofy-looking driver to keep his eyes front, and just as me and Hazel are about to step excitedly in an undersized and equally excited youth starts inside through the opposite door.

We hesitate in amazement and then the damp and angry Hazel finds her voice.

"Get back in line, Dizzy," she tells the surprised stranger. "This is our cab!"

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 "That's what you think!" sneers the butter-in. "I was on the runnin' board of this boiler before it stopped. Run along, I'm busy. This here taxi's engaged!"

"Try and get it!" snaps Hazel, fit to be tied.

"Try and stop me!" grins this modern Chesterfield.

"If you were a gentleman," says Hazel, curling her cheery lip, "you wouldn't argue with a lady!"

"People which lives in gasoline tanks shouldn't throw matches," comes back our opponent coolly. "If you was a lady you wouldn't butt in where you wasn't invited!"

Meanwhile the taxi driver is a neutral but much interested audience. Covered from head to foot by the British equivalent of a slicker, the rain meant nothing in his young life! He was likewise nobody's fool. With great presence of mind he shoves the meter over to "Waiting Time" so that no matter who wins the argument he won't be the loser!

"You're nothing but a little English cur!" says Hazel calmly to the other occupant of the taxi.

He immediately busts out laughing. "Ha, ha!" he chortles. "The funny part is that I ain't English at all!"

It was our turn to grin.

"But you admit being a cur?" asks Hazel scornfully.

"I don't admit nothin'!" says the little fellow warily.

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 "You got to see Silent Sam Shapiro, my manager. He does all my business."

Don't you love that?

Well, while all this trifling small talk is being had, both of us and the pest are taking unwilling shower baths of typical cold Southampton rain.

We're making no progress at all, with Hazel and her tête-à-tête getting along like a couple of headache powders in a glass of water. So I took a hand.

"Listen, young man!" I says, smiling sweetly, "we've got about fifteen minutes to catch a boat for America and"

"Why didn't you say you was Amuricans?" interrupts the stranger. "I would of worked different!"

"Did you expect us to wave flags, you little boob?" snorts Hazel. "Hurry up and get away from that door—we're late!"

"Stop squawkin' and leave me alone, will you?" complains our young friend. "So you're Amuricans, hey? Well, well, well! So am I. I come from Noo Yawk. Where did you cuteys blow in from? Ain't this Southampton a fearful slab?"

"Shut up!" almost screams the nervous Hazel, with a hasty glance at her watch. "If you don't go away from this cab I'll"

"Oh, be yourself, good-lookin' and quit gettin' rosy with me!" says the Noo Yawker peevishly. "I'm

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 shovin' off for Broadway on the same scow you're goin' back on. Flop down there and we'll all take this taxi!"

Once in the cab and out of the flood, introductions came easily. I identified myself and the still seething Hazel, and our companion broke down and confessed to being Mike McGann, an aspirant for the batamweight boxing championship. When Hazel had digested that startling information she sniffed contemptuously and turned on the ice for Michael. The combination of "Mike McGann" and "prize-fighter" murdered her interest and Mike just couldn't sell himself to Hazel.

On the other hand I didn't find the not bad-looking Michael hard to take at all. It's a cold fact that he had the earmarks of a fighter, both of 'em being rather soggy and swollen—but now that the transportation problem had been solved he really seemed to have quite a winning personality. To get my troubled mind off the way our taxi was skidding all over the slippery wet pavements I engaged Mike in conversation. It wasn't a hard trick.

"What were you doing in Europe, Mr. McGann?" I asked, with a show of interest that burnt Hazel up.

"Who—me?" says Mike. "Oh, I just been acin' around. A week ago I win a brawl at the National Sportin' Club. What a swell trap that is and how they

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 put on dog—nothin' but dress suits and dukes! They thought I was a mug but that ain't what they think now! I knock off a boloney by the name of Drummer Tansy with one cuff in the pan. The second time I feint him he become a canvas inspector, goin' down without bein' hit and takin' the count! The big mackerel had fifteen pounds on me, too. Them milk-fed English scrappers is just giggles to me, no kiddin'. All they got is their trunks!"

"You hate yourself, don't you?" sneers the bored Hazel, yawning and looking out the taxi window at the rain.

"No, I don't hate myself, sweetness," says Mike, not a bit ruffled. "But when a guy's good he might as well admit it!"

I gave Michael his laugh and then I remarked that it surprised me to find out that a boy of his small size—he didn't weigh a grain over 118—should be a pugilist. I had the idea that most boxers were built à la Dempsey. This appeared to slightly steam Mons. McGann.

"So you think it's funny a little guy should be a box-fighter, hey?" he says indignantly. "Where d'ye get that stuff? The greatest battlers the world has ever saw was little guys and if you don't think so you're crazy! Ain't you ever saw a pitcher of Napoleon?"

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 "Do you compare yourself with Napoleon?" inquires Hazel, with withering scorn. It was wasted on Mike.

"Why not? The French is as good as we are, ain't they?" he says.

That won and Hazel threw up her hands with a whinney of resignation!

Deliberately turning his back on the outraged Hazel, Michael then began promoting himself with me. After he told me that I was as soothing to the eyes as boric acid and I told him to behave or I'd give him the last lesson first, he explained the weights in the different classes of pugilism. His life-long ambition was to become champion in his own division, the bantam-weight, and according to Mike that ambition would be realized shortly after he arrived in New York. Honest to Brooklyn, he had more confidence in himself than a deep-sea diver ducking his head in a bathtub!

Plenty amused by Miguel's English and quaint philosophy, I looked forward to lots of guffaws on what wotld otherwise be a brutal boat ride back home, as I'm no sailor. I was not disappointed regarding Mike's entertainment value. Believe me, he certainly gave us service!

About to the dock our taxi suddenly came to a slithering stop, with a screech and burning of emergency brakes. To the accompaniment of some choice cockney oaths from our chauffeur, a muttered

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 curse from Mike that was at least clean and faint screams from me and Hazel, we're all tumbled together in a heap by the unexpected halt. As the taxi slides on again Hazel sticks her head out the window in the rain and remarks that we almost ran over a cat.

"A cat, hey?" says Mike tensely, grabbing Hazel's arm. "What color, kid?"

"It was a black cat," answers Hazel frigidly, removing Michael's hand from her arm the same way she'd pick up an overripe tomato. "And my name is Miss Killian—not kid!"

"Your name will be mud now!" he tells Hazel. "Can you imagine a black cat crossin' our path? Ain't that a tough break, when we're late and everything? I betcha we miss the boat or crash into somebody or the wheels'll come off this tin can we're in, or else"

"Or else they won't!" butts in Hazel testily. "Be still, you little crape-hanger. I think there's a touch of undertaker in you!"

"I wouldn't be surprised," answers the future bantam-weight champion. "Layin' 'em out cold and stiff is my business! If you're a good girl I might let you see me fight when we get to Noo Yawk."

"I'm not in the habit of going around with prize-fighters, thank you!" snaps Hazel.

"Well, a round is all I generally let 'em go with me!" says Mike.

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 "I wish you would stop talking to me—I don't like you!" says Hazel furiously.

"See if I care!" answers Mike with an untroubled grin. "If you don't quit speakin' out of turn I'll street you from my taxi and let this English rain make a burn out of your permanent wave!"

Honestly, the lovely but torrid-tempered Hazel, used to having the boys jump through hoops at her command, was commencing to get red-headed at being unable to do anything with Michael's delivery. I stepped into the breach with a change of conversation, to ward off violence!

"Do you really believe a black cat crossing your path is bad luck, Mr. McGann?" I ask him.

"Absolutely!" says Mike emphatically, now on what I was soon to find out was his favorite subject. "And before this day's over you'll be believin' it, too. One or all of us is due for a piece of grief. I never seen that sign fail! Why, listen here, kid, about a year ago I was out in"

But really, I don't want to detain you too long. While Hazel alternately yawned and giggled and I let out careful inches on a smile, Miguel seriously told us of various cruel and unusual misfortunes that had befell himself and friends as the direct result of ebony kittens scampering across their right of way. Honestly, he put us both in hysterics when he wound up his

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 mournful anecdotes by taking a well-worn rabbit's foot from his pocket and rubbing it vigorously to offset Mr. Black Cat's bad luck!

Me and Hazel were beating a continual nervous tattoo on the floor of the taxi with our slippers as the minutes ticked off and traffic jams kept us crawling toward the pier in that horrible rain. And yet they like it over there! I remember when I once bitterly complained of the smoky haze in London, a shop-girl, sick and tired of trying to sell me a hat, told me that the British fog was "far better than the glare of your beastly American sun!"

Still, I suppose it's natural for people to brag about the climate in their home town, no matter what it is. Perhaps even in Hades the natives go around boasting to the new arrivals about the total absence of snow and the beautiful warm climate all the year round!

Well, when we finally arrived at the dock we had much less than ten minutes to get aboard the boat. Mike nearly swooned when in paying the fare he discovered that our chauffeur was cross-eyed. That and the black feline sealed our doom beyond a doubt, he gloomily assured us, and in spite of the scarcity of time he forced us to stand still till he'd repeated "Bread and butter, bread and butter!" ten times to foil the jinx. Mike was a hot sketch, really!

All Michael's baggage was already aboard the ship,

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 his manager having attended to that. Our trunks were below decks, but our suitcases—"boxes" as they call 'em in the United Kingdom—had been forwarded ahead and were still on the dock. We quickly identified them and Mike shooed us up the gangplank, telling us he'd bring our hand luggage along as there were no porters in sight. At first Hazel strenuously objected, on the grounds that Miguel was trying to put over a fast one. She informed me in a loud aside that Mike was probably a clever crook who had framed our meeting and everything else in order to abduct our suitcases. She said she'd as soon put him in charge of something worth money as she'd put a rabbit in charge of a leaf of cabbage!

However, I managed to chase her protestingly aboard, telling the obliging Mike to do his stuff and make it snappy.

Hazel's flock of hat-boxes caused all the excitement, and really within the next few minutes there was enough of that commodity to satisfy the most exacting! A shopper by birth, Hazel has attended all the sales in the world except the one Columbus took, and in Paris she just ran wild. The perspiring Michael was forced to make two trips with Hazel's baggage and just as he raced across the pier with his second armful of millinery the dear old gangplank was being drawn in. Honestly, from then on it was all slapstick, lacking

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 nothing but a director, a camera and a couple of union-pie-throwers!

Hurling the hat-boxes aboard, Mike made a praiseworthy but wild leap for the deck, lustily cheered by the delighted mob on the dock and the heavily thrilled me and Hazel. However, he turned out to be a very much better pitcher than he was a broad jumper. The hat-boxes landed K. O. but with Mike it was different! By an odd coincidence he missed the gangplank from here to Baluchistan and hit the water with a fearful splash. Me and Hazel were only two of the scores who shrieked and "Oh-ed!" while the laughing deck-hands fished him out of the water and pulled him aboard, limp, soaked and bedraggled. Try and keep an Irishman down with plain water!

Accompanied by a frantic young gentleman who we afterwards learned was Silent Sam Shapiro, Mike's manager, me and Hazel rushed down to where the water-logged Mr. McGann lay prostrate on the deck. The ship's doctor and some admiring volunteers were busy trying to bring him back to normalcy. Michael looked like a total loss when Silent Sam pushed his way through and scowled down at his unconscious meal ticket.

"The dizzy little stiff!" remarks Silent Sam indignantly to the world at large. "We got sixty thousand dollars' worth of box fights signed up and can you

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 imagine this bozo takin' a chance like that with my cut of the sugar?"

"You unfeeling wretch!" explodes Hazel, to my surprise. "He might have been drowned!"

"He'd just as soon play a dirty trick like that on me as not!" agrees Silent Sam. "When I first took hold of him he was as homeless as a poker chip, yet he ain't got a ounce of gratitude in his system for what I done for him. They don't make 'em no selfisher!"

We both glare at him and at that minute Michael opens his eyes, staring around vacantly. Then he sees me and a glint of recognition brightens his face.

"I told you that black cat and that cross-eyed banana which run that taxi would gum this trip for me!" he gulps almost triumphantly through chattering teeth. "Somebody catch me a cuppa hot coffee, I'm as cold as a pawnbroker's heart!"

Well, on the voyage home Michael McGann and his talkative manager, Silent Sam Shapiro, clung to us like bathing suits, honestly. While Michael was recovering from his spectacular dive into the briny, Silent Sam told us something about him. He was rushing his visible means of support back from unamended Europe to get him "off the gin and on the gym," as he put it. Yes, McGann was his real name and Silent Sam wouldn't let him put "One-Round," "Kid," "Hur-

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 ricane" or anything like that in front of it. Why? Look at the records of fistiana, says Samuel, and you'll see that few boxers called "Fighting" this or "Knockout" that ever held a title. The good ones are all plain Jack Dempsey, Harry Greb, Mickey Walker, Benny Leonard, Johnny Dundee, etc.

Sam also related how a couple of years before he had paid one Beansy Mullen five hundred dollars for Mike's contract and thought he got a bargain. The sport writers told him it was the same kind of a bargain as paying five hundred dollars for a doughnut would be. Samuel admitted that he and Mike wore straw hats in the winter-time for a while, but added he could sell Mike now for twenty-five thousand dollars easily.

"Sell him?" I ask, frowning. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself to hold that boy in slavery—to take part of his money when he does all the fighting?"

"How d'ye get that way?" says this master mind in amazement. "Managin' a leather-pusher's a tough racket. I got to figure out wise fights for Mike and rate him along, whilst all he's got to do is go in there with a pair of nice silk trunks on and take his pastin'!"

Hazel clucks her tongue and I curled my lip at him.

"Just what did you do during the war, Mr. Shapiro?" I ask him.

"I claimed exemption!" says Samuel promptly. "On

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 the grounds of double pneumonia. When I come out of the hospital I couldn't make the weight for the trenches. But I give my wife to my country without a whimper! I sent her across as a Red Cross nurse and"

"You're married?" I interrupted.

"Not right now," says Sam. "My noble wife figured I wouldn't be able to cope with that pneumonia so she hauled off and threw a divorce at me. I heard she wed a Frenchman."

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" I says.

"Why?" asks Sam. "It was the Frog's own fault, wasn't it?"

At that Hazel flung aside all pretense and laughed her head off. Honestly, anyone who can keep Hazel giggling seems to be able to have her friendship for the asking. So Silent Sam, being a gold mine of chuckles, found little difficulty in playing around with Hazel on the voyage back home.

While Silent Sam Shapiro devoted his restless energy to building himself up with the temporarily receptive Hazel, Mr. McGann tried his luck with me. Always for anyone who is trying to get somewhere, I gave Mike a lot of my time. Really, he was a good egg and one thing alone he did for me made him solid. It's a hobby of mine to fall a prey to seasickness, once aboard the lugger. Well, after watching my antics the first

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 day out Michael instructed me in a before breakfast exercise that to my surprise and gratitude cured me.

Apropos of nothing, the most amusingly interestirfg thing about Michael McGann to me was his absolute serfdom to superstition. Mike saw a "sign," good or bad—usually bad—in everything that happened during his waking hours and when he slept he found omens in his dreams. Neither me nor you nor nobody else could hope to remember all of Mike's "signs," but I'll put out a few of 'em here so you can get a sparse idea.

According to Michael, it was bad luck for a third person to walk between two others; to be the first man to enter the ring for a bout; to sing before breakfast; to fight or do anything of importance on Friday, the thirteenth; to step into a ring without his old cap and faded bathrobe; to break a mirror; to walk under a ladder; to spill salt; to open an umbrella in a room; to put a hat on a bed; to whistle in the dressing-room before a fight; to return to the starting point before reaching his objective without first counting nine; to dream of snakes; or what have your Really, Mike's "bad luck signs" came under the head of countless, and during the journey he went out of his way to call my attention to such of 'em as came up. His solemn warnings to Hazel had her continually on edge and kept Silent Sam busy apologizing for his gloomy little employee.

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 Regarding good luck tip-offs, Mike was a bit uncertain, as he was always looking for the worst of it. Four-leaf clovers, picking up pins, touching hunchbacks on the back, having a mole on the right shoulder and finding just about made up his list of "favorable" occurrences. As for a rabbit's foot, well—ask the man who owns one! Mike's catalog of good luck omens didn't contain many pages, but he was a constant reader of those it did.

"Don't mind that little clown," says Silent Sam one day when Hazel complained about Mike riding her for humming on deck before breakfast. "My athalete's stopped so many wallops around the ears I think it's gave him a slight touch of insanity, what I mean!"

The night before we moored at New York, Mike and Silent Sam oiled the steward for a private table for four and we had a very formal dinner party. Among other things, one question was all cleared up that eventful evening. Hazel had expressed a few doubts as to Michael's ability as a fighter, but she never did that thing again!

Our dinner was going along beautiful when the fireworks went off. Me and Hazel wore our most pulse-quickening décolletés, while the compactly built Mike and the nice looking Sam were very restful to the iris in perfectly fitting tuxedos. Many a glance of honest admiration flashed at our table and don't think it didn't!

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 In passing me the cream, Hazel happened to accidentally knock over the salt shaker and a lot of it spilled on the table-cloth. The rest of us didn't even notice it, but honestly the superstitious Mike's eyes bulged out a foot! He seemed positively horrified and told Hazel she would surely meet with awful misfortune if she didn't immediately throw some of the salt over her left shoulder. Impressed in spite of herself by Michael's gravity, Hazel obediently shook the salt container vigorously over her dazzling white shoulder and then the fun waxed fast and furious!

That salt hit an amazed diner behind us right in the eye and Silent Sam Shapiro threw back his head and laughed like a hyena. Mike contributed a guilty grin, but honestly me and Hazel were terrified! The redfaced victim rose and approached our table with mayhem in one eye and hot-blooded murder in the other. Equally flushed and plenty upset, Hazel began to stammer an embarrassed apology, but he cut her off quite nastily. Well, my girl friend's temper compares favorably with a wounded wildcat's and hot words flew back and forth like sparrows. When the unwillingly salted passenger intimated that Hazel and a lady were two different things, Michael McGann laid down his napkin and stood before him. The comparison in size was ridiculous, really. Mike wasn't a hair over five foot two and scaled under 120 pounds, but every ounce of

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 him was fighter! Hazel's vis-à-vis was almost a six-footer, but he was likewise middle-aged, puffy-jowled and paunched.

"Listen, you big parsnip!" says Mike, all business and looking it, "that stuff about this girl not bein' no lady is out, get me? I think I'll put you out too, just to be nasty!"

Whack! One of Michael's iron fists slammed into the big man's highly amazed tummy. Clunk! The other fist was buried to the wrist in the same place. This was repeated twice with lightning-like rapidity, and with a grunting gasp Mike's prey bent double at the waist, bringing his chin down just in time to keep an engagement with two terrible blows to that part of his anatomy. He fell with the usual dull thud, as if hit with a sledge! Confusion took complete charge for a few moments, during which our gay little party hurriedly scurried out on deck.

In the shadow and safety of a life-boat, Mike coolly wiped his skinned knuckles with a gaudy silk handkerchief and seemed to take the incident as a matter of course, blaming it on Hazel for spilling the salt in the first place. He knew something would happen, he says, but got no further! Me and Hazel, furious at the undesirable attention we had attracted, fled to our cabin, leaving Mike and Sam flat.

Well, that was the last we saw of Mike McGann and

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 Silent Sam on the boat. The fifth and sixth horsemen of the Apocalypse weren't even in sight the next morning when we docked at Manhattan, and I naturally thought they'd passed right out of our lives. Far be it from such! I hadn't been back on the job at the St. Moe a week when Michael and Samuel appeared on the scene. I tried to give them the air but that was a case of no can do, so I finally forgave 'em for what they did on the ship and in a couple more weeks they'd won a pardon from Hazel, too.

About that time me and Hazel were faced by a serious problem. We were getting a bit overweight as the result of the high life, the lolling around on chaise lounges and the rich foodstuffs we enjoyed on that wonderful trip abroad. The mere thought of double chins, washladies' busts and scrubladies' hips had us scared silly! We went on a diet, we took various reducing dopes, we walked miles, rowed boats and rode horseback in Central Park, took electric treatments—well, really, all we didn't try was cutting the surplus poundage off with a knife. At the end of three weeks I had picked up four more pounds and Hazel had accumulated seven!

As in the matter of my seasickness, the versatile Mike McGann again came to the rescue. He made us buy regulation gymnasium suits—except that ours were naturally silk—and put us through a course of scien-

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 tific reducing exercises on the roof of our apartment house daily. Michael knew what it was all about, as he'd frequently had to "make weight" for a fight. In two weeks me and Hazel had both regained our usual sylph-like mid-season forms, and we only stopped our open-air athletics when we discovered the windows of the surrounding apartment-houses filled with enthusiastic male spectators armed with field-glasses!

This platonic friendship between us and the boys continued smoothly, and I was genuinely interested in little Mike's dogged climb to the top in the fistic profession, which he called the "toughest game in the world." He won a couple of bouts in New York and once we went with him to see Frankie White, the bantam-weight champion, defend his title, as Mike was to be Frankie's next opponent. Before the main bout that evening Michael was introduced from the ring to the noisy crowd. There was a gentleman sitting next to us wearing a beautiful fur coat, and with great presence of mind Mike coolly borrowed the gorgeous garment to be introduced in, so that he'd "look like he meant somethin'," as he explained to the smiling owner. The hilarious mob was duly appreciative of the fur-coated challenger—especially the gallery!

A month later Mike and Sam left for New Orleans, where Mike was to engage in the battle of his career—a twenty-round quarrel with Frankie White for the

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 bantam-weight championship of terra firma. As Michael left Manhattan at a convenient hour me an' Hazel went to the station to wish him luck. I gave him a four-leaf clover to wear on his belt in the ring, and he was speechless with pleasure, but the next instant he gravely rejected Hazel's offering of a good luck swastika pin, on the grounds that anything pointed in the line of gifts breaks friendship. He promised to call me on long-distance immediately after the fight and tell me what happened, though the result was already a foregone conclusion to him. Mike modestly said that he'd lay Frankie like linoleum.

However, the day of the bout I didn't wait for Michael's phone call. Me and Hazel had gone crazy and bet five hundred dollars each on him at three to one odds and we were an inch from the grave with anxiety. I got a newspaper on the wire and found that our Mike had knocked out the unfortunate Frankie White in the fifth round and his visiting card now read, "Michael McGann, Bantam-weight Champion of the World."

"I liked that boy from the first minute I saw him!" lies the joyful Hazel as she collected her fifteen hundred dollar winnings.

Well, to my great surprise no message of any nature came from the victorious Michael via New Orleans, and it was a week after he became emperor of all the

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 bantams and returned to New York before I got word from him. Mike unexpectedly called on me at our flat one evening while Hazel was at the show shop doing her evening chores. Honestly, I was astounded at the change in his appearance and manner as I shook his limp hand. Instead of being pardonably proud of his brand new title, Mike looked peaked and sank into a chair with a gloomy sigh. You can picture my further astonishment when I congratulated him on being a champion, only to see him burst into tears!

"What on earth is the matter?" I asked him anxiously.

"That title ain't worth a dime to me, kid!" he moans. "Not a thin dime!"

"How come?" I gasped.

"Kid," he says, "this is a tough world! I cop the champeenship in my twelfth fight—ain't that a crime?"

"I don't make you at all!"

"You don't, hey?" groans Michael. "Well, then, listen—my first fight as champ will be my thirteenth battle, won't it? How in the name of Lloyd's George can I win that one?"

I stared at him for a minute and then sat down beside him, not knowing whether to bust out laughing or to be sorry for this poor little superstition-bound egg. I tried to argue him out of his silly belief that he couldn't possible win bout number thirteen, but I might as

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 well have tried to argue Bryan into coming out for the saloons! I really did want to help the melancholy Mike, however, so I racked my brain for a solution to his problem, being satisfied it was a real problem to a person of Michael's peculiar mental make-up. Finally the old brain-pan cooked up a scheme that I was positive would ward off the jinx.

"Look here, Mike," I says, shaking him out of his dismal trance, "if I help you ruin your hoodoo, will you follow my instructions?"

"I'll folley 'em anyways," says Mike. "I like you!"

I blushed thanks and continued:

"Very well. Pack your boxing gloves and go way out to some hick hamlet where they never saw or heard of you in their lives. Throw away your real name and use another one while you're there. Then take on some amateur for a bout—Silent Sam can arrange that part of it. You'll win that fight easily, but as it won't be for your championship and will never show in the records—in short, not an official bout—it won't count if you should lose, get me? On the other hand, if you win, why, that will take the place of your thirteenth fight and your first real battle to defend your title will be your fourteenth! What do you say about that?"

Michael, who hadn't missed a syllable, devoted a full minute to the sport of thinking. Then he rose and shook my hand, a smile on his face.

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 "I'll proposition Sam on the thing," he tells me. "I suppose I'm crazy to do this, as the guy says before twistin' the lion's tail, but—I'm goin' to do just like you said and see what happens!"

It took Michael just an hour to sell Sam, who escorted his mournful champion out to the sovereign state of Washington a few days later as "Knockout Sweeney."

Three weeks passed in review before Mike and Sam returned to Broadway and if you missed seeing Michael you never saw a wreck in your life, not even if you were aboard the Hesperus! Honestly, our little pal's face looked as if he'd deliberately held it against a particularly vicious buzz-saw over the week-end. Silent Sam told me the story while the battered Mike stood disconsolately by. Following my well meant advice, Sam had matched Mike with some unknown preliminary boy whose name they didn't even remember correctly. Nobody knew who Mike was, which was the only part of my scheme that was a success. Their intended victim turned out to be a surprise of the first water, giving Michael a terrible beating and all but knocking him out!

"This little tramp wouldn't untrack himself!" snarls Samuel. "He wouldn't fight—just went in there and dogged it. He didn't hit that tomato twice in the entire"

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 "How could I take that lucky stiff?" butts in Mike with his first show of interest. "How could I bounce him when he's got a mole on his right shoulder. Nobody can beat no guy with a mole on his right shoulder!"

That incident sort of disgusted me with Mike McGann and I firmly refused to see or talk to him any more. I guess it was two or three months before I heard of him again and then one day, idly glancing through the sporting page at the switchboard, I read where Mike was to defend his championship against one Half-Round O'Cohen at Madison Square Garden. Shortly afterwards Michael and Samuel arrived in person. In some unknown manner Silent Sam had coaxed Hazel into going to dinner with him between shows, had worked fast and won her over again for the time being. She helped him plead for Michael with me and—well, I made it a party of four. Mike kept his personality in high that evening and before we separated he'd managed to foist ringside tickets to his coming bout with Half-Round O'Cohen on me and Hazel.

On the afternoon of the big fight Michael bounded into me in an almost hysterical condition. He blurted out that he wasn't going through with the match as he'd just discovered he hadn't one chance in a million to win!

"We weigh in at two o'clock for the boxin' commis-

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 sion," wails Michael, wringing his valuable hands, "and when this Half-Round O'Cohen comes out to hop on the scales I like to drop dead! Who d'ye think he is?" I shook my shapely head. "He's the gil with the lucky mole on his right shoulder which made me like it out in Washington!"

Oo-la-la!

With a kind of gloomy humor Mike added that when Mr. O'Cohen in turn recognized him as the "Knockout Sweeney" he had thoroughly whipped months before, O'Cohen foamed at the mouth and uttered strange cries. No wonder. He'd been champion of the world for nearly six months and didn't know it!

Going further into the subject, Mike went on to tell me of a regular shower of bad luck omens that had hit him that fatal day. He'd broken a mirror, accidentally walked under a ladder, lost his rabbit's foot and also the lucky bathrobe he'd worn into the ring since he first began smacking people for pennies. In despair, he scurried to a fortune teller and the best she could do was to warm him to beware of a dark man.

"Well, don't speak to any dark men today, then," I says.

"It ain't a question of speakin '  to 'em. I got to fight one of 'em!" groans Mike. "This O'Cohen's a Mexican and he's so dark he looks like Goimany's future!"

Four hours of combined pleading and threats by me.

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 Hazel and Silent Sam were required to get Michael to start for the abattoir. The seats he's presented to me and Hazel were right up against the ropes and directly in his corner and we nervously smiled our moral support to a little fellow who certainly needed it if ever anyone did.

Michael used the privilege of a champion to cause a long delay which put the impatient attendance on edge, but he absolutely refused to enter the ring before Half-Round O'Cohen did—not if the customers cried their eyes out!

"The first man in the ring is always the last man to leave it!" says Mike stubbornly.

The wild-eyed promoter rushed to the boxing commission seated at the ringside and talked a bit. Under threat of being barred from working at his trade in New York State if he didn't behave, Michael entered the ring. He looked every inch a beaten man as he wearily flopped down on the little stool in his corner.

"Good luck, Mike—we hope you win!" I called up to him excitedly.

"I ain't got a Chinaman's chance!" whispers Michael, pushing away a busy handler and leaning over the ropes to us. "I just counted exactly thirteen sport writers sittin' around the ring!"

O'Cohen's seconds came over to examine the bandages on Michael's hands. One of 'em is humming,

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 "Oh, one thing I know and you can believe it, the first in the ring is the last to leave it!"

Mike moaned aloud and Silent Sam chased the grinning singer over to the other corner.

Introduction—challenges—wild and deafening applause—jeers—the bell!

Oh, that horrible first round! Hazel covered her face with her hands, but honestly the raw brutality of it fascinated me! Apparently hypnotized by the "lucky" mole on his opponent's right shoulder and the knowledge that this fellow had defeated him before, Michael took a terrible punching. Even a pantingly muttered "Bread and butter, bread and butter!" couldn't save him, though it highly amused the cruelly grinning O'Cohen. The mob, always with a winner in boxing as in anything else, stood on their chairs and howled for O'Cohen to "knock him for a loop!" He certainly tried, but Michael was game—beneath the bludgeonings of O'Cohen his head was bloody but unbowed! Occasionally Mike lashed out desperately with both gloves, but there was little heart in the efforts, both the delighted O'Cohen and the enraged crowd being quick to sense it. The dark-skinned challenger drove the tottering champion all around the ring, beating him from pillar to post till finally the tired Michael fell into a clinch in his own corner, right above me and Hazel.

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 "C'mon, you yellah false alarm, like it!" sneered O'Cohen, pounding Mike's reddened body with horrible blows.

"Oh, oh—why don't they stop it?" weeps Hazel.

The gong ending that fearful first round found Mike on the floor, the referee counting over him and the place in an uproar. Mike's seconds ran out and dragged him to his corner, where they worked over him furiously. Ammonia was held under his nose, he was sponged and fanned, caustic was applied to his innumerable cuts, a half orange was thrust into his gaping mouth. Silent Sam, a wreck himself, leaned down over the ropes and looked at me, sorrowfully shaking his head.

"If this kid's old man could see him takin' this pastin' without even punchin' back, he'd turn over in his grave!" he says.

"Was his father a fighter too?" I asked, for want of something to say.

"No," says Sam, "the old gent was a blacksmith."

"A blacksmith?" I repeated thoughtfully.

A wild idea struck me and I immediately went into action! Jumping up, I leaned over and pinched Mike's sagging arm, which dangled through the ropes. He looked down at me hopelessly.

"You little quitter!" I hissed. "You believe in signs, eh? Well, you're letting this fellow beat you just be-

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 cause of that mole on his shoulder—which I think is nothing but a wart myself—and you come from the luckiest family in the world!"

"What d'ye mean, lucky?" says Mike listlessly.

"What was your father?" I ask him.

"A blacksmith," says Mike.

"Fine!" I says. "Now what does a blacksmith—what did your father work with all day long?"

Mike frowns thoughtfully for an instant. Then his battered little face brightens in one big smile.

"I got you, kid!" he yells joyfully.

To the consternation of Silent Sam, Mike laughs loud and wildly. His shoulders straighten and with firmly set jaw he glares across the ring at the jubilant O'Cohen, who saw the world's championship within his grasp. The bell clanged suddenly for the second round, and honestly Mike shot from his stool like a bullet from an automatic! He was in the startled O'Cohen's corner before that gentleman had taken a step forward. ''Bang! Biff! Slam! Sock!'' Before a now maniacal crowd, Half-Round O'Cohen crashed to the canvas, face down, from four perfectly timed and perfectly murderous punches! The referee counted up to seven, took another searching look at the body and then held up Mike's glove to the hysterical mob. So that was all settled!

Michael shoved away his lunatical admirers who

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 swarmed into the ring about him and leaned down to me with a bloody, happy grin.

"Kid—you're the eagle's ice skates!" he gasps. "If you hadn't put me hep I'd never of remembered that my old man handled nothin' all his life but—horseshoes!"

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the fiscal year of 68 (before Coolidge), a young gentleman who rejoiced in the high-sounding name of Cornificus stepped out of a projection room in sunny Italy after previewing a super-production by the local deMille and remarked:

"A picture is a poem without words!"

Well really, if the movies are poetry I certainly wish the composers would try a little harder to make more of 'em rhyme. While I admit I've witnessed some films that smacked of Shakespearian verse, I've likewise watched plenty that reminded me strangely of Old Mother Goose! Having just had a long look at the manufacture of a motion picture, I'm satisfied that if the scenario poets would stare about them in the studios these master minds would find climaxes, thrills and gasp-producing situations right under their comely noses to the extent of galore. Honestly, the actual

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 making of a movie is as full of red-blooded romance, human interest, excitement, comedy, drama and the unexpected as the letters of the defendant in a breach of promise suit!

How do I know? I helped make one—a picture, not a defendant!

This escapade came to pass, as they say in Patagonia, right after me and Hazel returned from abroad. After we got back again to the Land of the Spree and the Home of the Rave, we both settled down to the old routine. Hazel was kept busy doing her chores at the show shop with ample matinées and the regular evening exhibitions, while I tried not to die of yawning from the constant and monotonous "Number please?" For a change, romance was temporarily conspicuous by its absence as far as we were concerned. That unfortunate experience in Paris with William the wicked waiter, had made Hazel a man-hater for the time being and she was scrupulously steering clear of any petting parties with the exacting sex.

But I still continued to exchange wise cracks with the boys who hungrily hover around the switchboard. I also went on taking boxed and verbal confectionery, occasionally making dinner engagements with the cream of the entries and rejecting moonlight auto ride propositions from the others. If I didn't clown a little I'd go cuckoo. All work and no play makes Jack a

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 dull boy, but what it makes Jacqueline is fearful, honestly!

I've always got a decided thrill out of entering the lists daily in this eternal tournament of sex, playing the game according to Hoyle and emerging with my reputation and sense of humor still intact. Really, that's a feat just difficult enough to fascinate me and I've done it since the first time I realized that it wasn't merely something stuck in their throats that made the boys catch their breath when they gazed at me!

"My future's all behind me!" says Jerry Murphy, mournfully to me one day. "I don't seem to be gettin' nowheres, what I mean! I only wish I had went to work and got married when I was a handsome young lad and the girls all maniacal over me. Why, they was at least eight wealthy and beautiful young heirlooms chasin' after me day and night, but"

"Heirlooms?" butts in Pete Kift, "Ha, ha, ha—that's one for the book! You mean heiresses, you big banana!"

"I'll call 'em what I like!" says Jerry indignantly. "Whose Janes was these? Anyways, as I was sayin', should I of got wed I'd of had a big family now and somethin' to live for, get me? I wish I had about a dozen kids and"

"Tomato sauce!" interrupts Pete, "On the sugar

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 you make you couldn't keep a promise, let alone a dozen kids!"

"But they would be nothin' to prevent them dozen kids from keepin' me, would they?" says Jerry.

Don't you love that?

"Chase this act back to its dressing room and get me Vanderbilt four-six-five-nine-six, will you, Cutey?" says Mr. Lee, the booking agent, who's been waiting for service. He grins at the scowling Jerry and Pete. "You boys better go right into your dance. Your crossfire's all wet!" he tells 'em.

Well speaking of mushrooms, I came down to business bright and early one morning—that is, the morning was bright and I was early—to find the St. Moe just a-quiver with excitement. Under the continual commands of Pete Kift, the merry bellhops are running themselves ragged bringing mail, telegrams, stationery, ice-water and what-not to the most magnificent suite on the mast magnificent floor of the most magnificent hotel in Gotham. Yvonne McCann, the night operator that I relieved, greeted me with cheers, as the buzzers on the switchboard were simply running wild with calls to 302-4-6-8, occupied by Mr. Gordon Daft, Esq., and retinue.

As you probably know, Gordon Daft is the most famous of superpictures in the wide, wide world. He's the fourth musketeer, no fooling! I guess

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 you've fought your way in to see some of his latest box-office wows: "Are You My Parents?" "Wronged by Mistake," "The Girl Who Loved Plenty," "Murdered in Fun," etc.—all masterpieces which cause the audience to stand up in cheers, the exhibitors to count up in tears and the censors to pick up their shears. You always see Mr. Daft's productions prominently mentioned in the lowdown from the exhibitors in the trade magazines under the heading, "What the Picture Did to Me." Thus:

Well, anyhow, the noted Mr. Daft had just returned from Hades or some place where he went on location to "shoot" realistic tropical scenes, in his newest example of what can be done with a camera, a good title and an unlimited expense account. Reporters of all sexes besieged him for interviews on "What's Wrong with the Movies?" even carrying the thing to the astonishing extreme of printing his answers. Really, our ambitious phone operators, chambermaids and scrub-

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 ladies vied with the equally ambitious female guests of the hostelry in trying to catch and hold the eye of this star-making wizard of the screen. His horde of secretaries, servants and stenographers spoke of him in hushed voices as "The Master!"

Oh, Gordon Daft created quite a panic with the neighbors and don't think he didn't!

Nevertheless, all this hullaballoo over Mr. Daft left me quite unmoved, and when it came to giving him worship, well, I wasn't putting anything out!

In spite of all this furore he was no good to me, even though he unquestionably produced a mean movie. In my estimation Gordon Daft was just a good egg, rating no particular favors—a nice young fellow and that's all!

A couple or three days after Mr. Daft had stood the St. Moe on its head by his mere august presence, he came to the switchboard in person one morning and just ruined the peace of mind of the girls. After posing there awhile to give these adoring ones a treat, he turned and gazed squarely into my face. I guess my eyes must have been a bit cynical at that moment because I was thinking scornfully what my charming colleagues would do for a smile from Gordon Daft—and what I wouldn't!

One instant of puzzled frown and then Mr. Daft had me pegged.

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 "As I live!" he exclaims with a pleased smile. "The beautiful Goddess of the Switchboard in her native lair! I've been trying to find you everywhere since we made that boxer Leary a champion in London. Fate must have directed my footsteps this morning! How are you?"

"Perfect!" I smiled back, shaking his eager hand. "How's the magic lantern business?"

The other girls, following our tête-à-tête with ears as open as Lake Erie and giving out flocks of wrong numbers as a result, gasped with the shock of hearing the great Gordon Daft spoken to in this frivolous manner. But that swiftly changed to envy when he didn't seem the least bit steamed and continued to make a large fuss over me. However, I was merely wondering how long it would be before he tried to get me to give him Hazel's phone number. I figured I had read his approach correctly, but it seemed I was wrong!

"I never expected to see you at a switchboard again after your exhibition of ingenuity in London," he says, "I've told the story of how you crowned King Leary a score of times!"

"I've told it a few times myself," I says. "What's the name of the twenty-reel insult to the adult intelligence you're assembling now?"

Gasp number two came from the other girls and Mr. Daft grins.

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 "I'm wild about frankness," he says, "and you're Miss Candid herself! I'd like you to see my latest picture, it's really a good one—plot a bit different, excellent cast and—say, why not dine with me tonight and I'll tell you all about it?"

At this the girls nearly swooned! Honestly, under the circumstances it was hard to resist the temptation to accept that invitation, in a loud voice. But thinking of Hazel, I stalled.

"I think you're giving me a run around," I says, busily manipulating the switchboard plugs. "Why should you have to ask me to eat with you? You don't mean to tell me you're friendless in this town, do you?"

Again he laughs.

"Having already devoured your beauty with my eyes," he says, bowing cutely, "I'd like your company for dessert."

"I love that," I says. "You sound like the titles from some of your own movies. Desserts are not good for you—you may find me too rich."

"Perhaps," he says. "At any rate I can make you rich! Eventually, why not now?"

"Behave!" I warn him. "Do you wish a number?"

"Why high-hat me?" he complains. "I'm harmless and I may be able to do you a lot of good. I've half a

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 mind to offer you a part in one of my pictures—laugh that off!"

This time two of the girls with weak hearts got up and left the board!

"Oh, daddy, you're so good to me!" I laughed, in Hazel's best manner. "I won't dine with you, but I'll tell you what I will do—in the interests of better-phone service for the other guests, who are already squawking, you've got to go away from here! Run along and, I'll let you call on me next Sunday afternoon. Bring your own cake!"

"Fine!" says Mr. Daft. "That's a good thought and I look forward to spending a most delightful Sunday!"

"That's entirely up to you," I says. "Goo'-by, see you all of a sudden!"

I knew Hazel was going to be home on Sunday and I knew I was going to be out! Hazel's my chum and even though Mr. Daft hadn't mentioned her name once, she saw him first and I wanted her to have every chance. It's a hobby of mine to play the game. We girls can be the square sex as well as the fair and only a poor and consistent loser of the male sex will sneer at that statement.

When I told Hazel that evening about meeting Mr. Daft she immediately got so excited as the word itself. Really, she hurled questions at me for an hour, but!

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 managed to come through her eager cross-examination on what the world's champion director had to say about her without disclosing the fact that he said absolutely nothing whatsoever. That was no mean feat! As Hazel's show was about to close it looked like a hard winter and when I mentioned that Mr. Daft was calling on Sunday, Hazel prepared for a killing. I carelessly remarked that I had another engagement for the Sabbath and she certainly didn't do any crying and carrying on for me to remain at home.

Well, I had taken up horseback riding as a pleasant exercise to keep my figure the way they're wearing 'em now and I started to spend Sunday afternoon cantering in Central Park. I demanded a good, speedy equine at the riding academy and I got service, I did for a fact. Honestly, I think they gave me Zev and if they didn't then I'm satisfied I was aboard Zev's master. By a strange coincidence, at Sixty-third Street this animal mistook a traffic cop for a starter and went out after the mile record without even consulting me. From then on it was a typical case of hold everything. I've heard of running fools, but this horse was Mr. Run himself! At Seventy-fourth Street I was four lengths ahead of an excited and leg-weary field composed of mounted police, other riders, automobiles and motorcycle cops. They were all trying, but they couldn't cope with my fiery steed! Around Eighty-sixth Street

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 I drew my first breath and managed to talk my noble charger out of the crazy idea that he had Paul Revere in the saddle and I pulled him to a walk without assistance. That spoiled the whole day for the panting heroes galloping up behind me, among which, to my great surprise, was Mr. Gordon Daft!

"You ride superbly!" he lies like a gentleman. "Is there anything you can't do?"

"Plenty!" I smiled. "I seem to have some trouble avoiding you, for one thing!"

"But why should you avoid me?" he wants to know. "Why are you as cold as an Eskimo's nose to me? I'm going to give you a screen test and if you can troupe as well as you can ride, I'll never let you get away from me!"

"Oh, you're so masterful!" I says with mock admiration. "I thought you were scheduled to appear at my flat today?"

"I was there," he says. "Where were you? What's the big idea of giving me a pushing around like that?"

"But you saw Hazel, didn't you?" I asked, ducking his questions.

"Saw who? Oh, your girl friend? Yes, I saw her. I think she was with you in London, wasn't she?" says Mr. Daft. "Her features are faintly familiar, but then I'm not much on remembering faces. I gave her a message for you and left right away. You owe

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 me an apology for breaking your engagement, young lady!"

But really, I was so flustered and astonished at his dismissing Hazel with a mere wave of the hand, you might say, that I couldn't think of a thing to tell him. We rode along in silence for a while, with Mr. Daft closely studying my averted face. Suddenly he burst out:

"Listen, little girl, you have me cataloged all wrong. Get the idea out of your pretty head that I have any unholy designs on you—that's out! You certainly must be aware of the fact that I'll never expire of not knowing beautiful women. It isn't just me—any man in my position has 'em thrown at him hourly! Well, six-fifths of them are meaningless. You're not, which explains my interest!"

"Oh, thank you, sir, she cried!" I says demurely.

"You'll thank me yet and mean it!" says Mr. Daft. "I'm not interested in your figure—though it's a pulse-quickener—I'm interested in your future, get me? I'm not trying to promote you, I'm trying to put you where you'll get important money, lots of fame and lots of laughs!"

"Yes, yes, go on!" I says.

"I wish you'd stop clowning and get serious for a minute!" says Mr. Daft pettishly. "I tell you it's the crime of the century for a girl with your unusual good

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 looks and remarkable wit to waste yourself on a telephone switchboard! Who will you ever meet there? Who, that amounts to anything, will give you a tumble?"

"The best people in New York say hello to me daily," I reminded him.

"Yes—over the phone," says Mr. Daft. "And they also say good-by to you daily, don't forget that! Well, if you should change your mind within the next few days let me know and I'll cast you in my picture. I won't be happy till I get you off that switchboard and started for fame and fortune!"

Honestly, that made the 964th time that similarly "disinterested" gentlemen had made that last remark to me. My answer never varies and seldom runs into more than two words—apple sauce! I'll say this for Mr. Daft—he really seemed very sincere and at no time during our acquaintance did he strike me as a mere John. I won't attempt to tell you that I didn't feel highly flattered by his interest, but

Well, to lower a high story, Mr. Daft continued to favor me with his kind attentions, a fact that I didn't think it was necessary to encumber Hazel's mind with, though why my beautiful girl friend couldn't hold him was a problem for bigger brains than mine. It's always seemed to me that Hazel has everything in the world to attract a man of the first water, but when it comes to

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 the high-class boys she always fails to click. She goals 'em all at first glance, but after that it seems to be a case of no can do.

I didn't try to make a heavy boy friend of Mr. Daft; in fact I went out of my way to sell him Hazel. My roommate's show had now closed, and, being a good girl at heart, Hazel simply had to get a job or go without her cakes. The European junket had played havoc with her bankroll and my weekly honorarium wouldn't feed two dyspeptic gnats, let alone two healthy girls. In other words, the panic was on!

About this time Mr. Daft got permission from the management of the St. Moe to use the gorgeous hotel lobby for a scene in "Why Marry Your Husband?" his latest celluloid concoction. He talked me into appearing in the thing at my switchboard as a phone operator and he also commandeered Jerry Murphy and Pete Kift in their respective capacities of house detective and bell captain. The enthusiastic guests who crowded the side-lines, braving the weird glare of the Klieg lights, laughed themselves hysterical watching Jerry and Pete try to make the Barrymores look like supers, both of 'em breaking out with an acting rash and taking it as seriously as if it was diphtheria. Really, when these boys entered the hotel game the comic strip artists lost a couple of wonderful models!

All your little girl friend had to do was to keep

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