“Promise me, Blutch, you’ll play ’em close—­to win!”

“Al’s openin’ up his new rooms to-night.  Me and Joe are goin’ to play ’em fifty-fifty.  It looks to me like a haul, Babe.”

“He’s crooked, Blutch, I tell you.”

“No more ’n all of ’em are, Babe.  Your eyes open and your pockets closed is my motto.  What you got special against Joe?  You mustn’t dig up on a fellow, Babe.”

“I—.  Why ain’t he livin’ in White Plains, where his wife and kids are?”

“What I don’t know about the private life of my card friends don’t hurt me.”

“It’s town talk the way he keeps them rooms over at the Liberty.  ’Way back when I was a kid, Blutch, I remember how he used to—­”

“I know there ain’t no medals on Joe, Babe, but if you don’t stop listenin’ to town talk, you’re going to get them pretty little ears of yours all sooty.”

“I know, Blutch; but I could tell you things about him back in the days when my mother—­”

“Me and him are goin’ over to Al’s to-night and try to win my babe the first chicken for her farm.  Whatta you bet?  Us two ain’t much on the sociability end, but we’ve played many a lucky card fifty-fifty.  Saturday is our mascot night, too.  Come, Babe; get on your jacket, and—­”

“Honeybunch, you and Joe go.  I ain’t hungry.”

“But—­”

“I’ll have ’em send me up a bite from the grill.”

“You ain’t sore because I asked Joe?  It’s business, Babe.”

“Of course I ain’t, honey; only, with you and him goin’ right over to Al’s afterward, what’s the sense of me goin’?  I wanna stay home and think.  It’s just like beginnin’ to-night I could sit here and look right into the time when there ain’t goin’ to be no more waitin’ up nights for my boy.  I—­They got all little white chickens out at Denny’s roadhouse, Blutch—­white with red combs.  Can we have some like them?”

“You betcher life we can!  I’m going to win the beginnings of that farm before I’m a night older.  Lordy!  Lordy! and to think I never knew anything was eatin’ her!”

“Blutch, I—­I don’t know what to say.  I keep cryin’ when I wanna laugh.  I never was so happy, Blutch, I never was.”

“My little kitty-puss!”

* * * * *

At seven o’clock came Mr. Joe Kirby, dark, corpulent, and black of cigar.

“Come right in, Joe!  I’m here and waitin’ for you.”

“Ain’t the missis in on this killin’?”

“She—­Not this—­”

“No, Joe; not—­to-night.”

“Sorry to hear it,” said Mr. Kirby, flecking an inch of cigar-ash to the table-top.  “Fine rig-up, with due respect to the lady, your missis is wearing to-night.”

“The wife ain’t so short on looks, is she?”

“Blutch!”

“You know my sentiments about her.  They don’t come no ace-higher.”

She colored, even quivered, standing there beside the bronze Nydia.