“No.  I’m just keeping track of the girls I met whose fathers are mayors of towns.  I’ve got forty-seven for Providence, R.I., fifteen for Peoria, Ill., ten for Atlanta, Ga., and your two makes seven for Emporia.  I’ve got fifty-three for chief of police, twenty-one fire captains, and eleven postmas—­”

“Excuse me, but are you trying to infer that I am telling an untruth?”

“Oh, forget it!  Can’t you stand a little jolly without going up in the air?”

“Well, I’ll accept your apology, but I don’t like to have people casting slurs on my pa and ma, and beer wont appease my wrath when I feel like a highball.

“Go as far as you like.  I was only ordering what I thought you were accustomed to.”

“Say, Mr. Percival B. Fresh, you certainly are the village wag when it comes to the Oriental repartee, ain’t you?”

“Sure I am, but I have to go to the mat when they commence to dish out this Emporia humor.  Oh.  Laza!  Do you care for the one in red?”

“Of course I may go wrong, but in my mind no gentleman would make remarks about another girl when he is with a lady.”

“Say, girlie, you’re all right—­lovely hair, beautiful eyes and all that—­but cut it; drop in your penny and get wise to yourself.  That’s a great show you are with.”

“When was you out front?”

“Night before last.”

“Night before last!  My Heavens!  Wasn’t I a sight?  You know the girl I dress with had been out to a wine supper and she came splashing into the dressing room lit up like a show window and cried my makeup box full of tears over the death of her baby sister, and the way I had to put it on I thought was sure good for a fine, and to make matters worse some hussy got next to all my toothpicks and I had to use a hairpin for a liner; but did you notice the way that cat of a soubrette keeps me out of the spotlight?  Professional jealousy, that’s all; but it don’t do me no good to kick, because the stage manager sends her silk stockings and that kind of junk, while the best I get is a chance to hold hands with the electrician; but, of course, he gets his orders.”

“Say, that piece of work that stands on the end opposite you is all to the berries, ain’t she?”

“Her!”

“Surest thing you know.  She looks like a night-blooming pippin to me.”

“My, gracious, Mr. Jenkins, I never knocked a living soul, but I don’t mind telling you as a friend that I personally would not degrade myself by speaking to her, and of course you know that the hair she wears is not her own.  I haven’t a thing in the world against the poor creature, but it has been breathed around the company that she is not all she should be.  Of course, I don’t know positively, but it is what everybody says, and I only wish she would make good with that four bits of mine.”

“Well, I’m glad there’s no hard feeling between you two, as I would like to meet her.”