It was automatic; he had said it so often before under similar circumstances of first meetings.  Besides, he could do no less.  There was that large tolerance and sympathy in his nature that would permit him to do no less.  The black-eyed girl smiled gratification and greeting, and showed signs of stopping, while her companion, arm linked in arm, giggled and likewise showed signs of halting.  He thought quickly.  It would never do for Her to come out and see him talking there with them.  Quite naturally, as a matter of course, he swung in along-side the dark-eyed one and walked with her.  There was no awkwardness on his part, no numb tongue.  He was at home here, and he held his own royally in the badinage, bristling with slang and sharpness, that was always the preliminary to getting acquainted in these swift-moving affairs.  At the corner where the main stream of people flowed onward, he started to edge out into the cross street.  But the girl with the black eyes caught his arm, following him and dragging her companion after her, as she cried: 

“Hold on, Bill!  What’s yer rush?  You’re not goin’ to shake us so sudden as all that?”

He halted with a laugh, and turned, facing them.  Across their shoulders he could see the moving throng passing under the street lamps.  Where he stood it was not so light, and, unseen, he would be able to see Her as she passed by.  She would certainly pass by, for that way led home.

“What’s her name?” he asked of the giggling girl, nodding at the dark-eyed one.

“You ask her,” was the convulsed response.

“Well, what is it?” he demanded, turning squarely on the girl in question.

“You ain’t told me yours, yet,” she retorted.

“You never asked it,” he smiled.  “Besides, you guessed the first rattle.  It’s Bill, all right, all right.”

“Aw, go ’long with you.”  She looked him in the eyes, her own sharply passionate and inviting.  “What is it, honest?”

Again she looked.  All the centuries of woman since sex began were eloquent in her eyes.  And he measured her in a careless way, and knew, bold now, that she would begin to retreat, coyly and delicately, as he pursued, ever ready to reverse the game should he turn fainthearted.  And, too, he was human, and could feel the draw of her, while his ego could not but appreciate the flattery of her kindness.  Oh, he knew it all, and knew them well, from A to Z. Good, as goodness might be measured in their particular class, hard-working for meagre wages and scorning the sale of self for easier ways, nervously desirous for some small pinch of happiness in the desert of existence, and facing a future that was a gamble between the ugliness of unending toil and the black pit of more terrible wretchedness, the way whereto being briefer though better paid.

“Bill,” he answered, nodding his head.  “Sure, Pete, Bill an’ no other.”

“No joshin’?” she queried.