the little ticket kiosk.  She was rather a frowsy girl, not too young, and with a certain look about the jaw.  Tyler walked up to the window and shoved his money through the little aperture.  The girl fed him a pink ticket without looking up.  He stood there looking at her.  Then he asked her a question.  “How long does the show take?” He wanted to see the colour of her eyes.  He wanted her to talk to him.

“’Bout a hour,” said the girl, and raised wise eyes to his.

“Thanks,” said Tyler, fervently, and smiled.  No answering smile curved the lady’s lips.  Tyler turned and went in.  There was an alleged comic film.  Tyler was not amused.  It was followed by a war picture.  He left before the show was over.  He was very hungry by now.  In his blouse pocket were the various information and entertainment tickets with which the Y.M.C.A. man had provided him.  He had taken them out, carefully, before he had done his washing.  Now he looked them over.  But a dairy lunch room invited him, with its white tiling, and its pans of baked apples, and browned beans and its coffee tank.  He went in and ate a solitary supper that was heavy on pie and cake.

When he came out to the street again it was evening.  He walked over to State Street (the wrong side).  He took the dance card out of his pocket and looked at it again.  If only he had learned to dance.  There’d be girls.  There’d have to be girls at a dance.  He stood staring into the red and tin-foil window display of a cigar store, turning the ticket over in his fingers, and the problem over in his mind.

Suddenly, in his ear, a woman’s voice, very soft and low.  “Hello, Sweetheart!” the voice said.  His nickname!  He whirled around, eagerly.

The girl was a stranger to him.  But she was smiling, friendlily, and she was pretty, too, sort of.  “Hello, Sweetheart!” she said, again.

“Why, how-do, ma’am,” said Tyler, Texas fashion.

“Where you going, kid?” she asked.

Tyler blushed a little.  “Well, nowhere in particular, ma’am.  Just kind of milling around.”

“Come on along with me,” she said, and linked her arm in his.

“Why—­why—­thanks, but—­”

And yet Texas people were always saying easterners weren’t friendly.  He felt a little uneasy, though, as he looked down into her smiling face.  Something—­

“Hello, Sweetheart!” said a voice, again.  A man’s voice, this time.  Out of the cigar store came Gunner Moran, the yellow string of a tobacco bag sticking out of his blouse pocket, a freshly rolled cigarette between his lips.

A queer feeling of relief and gladness swept over Tyler.  And then Moran looked sharply at the girl and said, “Why, hello, Blanche!”

“Hello yourself,” answered the girl, sullenly.

“Thought you was in ’Frisco.”

“Well, I ain’t.”

Moran shifted his attention from the girl to Tyler.  “Friend o’ yours?”