“You ain’ gonna wear that hat,” said Freddy severely.  “It’s rainin’.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna wear this hat,” said Florette, pulling her blonde earbobs into greater prominence.  “An’ you put on your best suit an’ new necktie.  We’re goin’ to a weddin’.”

Her tone was gay, arch, her eyes were happy.

“Who—­whose?” Freddy faltered.

“Mine!” chirped Florette.  “I’m goin’ to get you that papa I promised you.”

Freddy turned away.

“Sulkin’!” chided Florette.  “Naughty, jealous boy!”

The new papa did not appear so formidable as Freddy had expected.  In fact, he turned out to be only Howard, Florette’s acrobatic partner.  Freddy philosophically reflected that if one must have a new papa, far better so to call Howard, who necessarily encroached on Florette’s time, than a stranger who might take up some of her leisure hours.

But Freddy received a distinct shock when the new papa joined them after the evening performance and accompanied them up to their room.

Freddy had always regarded Florette’s room as his, too.  He felt that the new papa was an intruder in their home.  Alas!  It soon became all too apparent that it was Freddy who was de trop, or, as he would have expressed it, a Mister Buttinski.

They were having a little supper of pickles and cheese and liver sausage and jam.  Florette and the papa drank out of a bottle by turns and laughed a great deal.  Florette seemed to think the papa very clever and funny.  She laughed at everything he said.  She looked at him with shining eyes.  She squeezed his hand under the table.  Freddy tried in vain to attract her attention.  Finally he gave up and sat staring at the oblivious couple with a stupid expression.

“That kid’s half asleep,” said the new papa.

Florette looked at Freddy and was annoyed by his vacant eyes.

“Go to bed right away,” she commanded.

Freddy looked at her in amazement.

“Ain’t you goin’, too, Florette?” he asked.

“No, you go on—­go to sleep.”

“Git into that nice li’l cot an’ go by-by,” said the new papa genially.

Freddy had not seen the cot before.  It had been moved in during his absence at the theatre, and stood white, narrow, and lonely, partly concealed by a screen.

“I—­I always slep’ with Florette,” faltered Freddy.

This seemed to amuse the new papa.  But Florette flushed and looked annoyed.

“Now, Freddy, are you goin’ to be a grouch?” she wailed.

Freddy was kissed good-night, and went to sleep in the cot.  He found it cold and unfriendly.  But habit, the much maligned, is kind as well as cruel; if it can accustom us to evil, so can it soften pain.  Freddy was beginning to assume proprietary airs toward the cot, which appeared in every town, and even to express views as to the relative values of cots in Springfield, Akron, or Joliet—­when one night he woke to hear Florette sobbing.