“That’s right, Hat; step on the joy bug like it was a spider.  Squash it!”

“I wouldn’t just laugh and laugh, and put my lunch money on my back instead of eggs and milk inside of me, and run round all hours to dance-halls with every sporty Charley-boy that comes along.”

“You leave him alone!  You just cut that!  Don’t you begin on him!”

“I wouldn’t get overheated, and not sleep enough; and—­”

“For Pete’s sake, Hat!  Hire a hall!”

“I should worry!  It ain’t my grave you’re digging.”

“Aw, Hat!”

“I ’ain’t got your dolly face and your dolly ways with the boys; but I got enough sense to live along decent.”

“You’re right pretty, I think, Hat.”

“Oh, I could daub up, too, and gad with some of that fast gang if I didn’t know it don’t lead nowheres.  It ain’t no cinch for a girl to keep her health down here, even when she does live along decent like me, eating regular and sleeping regular, and spending quiet evenings in the room, washing out and mending and pressing and all.  It ain’t no cinch even then, lemme tell you.  Do you think I’d have ever asked a gay bird like you to come over and room with me if I hadn’t seen you begin to fade like a piece of calico, just like my sister Lizzie did?”

“I’m taking that iron-tonic stuff like you want and spoiling my teeth, ain’t I, Hat?  I know you been swell to me and all.”

“You ain’t going to let up until somebody whispers T.B. in your shell-pink ear; and maybe them two letters will bring you to your senses.”

“T.B.?”

“Yes, T.B.”

“Who’s he?”

“Gee! you’re as smart as a fish on a hook!  You oughtta bought a velvet dunce-cap with your lunch money instead of that brown poke-bonnet.  T.B. was what I said—­T.B.”

“Honest, Hat, I dun’no’—­”

“For Heaven’s sake! Too Berculosis is the way the exhibits and the newspapers say it.  L-u-n-g-s is another way to spell it.  T.B.”

“Too Berculosis!” Sara Juke’s hand flew to her little breast.  “Too Berculosis!  Hat, you—­you don’t—­”

“Sure I don’t.  I ain’t saying it’s that—­only I wanna scare you up a little.  I ain’t saying it’s that; but a girl that lets a cold hang on like you do and runs round half the night, and don’t eat right, can make friends with almost anything, from measles to T.B.”

Stars came out once more in Sara Juke’s eyes, and her lips warmed and curved to their smile.  She moistened with her forefinger a yellow spit—­curl that lay like a caress on her cheek.  “Gee! you oughtta be writing scare heads for the Evening Gazette!"

Hattie Krakow ran her hand over her smooth salt-and-pepper hair and sold a marked-down flannelette petticoat.

“I can’t throw no scare into you so long as you got him on your mind.  Oh, lud!  There he starts now—­that quickstep dance again!”

A quick red ran up into Miss Juke’s hair, and she inclined forward in the attitude of listening.