From a mauve-colored telephone-booth emerged Miss Gertie Dobriner, flushed from bad service and from bad air.

“Whew!”

“Get her?”

“Sure I got her.  Is it such a stunt to get an address from a customer?”

“Good!”

“I says to her, I says, ’I seen it standing on the sidewalk next to your French maid and I wanted to buy one like it for my little niece.’”

“Can we get it to-night?”

“Yes, proud papa!  But listen; I wrote it down, ’Hinshaw, 2227 Casset Street, Brooklyn.’”

“Brooklyn!”

“Yes, two blocks from the Bridge, and for a henpecked husband you got a large fat job on your hands if you want to make another getaway to-night.  This man Hinshaw shows ’em right in his house.”

“Brooklyn, of all places!”

“Right-oh!”

He snapped his fingers in a series of rapid clicks.  “Ain’t that the limit?  If I’d only mentioned it to you this afternoon earlier, we could have been over and back by now.”

“Wait until Monday then, Phonzie.”

“Yes, but you ought to have heard her this morning, Gert; it’s not often she gets her heart so set.  To-morrow being Sunday, all of a sudden she gets a-wishing for one of the glass-top ones like she’s seen around in the parks, to take him out in for the first time.”

“Oh, I’m game!  I’ll go, but can you beat it!  A trip to Brooklyn when I got a friend from Carson City waiting at his hotel to buy out Rector’s for me to-night.”

“You go on with him, Gert.  What’s the use you dragging over there, too, now that you got the address for me.  I would never have mentioned it to you at all if I’d have known you couldn’t just go buy the kind she wants in any department store.  I’ll go over there alone, Gert.”

“Yes, and get stung on the shape and the hood and all.  I bought just an ordinary one for my little niece once, and you got to get them shallow.  Anyways, I’m going to chip in half on this.  I want to get the little devil something, anyways.”

“Aw no, Gert, this is my surprise.”

“I guess I can chip in on a present for the kid’s month-old birthday.”

“Well, then, say I meet you in the Eighty-sixth Street Subway at seven, so we can catch a Brooklyn express and make it over in thirty minutes.”

“Yes.”

“But it’s raining, Gert.  Look out.  Honest, I don’t like to ask you to break your date to hike over there in the rain with me.”

“Raining!  Aw, then let’s cut it, Phonzie.  I got a new marcel and a cold on my chest that weighs a ton.  She can’t roll it on a wet Sunday, nohow.”

“Paper says clear and warm to-morrow, Gert; but, honest, you don’t need to go.”

“You’re a nice boy, Phonzie, and a proud father, but you can’t spend my money for me.  What you bet I get ten per cent. off for cash?  Subway at seven.  I’ll be there.”

“I may be a bit late, Gert.  She ain’t so strong yet, and after last night I don’t want to get her nervous.”