“We’ll make you this carriage up, sir, just as you see it now.”

“Make it up!  We’ve got to have it now.  To-night!”

“But, sir, we only got these samples made up to show.”

“Then we got to buy the sample.”

“No, no.  My husband ain’t home and I—­I can’t sell the sample.  We—­”

“But I tell you we got to have it to-night.  To-morrow’s Sunday and the lady who—­”

“No, no.  With my husband not here, I can’t let go no sample.  As a special favor, sir, we’ll make you one up in a week.”

Miss Dobriner stooped forward, her eyes narrow as slits.  “Seventy-five, spot down.”

Indecision vanished as rags before Abracadabra.

“We make it a rule not to sell our samples, but—­”

“That carriage has got to be delivered at my house to-night before ten.”

“Sir, that can’t go out to-night.  It’s got to be packed special and sent over on a flat-top dray.  These carriages got to be packed like they was babies themselves.”

“Can you beat that for luck?” He inserted two fingers in his tall collar as if it choked him.  “Can you beat that?”

“The first thing Monday morning, sir, as a special favor, but that carriage can’t go out to-night.  We got one man does nothing but pack them for delivery.”

He plunged his hands into his pockets and paced the narrow aisle down the center of the room.  “We got to get that carriage over there to-night if—­if we have to wheel it over!”

Miss Dobriner clapped her hands in an ecstasy of inspiration.  “Good!  We’ll wheel it home.  We can make it by midnight.  What you bet?”

He turned upon her, but with a ray in his eyes.  “Say, Gert, that ain’t such a worse idea, but—­”

“No buts.  The night is young, and I know a fellow used to walk from the Bronx to Brooklyn with his girl every Sunday.”

“Sure!  What’s an eight-mile walk on a spring night like this?  It’s all cleared up and stopped raining.  Only, gee!  I—­I hate to be getting home all hours again.”

She flipped him a gesture.  “Say, it’s not my surprise party you’re giving.”

“It’s not that, Gert, only I don’t want to keep her waiting until she gets sore enough to have the edge taken off the surprise when it does come.”

“Say, suit yourself.  It’s not my kid I’m going to wheel out to-morrow.  I should worry.”

“I’ll do it.”

“You’re not doing me a favor.  With my cold and my marcel, a three-hour walk ain’t the one thing in life I’m craving.”

“I’ll roll it over the bridge and be home by twelve, easy.  You take the Subway, Gert; it’s too big a trot for you.”

“Nix!  I don’t start anything I can’t finish.”

She cocked her hat to a forward angle, so that the hen pheasant’s tail swung rakishly over her face, took an Hellenic stride through the aisle of perambulators, flung her arms across her bosom in an attitude of extravaganza, then tossed off a military salute.