“Poor tired little filly!”

“Even them ten minutes I got leave to go up to old Ingram’s office they made up for when I came back, and put another batch of them fifty-nine-cent leatherette purses out in the bin.”

“Poor little filly!  What you need is a little speed.  I wanna blow you to-night, Doll.  You went once and you can make it twice.  Come on, Doll, it ain’t every little girl I’d coax like this.”

“I—­Jimmie—­I—­”

“I wanna blow you to-night, Doll.  A poor little blue-eyed queenie like you, all froze up with nothing but a sick husband for a Christmas tree—­a poor little baby doll like you!”

“The kid, too, Jimmie, I—­oughtn’t!”

“Didn’t you tell me yourself it sleeps through the night like a whippersnapper?  Don’t be a quitter Doll, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but—­”

“A poor little baby doll like you!  Why, there just ain’t nothing too good for you.  Some little time I showed you last Tuesday night—­eh, Doll?”

“Yes—­Jimmie!”

“Well, if you think that was some evening, you watch me to-night!”

“I—­can’t—­go, Jimmie, him layin’ there, and the kid and all!”

“Didn’t I have to coax you last time just like to-night?  And wasn’t you glad when you looked out and seen how blasted cold and icy it was that you lemme blow you—­wasn’t you?”

“Yes, Jimmie, but—­”

“Didn’t I blow you to a bottle of bubble water to take home with you even after the big show was over, and wouldn’t I have blown you to yellow instead of the red if you hadn’t been a little cheap skate and wanted the red?  Didn’t I pin a two-dollar bunch of hothouse grapes on your hat right out of the fruit-bowl?  Didn’t I blow you for proper?”

“It was swell, Jimmie!”

“Well, I’m going to blow in my winnings on you to-night, Doll.  It’s Christmas Eve and—­”

“Yes, it’s Christmas Eve, Jimmie, and he—­he had one of his bad hemorrhages last night, and the kid, she—­she’s too little to know she’s getting cheated out of her Christmas, but, gee—­a—­a kid oughtta have something—­a tree or something.”

He leaned closer, hemmed in by the crowd.  “It’s you oughtta have something, Doll.”

“I—­I never oughtta gone with you last Tuesday night, Jimmie.  When I got home, he—­he was laying there like a rag.”

“I like you, Doll.  I’m going to blow in the stack of my winnings on you—­that’s how much I like you.  There ain’t nothing I wouldn’t do for a little filly like you.”

“Jimmie!”

“There ain’t!”

“Aw!”

“You wouldn’t be in the hole you are now, Doll, if you hadn’t sneaked off two years ago and done it while I wasn’t looking.  Nearly two whole years you lemme lose track of you!  That ain’t a nice way to treat a fellow that likes you.”

“We went boarding right away, Jimmie, and I only came back to the department two months ago, after he got so bad.  ’Ain’t I told you how things just kinda happened?”