That made a difference.  Even though a man didn’t know anybody in the city except the men he worked with and it was terribly lonesome of evenings—­even so, her being married made all the difference.  And she must have been a wonderfully pretty girl once—­and was pretty yet, now he had a chance to look good at her.  Pretty—­yes; but—­well, Jan didn’t know what it was, except that she was all right.  Jan knew he didn’t know much about women, especially strange women—­and he knew, too, that he never would; but he would never believe she wasn’t all right—­never!

Yes, it was pretty lonesome at times; and there was the girl who roomed on the top floor.  Jan was thrilled by alluring glimpses of her in the half-dark recesses of the back halls, but the glimpses remained only glimpses after he saw her one Sunday by daylight.  Only then was Jan convinced that she painted.  She was a little too much and he took to dodging her.  Yet it was a pity—­oh, a pity! and Jan, still thinking what a pity, was going out for a lonesome walk one night, when who should meet him on the front stoop but that same top-floor girl!  And no sliding by her this time.  She nipped the lapel of his coat with a dexterous thumb and forefinger.

“Why, hello, cap!  Where yuh goin’?”

“Nowheres.”

“Then you got time, ain’t you, to buy a girl a glass o’—­” She stopped and winked sportively.

“Glass o’ what?”

“Why, ginger ale!” She laughed at his surprise.  “You thought I was goin’ to say beer, or maybe somethin’ stronger, didn’t yuh?  But I don’t drink no hard stuff.  No.  An’ I was dyin’ for a drink o’ somethin’ when yuh pops out that door.  An’ I know yuh ain’t any hinge.”

“How do you know I ain’t a hinge?”

“Oh, don’t I?  Leave it to me to pick a sport from a piker.”

“But I’m no sport either.”

“You could if yuh wanted ter.  An’ yuh ain’t any hinge, even if they do say you’re a square-head.  Come on an’ let’s go in back an’ have a couple o’ bottles o’ ginger ale in Hen’s place.”

And Jan followed her into the private room beyond the pool-room—­the room to which, as he had gathered before this, the street girls of that section steered drunken sailors.  The ginger ale was brought in by the proprietor himself.  Jan threw down a ten-dollar bill.  Jan had a good many bills with him that evening—­his month’s wages; and seeing it was the fashion round there to show your money when you paid for anything, why, he’d show them—­even if he was a square-head—­that he could carry a wad too.

“Say, cap, but yuh must be drawin’ down good coin?”

“Oh, a boss ship-carpenter gets pretty good wages.”  And with one splendid sweep Jan emptied his glass.

“I should say yes.  An’ there’s tinhorners round here that if they had half your wad Hen’d have to ring in the fire alarm to put ’em out—­they’d feel themselves such warm rags.  But what d’yuh say to another ginger ale?”