“Goodness!” exclaimed Miss Colby, obligingly sympathetic.  “It must be an awful dirty place, wherever it is.”

And then her eyes closed.  The voice of the Man from Nome had a monotony in its very earnestness.  Besides, what dull talk was this of brooms and sweeping and dust?  She leaned her head back against the wall.

“Miss,” said the Man from Nome, with deeper earnestness and monotony, “I never saw anybody I liked as well as I do you.  I know you can’t think that way of me right yet; but can’t you give me a chance?  Won’t you let me know you, and see if I can’t make you like me?”

The head of the Girl from Sieber-Mason’s slid over gently and rested upon his shoulder.  Sweet sleep had won her, and she was dreaming rapturously of the Wholesale Fish Dealers’ Assistants’ ball.

The gentleman from Nome kept his arms to himself.  He did not suspect sleep, and yet he was too wise to attribute the movement to surrender.  He was greatly and blissfully thrilled, but he ended by regarding the head upon his shoulder as an encouraging preliminary, merely advanced as a harbinger of his success, and not to be taken advantage of.

One small speck of alloy discounted the gold of his satisfaction.  Had he spoken too freely of his wealth?  He wanted to be liked for himself.

“I want to say, Miss,” he said, “that you can count on me.  They know me in the Klondike from Juneau to Circle City and down the whole length of the Yukon.  Many a night I’ve laid in the snow up there where I worked like a slave for three years, and wondered if I’d ever have anybody to like me.  I didn’t want all that dust just myself.  I thought I’d meet just the right one some time, and I done it to-day.  Money’s a mighty good thing to have, but to have the love of the one you like best is better still.  If you was ever to marry a man, Miss, which would you rather he’d have?”

“Cash!”

The word came sharply and loudly from Miss Colby’s lips, giving evidence that in her dreams she was now behind her counter in the great department store of Sieber-Mason.

Her head suddenly bobbed over sideways.  She awoke, sat straight, and rubbed her eyes.  The Man from Nome was gone.

“Gee!  I believe I’ve been asleep,” said Miss Colby “Wonder what became of the White Wings!”

THE TALE OF A TAINTED TENNER

Money talks.  But you may think that the conversation of a little old ten-dollar bill in New York would be nothing more than a whisper.  Oh, very well!  Pass up this sotto voce autobiography of an X if you like.  If you are one of the kind that prefers to listen to John D’s checkbook roar at you through a megaphone as it passes by, all right.  But don’t forget that small change can say a word to the point now and then.  The next time you tip your grocer’s clerk a silver quarter to give you extra weight of his boss’s goods read the four words above the lady’s head.  How are they for repartee?