“I don’t believe I’ll need it, Mr. Wrenn.  It’s my business to find out what sort of animiles men are by just talking to them.”  She rose, smiled, plumped out her hand.  “You will be nice to Nelly, won’t you!  I’m going to fire that Teddem out—­don’t tell him, but I am—­because he gets too fresh with her.”

“Yes!”

She suddenly broke into laughter, and ejaculated:  “Say, that was hard work!  Don’t you hate to have to be serious?  Let’s trot down, and I’ll make Tom or Duncan rush us a growler of beer to welcome you to our midst....  I’ll bet your socks aren’t darned properly.  I’m going to sneak in and take a look at them, once I get you caged up here....  But I won’t read your love-letters!  Now let’s go down by the fire, where it’s comfy.”

CHAPTER XV

HE STUDIES FIVE HUNDRED, SAVOUIR FAIRE, AND LOTSA-SNAP OFFICE MOTTOES

On a couch of glossy red leather with glossy black buttons and stiff fringes also of glossy red leather, Mr. William Wrenn sat upright and was very confiding to Miss Nelly Croubel, who was curled among the satin pillows with her skirts drawn carefully about her ankles.  He had been at Mrs. Arty’s for two weeks now.  He wore a new light-blue tie, and his trousers were pressed like sheet steel.

“Yes, I suppose you’re engaged to some one, Miss Nelly, and you’ll go off and leave us—­go off to that blamed Upton’s Grove or some place.”

“I am not engaged.  I’ve told you so.  Who would want to marry me?  You stop teasing me—­you’re mean as can be; I’ll just have to get Tom to protect me!”

“Course you’re engaged.”

“Ain’t.”

“Are.”

“Ain’t.  Who would want to marry poor little me?”

“Why, anybody, of course.”

“You stop teasing me....  Besides, probably you’re in love with twenty girls.”

“I am not.  Why, I’ve never hardly known but just two girls in my life.  One was just a girl I went to theaters with once or twice—­she was the daughter of the landlady I used to have before I came here.”

              “If you don’t make love to the landlady’s daughter
               You won’t get a second piece of pie!”

quoted Nelly, out of the treasure-house of literature.

“Sure.  That’s it.  But I bet you—­”

“Who was the other girl?”

“Oh!  She....  She was a—­an artist.  I liked her—­a lot.  But she was—­oh, awful highbrow.  Gee! if—­But—­”

A sympathetic silence, which Nelly broke with: 

“Yes, they’re funny people.  Artists....  Do you have your lesson in Five Hundred tonight?  Your very first one?”

“I think so.  Say, is it much like this here bridge-whist?  Oh say, Miss Nelly, why do they call it Five Hundred?”

“That’s what you have to make to go out.  No, I guess it isn’t very much like bridge; though, to tell the truth, I haven’t ever played bridge. .  My! it must be a nice game, though.”