“How are you going to frame him, with a square dame like Lorelei?” asked Armistead.

“Frame both of them,” Melcher said, shortly.  “By the way, he’s a gambler, too, isn’t he?  Bring him in some night, Jim, and I’ll turn for him myself.”

“Save his cuff-buttons for me,” laughed Young Sullivan, idly riffling the cards.  “Gee!  Money comes easy to some folks.  Don’t you guys never expect to do any honest work?”

CHAPTER X

Jim’s appearance when he entered the dressing-room that night was a surprise; he was clad in faultless evening attire.

“Why the barbaric splendor?” inquired Lorelei.  “Don’t you know I’m only your sister?”

“I’ve got these Moe Levys, so I might as well wear ’em.  I’m tired of running a moth-garage,” he replied, laying aside his stick, gloves, and hat with a care that betrayed his unfamiliarity with them.  “What have you got to go with this scenery?”

“Do you want me to dress, too?”

“Sure thing.  Look your best, and make me think I’m a regular John.”

“Bergman dropped in to see me to-night,” she told him, after they had gossiped for a moment.  “He referred to that story in this morning’s Despatch.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t like the way he talked.”

“Fresh?”

“He’s always that, but this time he was something more.  He thinks he owns the girls who work for him.”

Jim replied, carelessly:  “Blow him and his job.  You can get on at the Palace Garden.”

“There’s my contract:  he can discharge me, you know, but I can’t quit—­that’s one of the peculiarities of a theatrical contract.  Well—­he insisted on taking me to supper.”

“A brother is a handy thing, once in a while, but for every-day use, you need a ‘steady’ with a kick in each mit.”

“I wish you would punch him.”

“Who?  Me?  And go joy-riding with a square-toe?  Nix.  I’m too refined.  Did you see to-night’s papers?”

“There wasn’t much in them.”

Jim smiled wisely.  “There would have been if things hadn’t gone right.  I’m glad for your sake.”

“Oh, the harm’s done, I suppose.  But there’s one good thing about it—­Bob Wharton hasn’t bothered me this evening.”

Jim, with an expressionless face, turned to speak to Lilas Lynn, who had just come in.  When his sister came down after the last act, he was waiting at the door and helped her into a cab, despite her protestations that she would much prefer to walk.

“What are you going to do with all the coin you save?  Slip it to the shoemakers?” he laughed.  “I don’t go out often; you’d better spring me good.”

As they seated themselves in the main room at Proctor’s he appraised her with admiring eyes.  “You’re the candy, Sis.  There’s class to that lay-out.”

“It’s part of the game to look well in public, but I’d have enjoyed myself more if we had gone to Billy the Oysterman’s and dressed the part.”  She surveyed the gaudy dining-room with its towering marble columns, its tremendous crystal festoons showering a brilliant but becoming light upon the throngs below, then nodded here and there to casual greetings.