"Of course. Max has been on a vacation, but I hear he's back. When I introduce you, he'll probably set 'em up. But I wouldn't drink if I were you till I went off duty."
"I must have a drink," replied Susan.
"It'll get you down. It got me down. I used to have a fine sucker—gave me a hundred a week and paid my flat rent. But I had nothing else to do, so I took to drinking, and I got so reckless that I let him catch me with my lover that time. But I had to have somebody to spend the money on. Anyhow, it's no fun having a John."
"A John?" said Susan. "What's that?"
"You are an innocent——!" laughed Maud. "A John's a sucker—a fellow that keeps a girl. Well, it'd be no fun to have a John unless you fooled him—would it?"
They now entered the side door of the hotel and ascended the stairs. A dyspeptic looking man with a red nose that stood out the more strongly for the sallowness of his skin and the smallness of his sunken brown eyes had his hands spread upon the office desk and was leaning on his stiff arms. "Hello, Max," said Maud in a fresh, condescending way. "How's business?"
"Slow. Always slack on Sundays. How goes it with you, Maudie?"
"So—so. I manage to pick up a living in spite of the damn chippies. I don't see why the hell they don't go into the business regular and make something out of it, instead of loving free. I'm down on a girl that's neither the one thing nor the other. This is my lady friend, Miss Queenie." She turned laughingly to Susan. "I never asked your last name."
"Brown."
"My, what a strange name!" cried Maud. Then, as the proprietor laughed with the heartiness of tradesman at good customer's jest, she said, "Going to set 'em up, Max?"