"Ready, Doll?"
"The girls, Jimmie—look at 'em rubbering and gabbling like ducks!
It—it ain't like I could do any good at home, it ain't."
"I'd be the first to ship you there if you could. You know me, Doll!"
His words deadened her doubts like a soporific. She glanced about for the moment at the Dionysian spectacle of the Mammoth Store ravished to chaos by the holiday delirium; at the weary stream of shoppers and workers bending into the storm as they reached the doors; at the swift cancan of snowflakes dancing whitely and swiftly without; at Mr. Jimmie Fitzgibbons standing attendant. Then she smiled.
"Come on, Jimmie!"
"Come on yourself, Doll!"
Snow beat in their faces like shot as they emerged into the merry night.
She shivered in her thin coat. "Gee! ain't it cold!"
"Not so you can notice it. Watch me, Doll!" He hailed a passing cab with a double flourish of cane and half lifted her in, his fingers closing tight over her arm. "Little Doll, now I got you! And we understand one another, don't we, Doll?"
"Yes, Jimmie."