"Nothin' doin', Beauty. There's a Free-for-All Tango Contest round at the Poppy Garden to-night; and, believe me, I wouldn't mind winning that pink ivory manicure set. All I gotta ask is one thing, Ess! Bring me a snapshot of Joe doing the fireside act!"
The glaze of unshed tears sprang over Miss Birdsong's eyes like gauzy clouds across a summer sky.
"I—that's just it, Loo. I can't get him to come. Sometimes I think maybe it's just because he's stringing me along; and I—he—he was your friend first, Loo. Ain't he ever said anything to you about me—about—aw, you know what I mean, Loo?"
"He's hipped on you, girl. I know Joe Ullman like I know the floor-plan of this theater."
"Honest, Loo, do you think so?"
"Sure! Gawd! I knew Joe when I was making sateen daisies in a artificial-flower loft on Twenty-second Street; and him and my brother was clerkin' in a cigar store on Twenty-third and running a neat little book on the side."
"A book?"
"Yes, dearie—a pretty picture-book."
"Joe never told me."
"He ain't always been the thirty-dollar-a-week kid he is now—take it from me. Just the same, you can thank me for interdoocing you to the sharpest little fellow that's selling tickets on the sidewalks of this great and wicked city."