"I guess I don't," said Peter very soberly.
"Oh, I am sorry," Vonnie laid her hand on his arm. "I didn't mean anything by that. Forget it. You're all right even if I don't remember your name. Did you ever tell it to me?"
"My name's Peter Neale."
"You're not the Peter Neale that writes in the Bulletin, are you?"
"Yes, I do a sporting column. That looking 'em over stuff."
"I've been looking for you. Do you know I almost wrote you a letter. Where do you get that stuff about Sandow Mertes being a more valuable man than George Browne?"
"Browne can't hit lefthanders."
"That's the bunk. You and the rest of the sporting writers keep pulling that stuff about him and of course he can't. Suppose there was somebody standing in the wings every night just before I came on, yelling at me, 'Vonnie, you can't dance,' do you suppose I could go on and do that song for a cent? Of course I couldn't. You and the rest of you, you're just ruining this fellow. The best looking young outfielder I've seen in ten years. Why he could run up a hill faster than Mertes could roll down one."
"You don't know what you're talking about," said Peter. It was the boldest speech he had ever made to a woman and he did it without turning a hair. Vonnie was wrong. George Browne couldn't hit lefthanders. Before he took her home Vonnie had arranged to go with him to the Polo Grounds the next day and to come and see the baby on Sunday.
"Here," she said as he was turning away from the door of her apartment, "you've got a kiss coming to you. When you live up as far as One Hundred and Sixty-eighth Street you've got to do at least that much for any fellow that takes you home."