TOLD BY THE MANICURE GIRL
“How long have you been here?” asked the man with the black mustache; “I never noticed you before.”
“Just a week to-day,” said the manicure, as she soused one of his fat, pudgy paws in the scented water. She didn’t even take the trouble to look up at him as she talked, but applied herself at once to the almost impossible task of making his nails even presentable. It’s a hard job, you know, trying to improve on one of nature’s bum pieces of work.
The man leaned back in his chair contentedly, and with that air of assurance which money begets, and he looked her over as he would have looked over a new style of shirt in a haberdasher’s window. He noted that her hair was dark chestnut in color and luxuriant, also that it was undoubtedly all her own. The contour of her face was such as would have attracted any man with red blood in his veins and a heart to pump it. She had, besides, nice hands that were well kept, and a dainty manner that was rather charming.
“Don’t you ever get tired of doing this kind of work?” he asked, when he had finished his inspection and had sized her up to his apparent satisfaction.
“I am always tired of it,” she answered, briefly.
“How would you like to travel?” was his next question.
“I wasn’t arrested, but I was put out as if I were a common swindler”