"Same thing for the Johnnies—only more so! Say, you'll die when you hear this! I was up in her hotel, calling, a couple of nights ago, just before dinner, when one of them married T-Willys blows in, with a how-can-you-resist-me-little-girl look. You know him—Penniston Schwartz, money-bags in something, death on manicures. Are you listening?"
"Go on...."
"Del had no dinner in sight, so she winked at me to stick close, and waited for a bid, one eye on the clock. The old beau—he oils his mustache and looks at you with buttery eyes—kept telling us we were breaking up his happy home with our resplendent beauty, and a lot of fluff that was quite beyond the point, for Del was fidgeting, getting ready to assist, when the hope of the evening says:
"'Awful sorry I can't take you little rosebuds out to dinner,—family, the dear family, you know,—but call up a waiter and let me order.'
"Order? You should have seen what Del concocted! There wasn't a dollar-mark got by her! It must have footed twenty plunks, at the least! 'Course she thought he'd pay at the desk—naturally! That was the awful slip! No sooner had the waiter disappeared than he takes a fifty-dollar bill from his purse, flips it on the table, and says, with a wink:
"'The change's for the waiter—of course!'
"I thought I'd die choking, watching Adèle, staring from the bill to the clock, aching for him to go, but quiet as a mouse—oh, perfect manner, crocheting away at a dinky tie until I thought the needles would fly in pieces! When the family man got up to go, say! you should see her bounce him out of the door and leap to the telephone, crying:
"'Make that a veal chop and mashed!'"
"Too late?" said Doré, laughing.
"Well, we lost as far as the first entrée; but, as Del said, the next time such a thing occurs, there'll be a wise waiter on the other end of the line! Where's Snyder?"