"Dot liddle makes nussing," he proudly protested. "To-morrow I begin ad my new tshob."
"But that," said Katie, "won't pay you hardly wan dollar a week more'n the brewery did. I dunno, but I think——"
There, however, her protest, for the moment, ended. They were caught, clinging together, in the whirlpool of the entrance; carried nearly off their feet, rushed by the ticket-window with a quick exchange of small coin, and, a few minutes later, were battling their way among the press into a waiting Coney Island train.
In the last charge, Hermann, his lips puckered in the battle-hymn, did heroic service. While Katie hung tightly to one arm, he used manfully the elbow of the other; pushed a guard to the right; shoved two cigarette-smoking youths to the left; wriggled through the already crowded platform and shot into one of the coveted "cross-seats." Much of the park would not be open for a month or more to come, but New York was already clamoring for its playground.
Katie, flushed and triumphant, sank beside him, and busied herself with the task of straightening her big black hat. Hermann watched her in frank admiration as she sat there, her arms raised to her head, in that pose which, of all others, is the most becoming to her sex.
"What are you lookin' at?" she archly wondered, casting a smiling, sidelong, blue glance at him.
But before her the strong man was a timid child.
"Ad de brettiest bicture in a whole vorld," he stammered.
Katie laughed again.
"Och," she said in gratified disapproval, "there sure must be a Castle Blarney somewhere on the Rhine. What favor are you wantin' to ask me now, I wonder."