But he hangs onto my sleeve and coaxes me until I give in. And we sure made a fine trio ridin’ up Fifth-ave. in a taxi! But you should have seen ’em in the millinery shop as we sails in with Miss Rooney, and Daggett says how he’d like a view of that heliotrope lid in the window. We had ’em guessin’, all right.
Then they gets Miss Rooney in a chair before the mirror, and fits the monstrosity on top of her red hair. Well, say, what a diff’rence it does make in them freak bonnets whether they’re in a box or on the right head! For Miss Rooney has got just the right kind of a face that hat was built to go with. It’s a bit giddy, I’ll admit; but she’s a stunner in it. And does she notice it any herself? Well, some!
“A triumph!” gurgles the saleslady, lookin’ from one to the other of us, tryin’ to figure out who she ought to play to.
“It’s a game combination, all right,” says I, lookin’ wise.
“I only wish——” begins Daggett, and then swallows the rest of it. In a minute he steps up and says it’ll do, and that the young lady is to pick out one for herself now.
“Oh, how perfectly sweet of you!” says Miss Rooney, slippin’ him a smile that should have had him clear through the ropes. “But if I am to have any, why not this?” and she balances the heliotrope lid on her fingers, lookin’ it over yearnin’ and tender. “It just suits me, doesn’t it?”
Then there’s more of the coy business, aimed straight at Daggett. But Miss Rooney don’t quite put it across.
“That’s going out to Iowy with me,” says he, prompt and decided.
“Oh!” says Miss Rooney, and she proceeds to pick out a white straw with a green ostrich feather a yard long. She was still lookin’ puzzled, though, as we put her into the cab and started her back to the barber shop.
“Must have set you back near a hundred, didn’t they?” says I, as Daggett and I parts on the corner.