"He seemed anxious not to, when he passed us on the stairs just now," says Pinckney.
"Did he leave any word?" says I.
"He just said 'Bah!' and jumped into a cab," says Pinckney.
"He didn't hurt you, did he?" says Sadie.
"What, him?" says I. "Not that I know about. But I've got this to tell you, Mrs. Dipworthy: if you put any high value on your new steady, you'd better chase him off this reservation."
"Why, Shorty McCabe!" says she, takin' me by the shoulders and turnin' them blue eyes of hers straight at me. "My new steady? That—that woolly-haired freak?"
Say, you could have slipped me into the penny slot of a gum machine. Oh, fudge! Piffle! Splash! It's a wonder when I walk I don't make a noise like a sponge—I take some things in so easy. Is it curious my head never aches?
Pinckney sees how bad I was feelin', and he cuts in to tell me how things had worked out. And say, do you know what that Patchouli had done?
After I left him he goes back tickled to death, and waits for an openin'. Then, one night when they was havin' a big hunt ball, or some kind of swell jinks, he tolls Sadie into the palm-room, drops to the mat on his knees, and fires off that twin-star-luff speech, beggin' her to fly with him and be his'n. As a capper he digs up that envelop, to show her there needn't be any hitch in the program.
"What's this?" says Sadie, making a sudden grab and gettin' the goods. With that she lets go a string of giggles and streaks it out into the ball-room.