"So far it's as good as playin' leading heavy in 'The Shadows of a Great City,'" says I, "but what's down for the next act? Where does she want to go now?"
Say, you'd thought the Boss had been nipped with the goods on. He goes strawb'ry color back to his ears. Next he takes a look across the table at her where she sits, quiet and easy, and as much to home as Lady Graftwad on the back seat of the tonneau. She was takin' notice of him, too, kind of runnin' over his points like he was something rich she'd won at a raffle and was glad to get. But the Boss he braced up and looked me straight in the eye.
"Shorty," says he, "I want to call your attention to the fact that this young lady is something like three thousand miles from home, that we're the only two human beings on this side of the ocean she knows by sight, and that once she risked a good deal to do us a service."
"I'll put my name to all that," says I, "but what does it lead up to; where do we exit?"
"That," says the Boss, "is a conundrum."
"Ain't she got any programme?" says I.
"She—er—that is," says the Boss, trying to duck, "she says she wants to go with us."
"Whe-e-e-ew!" says I, through my front teeth. "This is so sudden. Just tell the lady, will you, that I've resigned."
"No you don't, Shorty," says the Boss. "You'll see this thing through."
"But look at them circus clothes," says I. "I've got no aunts or grandmothers, or second cousins that I could unload a Lady Brigandess on."