Anyway, that's how it come we were piking through West Forty-fifth Street with the first of the theater crowds, Ernie still protestin' that he really didn't care for this sort of thing—cabaret stunts and all that—and me kiddin' him along as usual, sayin' I'll bet the head waiter would call him by his first name, when the net is cast sudden over Ernie's head.
I don't know which one of us saw her first. All I'm sure of is that we both sort of slowed up and did the gawp act. You could hardly blame us, for here in a taxi by the curb is—Well, it would take Robert Chambers a page and a half at twenty cents a word to do her full justice, so I'll just say she was a lovely lady.
No, I ain't gettin' her mixed with any of Mr. Ziegfeld's stars, nor she ain't any broker's bride plucked from the switch-board. She's the real thing in the lady line, though how I knew it's hard to tell. Also she's a home-grown siren that works without the aid of a lip-stick, permanent wave, or an eyebrow pencil. Anyway, here she is leaning through the taxi door and shootin' over the alluring smile.
I couldn't quite believe it was meant for either of us until I'd scouted around to see if there wasn't someone else in line. No, there wasn't. And as Ernie is nearest, course I knows it's for him.
"Ah, ha!" says I. "Who's your friend with the golden tresses?"
That's what they were, all right. You don't see hair like that every day, and it ain't the shade which can be produced at a beauty parlor. It's the 18-karat kind, done up sort of loose and careless, but all the more dangerous for that. And with that snowy white complexion, except for the pink flush on the cheeks, and the big, starry blue eyes, she sure is a stunner.
"Do—do you think she means me?" whispers Ernie husky, as we stop in our tracks.
"Ah come!" says I. "This is no time to stall. If she hadn't spotted you direct you might have let on you didn't see her, and strolled back after you'd given me the slip. As it is, Ernie, I've got the goods on you for once and you might as well——"
"But I—I don't know her at all," insists Ernie.
Just then, though, she reaches out a pair of bare arms and remarks real folksy: "At last you've come, haven't you?"