remark is all he has to unload durin' the whole performance, and somehow I didn't have the heart to break in with any comments. You see, I wa'n't sure how he might be takin' it; so I waits until the final curtain, and then nudges him out of his dream.
"Well, how about it?" says I. "Ready to scratch your entry now, are you?"
"Eh?" says he, rousin' up. "Pull out? No, Sir! I--I'm going to give her a chance to take that ring."
"You are?" says I. "Well, well! Right there with the pep, ain't you? But how you goin' to manage it?"
"Why, I--I don't know," says he, lookin' blank. "Say, Son, can't you fix it for me some way? I--I want Nellie to go back with me. If I could only see her for a minute, and explain how it was I couldn't----"
"You win, Ira!" says I. "Hanged if there ain't Tucky Moller down there in an usher's uniform. He's an old friend of mine. We'll see what he can do."
Tucky was willin' enough too; but the best he can promise is to smuggle a note into the dressin' rooms. We waits in the lobby for the answer, and inside of five minutes we has it.
"Ain't they the limit, these spotlight chasers?" says Tucky. "She tells me to chuck it in the basket with the others, and says she'll read it to-morrow. Huh! And only a quarter tip after the second act when I lugs her in a bid to a cabaret supper!"
"Tonight?" says I. "Where at, Tucky?"
"Looey's," says he, "with a broker guy that's been buyin' B-10 every night for a week."
But when I leads Ira outside and tries to explain how the case stands, and breaks it to him gentle that his stock has taken a sudden slump, it develops that he's one of these gents who don't know when they're crossed off.
"I've got to see her tonight, that's all," says he. "What's the matter with our going to the same place?"
"For one thing," says I, "they wouldn't let us in without our open-faced clothes on. Got yours with you?"
"Full evenin' dress?" says Ira, with his eyes bugged. "Why, I never had any."
"Then it's by-by, Maizie," says I.
"Dog-goned if it is!" says he. "Guess I can wait around outside, can't I?"
"Well, you have got sportin' blood, Ira," says I. "Sure, there's nothin' to stop your waitin' if you don't block the traffic. But maybe it'll be an hour or more."
"I don't care," says he. "And--and let's go and have a glass of soda first."
Course, I couldn't go away and leave things all up in the air like that; so after Ira'd blown himself we wanders up to the cabaret joint and I helps him stick around.
It's some lively scene in front of Looey's at that time of night too; with all the taxis comin' and goin' and the kalsomined complexions driftin' in and out, and the head waiters coppin' out the five-spots dexterous. And every little while there's something extra doin'; like a couple of college hicks bein' led out by the strong-arm 

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