New York crowds, though they may shove and jostle, rarely bite. 

 He found himself face to face with an extraordinarily pretty girl. 

 She was a red-haired girl, with the beautiful ivory skin which goes with red hair. Her eyes, though they were under the shadow of her hat, and he could not be certain, he diagnosed as green, or may be blue, or possibly grey. Not that it mattered, for he had a catholic taste in feminine eyes. So long as they were large and bright, as were the specimens under his immediate notice, he was not the man to quibble about a point of colour. Her nose was small, and on the very tip of it there was a tiny freckle. Her mouth was nice and wide, her chin soft and round. She was just about the height which every girl ought to be. Her figure was trim, her feet tiny, and she wore one of those dresses of which a man can say no more than that they look pretty well all right. 

 Nature abhors a vacuum. Samuel Marlowe was a susceptible young man, and for many a long month his heart had been lying empty, all swept and garnished, with “Welcome” on the mat. This girl seemed to rush in and fill it. She was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She was the third prettiest. He had an orderly mind, one capable of classifying and docketing girls. But there was a subtle something about her, a sort of how-shall-one-put-it, which he had never encountered before. He swallowed convulsively. His well-developed chest swelled beneath its covering of blue flannel and invisible stripe. At last, he told himself, he was in love, really in love, and at first sight, too, which made it all the more impressive. He doubted whether in the whole course of history anything like this had ever happened before to anybody. Oh, to clasp this girl to him and.... 

 But she had bitten him in the arm. That was hardly the right spirit. That, he felt, constituted an obstacle. 

 “Oh, I’m so sorry!” she cried. 

 Well, of course, if she regretted her rash act.... After all, an impulsive girl might bite a man in the arm in the excitement of the moment and still have a sweet, womanly nature.... 

 “The crowd seems to make Pinky-Boodles so nervous.” 

 Sam might have remained mystified, but at this juncture there proceeded from a bundle of rugs in the neighbourhood of the girl’s lower ribs, a sharp yapping sound, of such a calibre as to be plainly audible over the confused noise of Mamies who were telling Sadies to be sure and 

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