these old cut-ups? Look at Steele now,—in the late fifties, but just at the mention of a name like Josie Vernon he gets kittenish!67

67

Well, it's nothin' to me, and I'm glad to duck any dealin's with stray dames; for when it comes to the surprisin' sex you never know what you're goin' to be let in for. Besides, my part of his executor game was only to O.K. J. Bayard's final schemes and see that he spent the money somewhere near the way I judged Pyramid meant to have it distributed. Course, I hadn't been able to stick to that very strict in the first two cases; but this time it looked like I would.

So by the next afternoon, havin' been busy in the gym since nine a.m., I'd forgotten the incident complete, and I'm some surprised when Swifty Joe announces that there's a female party askin' for me in the front office.

a.m.

"Wha' d'ye mean—female party?" says I. "Is it a lady?"

"Ah-r-r-r chee!" says Swifty. "How do I know?"

That's some surprisin' too; for as a rule he ain't strong on drawin' fine distinctions. If they're young and flossy dressed, he calls 'em "fluffs"; but anything over twenty-five, no matter how she's costumed, is a lady to Swifty, even a scrubwoman. So his describin' this visitor as a female party gets me curious.

The minute I steps into the office and gets a glimpse at her, though, I got Swifty's point of view. The battered old lid had been gay enough once, a few seasons back, when the willow plume68 hadn't been dislocated in four places, and before the velvet trimmin' had faded into so many differ'nt shades. It had been a lady's hat once. And the face under it, in spite of the red tip to the nose and the puffs under the eyes, might have belonged to a lady. Anyway, there was traces of good looks there. But the rusty black cloak that hung limp over the sagged shoulders, only part hidin' the sloppy shirt waist and reachin' but halfway down the side-hiked, draggled-edge skirt—that's the sure mark of a female party. I don't know why, but it is.

68

Where they get cloaks like that is a mystery. You see 'em on women panhandlers, on the old hags that camp on park benches, and in the jag line at police courts. But you never see a new one. Perhaps 

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