wife spottin' Ike's little game. If he's got sense, he knows it, for I saw that my hint to Zenda reached Ike. Well, Ike will be reachin' round to get hold of me. Why, I thought, when Zenda described you and mentioned your first name, that Ike had sent you to me. Because Ike knows what I could tell Zenda would be enough to give Zenda a hold on Ike that'd get back that hundred thousand. But why be nasty? That's what I ask myself." His face took on an expression of shrewd good humor, of benevolence, almost. "You're just a chicken, Florine, a flapper from the mud roads and the middle-of-the-day dinner. And a hick chicken don't have it any too soft in New York at the best of it. I don't suppose that your bank-roll would make a mosquito strain its larynx, eh? Well, Florine, take a tip from old papa Beiner, that's been watchin' them come and watchin' them go for twenty-five years along Broadway.

"Why, Florine, I've seen them come to this town all hopped up with ambition and talent and everything,[Pg 42] and where do they land? Look the list over, kid. Where are your stars of twenty years ago, of ten years ago, of five, when you come right down to it? Darned few of them here to-day, eh? You know why? Well, I'll tell you. Because they weren't wise, Florine.

[Pg 42]

"Lord, don't I know 'em! First or last, old papa Morris has got 'em jobs. And I've heard their little tales. I know what pulled 'em back to where they started from. It was because they didn't realize that friends grow cold and enemies die, and that the only friend or enemy that amounts to a darn is yourself.

"I've seen girls worry because somebody loved 'em; and I've seen 'em worry because somebody didn't love 'em. And those girls, most of them, are mindin' the baby to-day, with a husband clerkin' it down-town, too poor to afford a nurse-girl. But the girls that look out for the kale, that never asked, 'What?' but always, 'How much?'—those are the girls that amount to something.

"Here's you—crazy to run right off to Paul Zenda and tell him that you're a good little girl and don't know a darned thing about Ike Weber. Well, suppose you do that. What happens? Zenda hears your little story, decides you're tellin' the truth, and forgets all about you. Your bein' a nice, honest little fool don't buy you no silk stockings, kid, and I'm here to tell you so.

"Now, suppose you don't run to Zenda. Sooner or later, he runs into you. He bawls you out. Because you've kept away from him, he suspects that you stood in with Ike. Maybe he tries to get you 

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