Miss Fink glanced round the great, deserted kitchen. As she
gazed a little expression of disgust wrinkled her pretty nose--the
nose that perforce had sniffed the scent of so many rare and
exquisite dishes.
"Sure," she assented, joyously, "but not here. Let's go
around the corner to Joey's. I could get real chummy with a cup of
good hot coffee and a ham on rye."
He helped her on with her coat, and if his hands rested a
moment on her shoulders who was there to see it? A few sleepy,
wan-eyed waiters and Tillie, the scrub-woman. Together they
started toward the door. Tillie, the scrubwoman, had worked her
wet way out of the passage and into the kitchen proper. She and
her pail blocked their way. She was sopping up a soapy pool with
an all-encompassing gray scrub-rag. Heiny and Gussie stopped a
moment perforce to watch her. It was rather fascinating to see how
that artful scrub-rag craftily closed in upon the soapy pool until
it engulfed it. Tillie sat back on her knees to wring out the
water-soaked rag. There was something pleasing in the sight.
Tillie's blue calico was faded white in patches and at the knees it
was dark with soapy water. Her shoes were turned up ludicrously at
the toes, as scrub-women's shoes always are. Tillie's thin hair
was wadded back into a moist knob at the back and skewered with a
gray-black hairpin.
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