You look
nineteen. Say, I forgot something down-stairs. Just get your
handkerchief and chamois together and meet in my cubbyhole next to
the lobby, will you? I'll be ready for you."
Down-stairs she summoned the lank bell-boy. "You go outside
and tell Sid Strang I want to see him, will you? He's on the bench
with the baseball bunch."
Pearlie had not seen Sid Strang outside. She did not need to.
She knew he was there. In our town all the young men dress up in
their pale gray suits and lavender-striped shirts after supper on
summer evenings. Then they stroll down to the Burke House, buy a
cigar and sit down on the benches in front of the hotel to talk
baseball and watch the girls go by. It is astonishing to note the
number of our girls who have letters to mail after supper. One
would think that they must drive their pens fiercely all the
afternoon in order to get out such a mass of correspondence.
The obedient Sid reached the door of Pearlie's little office
just off the lobby as the leading lady came down the stairs with a
spangled scarf trailing over her arm. It was an effective
entrance.
"Why, hello!" said Pearlie, looking up from her typewriter as
though Sid Strang were the last person in the world she expected to
see. "What do you want here? Ethel, this is my friend, Mr.
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