and sat down and called to a waiter. And she didn’t even glance toward me again!
“I began to get angry, then. I walked over to them. I didn’t want every one to see that I was angry, so I bowed to them, and she looked up at me and said, ‘Why hello, I thought you’d left me and so this kind gentleman was kind enough to take me home.’ ‘You damn right I will,’ the man said, popping his eyes at me. ‘Who’s he?’ You see,” Mr. Talliaferro interpolated, “I’m trying to talk as he did. I can’t imitate his execrable speech. You see, it wouldn’t have been so—so— I wouldn’t have felt so helpless had he spoken proper English. But the way he said things—there seemed to be no possible rejoinder— You see?”
“Go on, go on,” the other said.
“And she said, ‘Why, he’s a little friend of mine’ and the man said, ‘Well, it’s time little boys like him was in bed.’ He looked at me, hard, but I ignored him and said firmly, ‘Come, Miss Steinbauer, our taxi is waiting.’ Then he said, ‘Herb, you ain’t trying to take my girl, are you?’ I told him that she had come with me, firmly, you know; and then she said, ‘Run along. You are tired of dancing: I ain’t. So I’m going to stay and dance with this nice man. Good night.’
“She was smiling again: I could see that they were ridiculing me; and then he laughed—like a horse. ‘Beat it, brother,’ he said, ‘she’s gave you the air. Come back to-morrow.’ Well, when I saw his fat red face all full of teeth I wanted to hit him. But I remembered myself in time—my position in the city and my friends,” he explained, “so I just looked at them and turned and walked away. Of course every one had seen and heard it all: as I went through the door a waiter said to me: ‘Hard luck, fellow, but they will do it.’”
Mr. Talliaferro mused again in a sort of polite incompre-
