"What time do you go out for lunch?" asked Louie.

"What's it to you?" with the accent on the "to."

"When I want to know a thing, I generally ask," explained
Louie, gently.

Sophy looked at him--a long, keen, knowing look. "You'll
learn," she observed, thoughtfully.

Louie did learn. He learned so much in that first week that
when Sunday came it seemed as though aeons had passed over his
head. He learned that the crime of murder was as nothing compared
to the crime of allowing a customer to depart shoeless; he learned
that the lunch hour was invented for the purpose of making dates;
that no one had ever heard of Oskaloosa, Iowa; that seven dollars
a week does not leave much margin for laundry and general reck-
lessness; that a madonna face above a V-cut gown is apt to distract
one's attention from shoes; that a hundred-dollar nest egg is as
effective in Chicago as a pine stick would be in propping up a
stone wall; and that all the other men clerks called Sophy
"sweetheart."

Some of his newly acquired knowledge brought pain, as
knowledge is apt to do.

He saw that State Street was crowded with Sophys during the
noon hour; girls with lovely faces under pitifully absurd hats.
Girls who aped the fashions of the dazzling creatures they saw
stepping from limousines. Girls who starved body and soul in order