No--no--no! No more whining from Nance Olden. Listen to what I've
got to tell you, Mag, listen!

You know where I was coming from yesterday when I passed Troyon's
window and grinned up at you, sitting there, framed in bottles of
hair tonic, with all that red wig of yours streaming about you?

Yep, from that little, rat-eyed lawyer's office. I was glum as
mud. I felt as though Tom and myself were both flies caught by
the leg--he by the law and I by the lawyer--in a sticky mess; and
the more we flapped our wings and struggled and pulled, the more
we hurt and tore ourselves, and the sooner we'd have to give it
up.

Oh, that wizen-faced little lawyer that lives on the Tom Dorgans
and the Nance Oldens, who don't know which way to turn to get the
money! He looks at me out of his red little eyes and measures in
dollars what I'd do for Tom. And then he sets his price a notch
higher than that.

When I passed the big department store, next to Troyon's, I was
thinking of this, and I turned in there, just aching for some of
the boodle that flaunts itself in a poor girl's face when she's
desperate, from every silk and satin rag, from every lace and
jewel in the place.

The funny part of it is that I didn't want it for myself, but for
Tom. 'Pon my soul, Mag, though I would have filled my arms with
everything I saw, I wouldn't have put on one thing of all the