“My!  You’d turn up your nose at Columbus Avenue, I guess,” said Miss Kirk.  “That’s where I hang out.  It ain’t a boardin’-house.  What’s the use shellin’ out for meals and not bein’ home to them?  I’d like awful well to have you in the same movie with me.  There ain’t a guyl I care to speak to on the film!  But the ‘L’ runs past the place, and some folks say it otta be spelled with ‘H.’  The noise pretty near drove me bughouse at fyst, but I’m settlin’ down to it now.  And oh, say, that big feller whose best lion died on him (good thing ’twasn’t his best guyl!) he told me he’s come to Columbus to room with the chum w’at put him onto wuykin for the Hands.  He’s in the toy department with me and feels real at home with the Teddy bears.  I could get you a room in my house for two dollars per.”

“Per what?” Win was obliged to ask.

“Per week.  Per everything.  And if you take my tips about grub, and do your own waists and hank’chiffs Sundays—­laundry ’em, I mean, instead of wallerin’ in bed like a sassiety bud, you’ll have money to burn or put in the mishrunny box.”

“I’ll come!” exclaimed Win.  “Please engage the room.  If it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for me, and I’ll put up with the noise for the sake of your society.”

“My!  Thanks for the bookays and choclits!  Ta, ta!  I’ll wait for you to-night at the stage entrance with the other Johnnies.”

She was off with the promptness of a soubrette after an “exit speech,” and Win was left to sip her stale coffee or spend what remained of her “off time” in the rest room next door.

Legally, Peter Rolls was supposed to give his hands an hour for the midday meal, but in the rush of the holiday season a way had been found for whipping the inconvenient little law devil round the post.  Employees were asked to “lend” the management half of the legally allotted hour, the time to be repaid them later, so that after Christmas they might take once a week an hour and a half in the middle of the day instead of an hour.  Those in the know had learned that, as on Christmas Eve most of the extra hands received with their pay envelope a week’s notice to quit, they, at least, never got back the half-hours lent.  As for the permanent hands, it would amount to a black mark secretly put against their names if they dared lay claim to the time owing.  Win, however, was blissfully ignorant of this, and though she was tired, the arrangement seemed fair to her.  As she got up from the table to spend fifteen minutes in the rest room she was almost happy in the thought of having the sardine for a neighbour.

Two of the girls who had come up from the bargain square with her, on the return of Miss Stein and their other seniors, looked after Win as she passed out of the restaurant.

“There goes Miss Thank-you-I-beg-your-pardon,” said the young lady who had wondered if 2884 were a spy.  “She’s got a smile as if she was invited to tea with the Vanderbilts.”