Page:Bad Girl (1929).pdf/20

 as she raised an anxious gaze to his face. Her eyes were pleading, her tone apologetic, as she said, "I could 'a' learned shorthand. My brother wanted to send me to school, but I was crazy. You know how it is, I wanted to get to work."

He nodded understandingly.

"What do you do?" she asked him.

"Radio," he replied laconically.

"Gee," she said. There was admiration and awe mingled in her exclamation. "Hard work, ain't it?"

"Naw," swiftly and emphatically.

"We got a set. My brother built it."

"Everybody's got a set," Eddie said crushingly.

"Yeh, I guess that's so."

Conversation languished, and they stood looking at each other. After a moment Eddie asked, "Say," pointing to the ukulele, "do you really play that thing?"

"Sure. I play it swell sometimes."

"What do you mean, sometimes?"

"Well, it's according to what I'm playing."

"What can you play good?"

"Do you know 'It Ain't Gonna Rain No More'?"

Eddie nodded. Who in the year of our Lord 1923 didn't know "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More"? "Go ahead, play it," he ordered.

Dot sat down on a camp stool and began:

There was something pathetically sweet about her. She was so eager to please. So anxious to be obliging. Even the untrained ear of Eddie Collins cringed at the horrible chords that came forth so brazenly from the ukulele. She