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 just as haughty as they can. Me, I want to kiss 'em or slap 'em, I don't know which. Them stores ain't no proper place for a weak an' defenceless male man.

So Wade, with a regretful thought for his real mission in life, which was the discovery of the girl in the blue gown, consented, and they climbed into a hansom and set off down Broadway.

It was four days to Christmas, and New York's shopping district was a seething cauldron of breathless, frantic, maddened humanity. Christmas was in the air; the cross-town thoroughfares were lined with hawkers of mechanical toys, wreaths and greens; the shop windows would have tempted a miser to extravagance; the flower stores mingled holly and mistletoe with priceless orchids and semi-priceless roses; Santa Claus rang his bell on almost every corner; in short the Spirit of the Holidays had the great city in its grasp. There was a frosty nip in the air and the leaden sky threatened snow.