Page:Burgess--Aint Angie awful.djvu/36

30 cross-eyed. She should, of course, have kicked him gently in the face and then called  upon the handiest marine hard by to finish  him up and spit him out the window. If she couldn’t find a marine—and sometimes  one can’t, although they are the first to fight—she might, at the nearest jewelers, at least  have got an aquamarine.

But instead, she gave him a little two-for-five smile (you should have seen one of her large 85c ones, when she was lapping up a  cucumber sundae!) and coyly mentioned  telephone number. It wasn’t hers, really though; it belonged to the undertaker on ground floor—and that was a funny thing, too, for Angie had often said she wouldn’t be found dead in his shop.

One day the undertaker who was always undertaking people, undertook to call her down to the phone. Angie always hated to be called down, but condescending she descended. It was her fat friend; she knew it was, because she could smell peanuts in the receiver.

“Say, meet me at the Ritz, will you, Peacho? Right away!”

Angela frowned. But it wasn’t that, upon