Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/29

 rich guys from the golf club in here and they're talking about the new locker room they're putting in. Each one of them babies is socked for a thousand apiece—nothing at all to them. Why, I'd live a year on a thousand bucks, and I could go to some snappy school like you do, too! Well, I'll get the thousand, or"

"Honestly, of course!" butts in Judy, as serious as if she's forty instead of seventeen. But then girls is always older than their actual age, ain't they?

"Do I look crooked?" I grins.

Judy laughs and shakes her head. "Well, I must go," she says. "This has been awfully interesting, hasn't it?" Then, like she just thought of it, she says: "Oh—you know that Stella Armitage's masquerade dance is to-morrow night?"

"I hear them all talking about it—yes," I says, kind of surprised. "But what does that mean to me?"

This is one of the very few times I ever see Judy act timid and shy.

"Well—well, the girls are to choose their own escorts and"

"And you're going with Rags Dempster!" I finishes for her, kicking a empty fruit can the length of the fountain.

"I am not!" says Judy, straightening her hat in the mirror. "I'm going with you! Are these caramels fresh?"

What do I care about caramels? I am around the counter in a jump!

"Is that level—you mean that, Judy?" I holler.

"Of course!" laughs Judy, moving to the door.