Page:Manhattan Transfer (John Dos Passos, 1925).djvu/359

Rh dresses up and down the aisles. A bell rings and the room breaks out with noise and talk shrill as a birdhouse.

Anna gets up and stretches out her arms. "My I've got a head," she says to the girl next her.

"Up last night?"

She nods.

"Ought to quit it dearie, it'll spoil your looks. A girl cant burn the candle at both ends like a feller can." The other girl is thin and blond and has a crooked nose. She puts her arm round Anna's waist. "My I wish I could put on a little of your weight."

"I wish you could," says Anna. "Dont matter what I eat it turns to fat."

"Still you aint too fat You're juss plump so's they like to squeeze ye. You try wearing boyishform like I told an you'll look fine."

"My boyfriend says he likes a girl to have shape."

On the stairs they push their way through a group of girls listening to a little girl with red hair who talks fast, opening her mouth wide and rolling her eyes. " She lived just on the next block at 2230 Cameron Avenue an she'd been to the Hippodrome with some girlfriends and when they got home it was late an they let her go home alone, up Cameron Avenue, see? An the next morning when her folks began looking for her they found her behind a Spearmint sign in a back lot."

"Was she dead?"

"Sure she was A negro had done somethin terrible to her and then he'd strangled her I felt terrible. I used to go to school with her. An there aint a girl on Cameron Avenue been out after dark they're so scared."

"Sure I saw all about it in the paper last night. Imagine livin right on the next block."

'Did you see me touch that hump back?" cried Rosie as