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 a week. I don't know whether it's true or not, but they tell me that Mary Pickford gets twice that much."

"Gets twice that much!" echoed Michael Flynn, slapping his hands together helplessly. "You can't clear that much a year on a good plumbing business the way things are now. Just think of it. Two thousand dollars. I'll have to tell that new pipe fitter down to our place all about it. Annie, what'll you bet he won't believe me?"

Minnie silenced her father with a look, but his head kept wagging foolishly as he leaned back to listen to further revelations.

Al told them about his own prospects. A clever young juvenile like himself would some day be earning several hundred a week, owning his own car, his own apartment, an extensive wardrobe, including an overcoat with a sealskin collar, gold cigarette cases and a large ring with a diamond set in the yawning mouth of a tiger. It was only a matter of getting in right with one of the directors, or casting directors, or backers of the company, he said. No one in the Flynn family knew what he was talking about, but they wouldn't for anything in the world show their ignorance by asking him to repeat or to explain anything.

He sat with his chair tilted back, his feet on the rungs of Mrs. Flynn's chair, while he talked persuasively. What a striking figure he was in that drab little hole of a room, Minnie thought, as she looked at him through half-closed eyes. He wore a high belted checked suit, a red tie and spats. True, Minnie blushed when she first looked out of the window and saw him coming down the street, but it was from fear and not from shame. Rotten neighborhood. Hundreds of dirty, fresh little brats of kids. They had formed a procession and were marching after Al, surrounding him, yelling and gesticulating. For half a block Al pretended that he