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 "Another one?" Mr. Krauss seemed mildly amused.

"No, the same. Eat your nice fish, darling. It's rude to ask personal questions, isn't it, Paul? Say yes."

"Yes. But I'd try to find out in other ways what I wished to know. Is it rude to wish to know?"

"Fierce and rude!"

"What I'd like to know, if it wasn't rude," Paul teased, "is what you replied to the nice boy, also what Mr. Krauss would have said if it hadn't been the same one but another."

Gritty dashed off at a new tangent. "Out here he only lets me have one at a time. Home he brings them to my dressing-room in legions and cohorts."

Paul looked up for an explanation, but none was forthcoming. "Oh, well," he remarked. "There's safety in numbers."

"Not where Gritty's concerned," interposed Mr. Krauss.

"No," she retorted, "but there's money in numbers, and Joe Krauss engages us poor girls for what we can lure into the house. He's got box-office morals."

"What kind have you?" Paul inquired.

"None, thank God!"

"You say it vindictively."

"I got a right to, dearie. If you only knew how I'd had morals drummed into me as a kid." She suddenly remembered whom she was addressing. "But you do know!"

"Don't I just!"

Gritty laughed and explained to Mr. Krauss. "Hale's Turning, where me and Paul was born, is the home of the original moral germ. You'd never believe what a innocent, dear, sweet little lamb he was, Joe—Gee, when I think of him with his Eton collar and patent-leather hair heading the Lily Class at Sunday-school concerts! Lordy, what ages and ages ago it seems!"