Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/54

 East Side in New York! But answer me this, whilst we are on the fascinatin' subject of wedlocks. I have gave you the low down on myself from the time I seen my first rattle up to as late as last night. I ain't tryin' to jimmy into your most intimate affairs, but is they—is they a girl?"

I've seen chorus girls bitin' their tongues for hours at a time to perfect a natural blush like this big Kid pulled then. He let go my arm and pulled over a chair, sat down—a rare trick for him—and gimme the works.

The dame's name was no less than Irene Gresham, and her beloved parents had a bank roll which wouldst make Jack Rockefeller look like a public' charge. Apart from that annoyin' detail, they was headliners in this continuous vaudeville of society, indigo blooded and with a pedigree that not even a race horse could be ashamed of. Kid Roberts, or Kane Halliday, as the butlers was wonted to announce him previous to the time he hit the skids, was merely engaged to this gold mine, that's all! Now the Kid had a few blue corpuscles chasin' each other through his veins himself, and when it come to ancestors, he was no Adam, but—broke and a prize fighter—Sweet Mamma, where did he fit now!

When things was breakin' right for him, and his old man had as many chips as the rest of 'em, he had contracted to escort this charmer to the conventional altar. It was a kinda cut-and-dried arrangement, with the articles drawed up by the parents of both victims, and the Kid hadn't seen his intended lifelong sparrin' partner since he left college, on the account of her