"Then you ought to have said that before," says I, "and Mr. Robert
would have put one of his chappy friends on the job. Sorry, but when
it comes to chorus girls, I ain't----"

"Hold on!" he breaks in. "You're sort of jumpin' at things, Son. The
fact is I--well, I guess I might's well tell you as anyone. I--I got
to tell someone."

"Help!" thinks I. "The dam's goin' to give way."

"You see," he goes on, "it's like this: Nellie's an old friend of mine,
and----"

"Nellie!" says I. "You just said Maizie."

"That's what I hear she goes by on the stage," says he. "She was
Nellie Mason up to the Harbor."

"You don't mean it?" says I. "What was she doin' there?"

"She was table girl at the Mansion House," says he.

"Which?" says I. "Oh, dish juggler, eh? And now she's on the stage?
Some jump for Nellie! But, honest now, Higgins, you don't mean to
spring one of them mossy 'Way Down East drammers on me as the true
dope? Come now, don't tell me you and she used to go to school
together, and all that!"

No, it wa'n't quite on that line. She was only one of Boothbay's