head. "Very nippy!" he said.

"Have to be nippy in this life, believe me. Give me a minute to
powder my nose and murmur a prayer of thanksgivin', and then I'll
set the festive board and show you how we used to scramble eggs in
Shaftesbury Avenue."

"Right," said Martin, getting out of his overcoat. How about it? Was
this one way of making the little old earth spin?

Susie Capper went into a bedroom even smaller than the sitting room,
turned up the light over her dressing table and took off her little
white hat. From where Martin stood, he could see in the looking-
glass the girl's golden bobbed hair, pretty oval face with too red
lips and round white neck. There, it was obvious, stood a little
person feminine from the curls around her ears to the hole in one of
her stockings, and as highly and gladly sexed as a purring cat.

"Buck up, Tootles," cried Martin. "Where do you keep the frying
pan?"

She turned and gave him another searching look, this time of marked
approval. "My word, what a kid you look in the light!" she said. "No
one would take you for a blooming road-hog. Well, who knows? You and
I may have been brought together like this to work out one of Fate's
little games. This may be the beginning of a side-street romance,
eh?"

And she chuckled at the word and turned her nose into a small snow-
capped hill.