Cheerful-By Request

ofs bunched, slim flanks quivering, nostrils dilated, ears pricked. Urging being of no avail the rider dismounts, st

anger lurking within the seemingly innocent oblong white envelope. Without slitting the flap, without pausing

ffice wild-eyed. Last edition. "Hold the presses!" Crusty C.E. stands over cub's typewriter grabbing story line by line. Even foreman of pressroom m

me of the year. Team crippled. Second half. Halfback hurt. Harold Hammond, scrub, into t

. The flame had flickered and died down to a smouldering ash. The sound of his departing f

tion, tears and snears, pathos and bathos,

s of this story with a thin layer of cynicism, perhaps

at his desk, thus observing rules one and two in the proper conduct of superintendents when interviewing applicants. Rachel Wiletzky, standing by his desk, did not cough or wriggle or rustle her skirts or sag on one hip. A sense of her quiet penetrated the superintendent's subconsciousness. He glanced up hurriedly over hi

cing brimming pails aloft in the protecting curve of one rounded upraised arm, with perhaps a Maypole dance or so in the background. Altogether, had the superintendent been given to figures of speech, he migh

a fleck of golden brown in the cold grey of each eye, and a streak of warm brown forming an unquenchable forelock that the conquering grey had not been able to vanquish. It may have been a something within him corresponding to those outward bits of human colouring that tempted him to yield to a queer impulse. He whipped from his breast-pocket the grey-bordered

s real!" he

-natured little smile that ha

enough to leave something to the imagination. This colour

ge of lush green fields and bucolic scenes was that gleaned from the condensed-milk ads that glare down at one from bill

rey superintendent. He

letzky's face, a look of cunning

he replied compo

f course. Our adve

y. "I can sell goods. My customers like me. And I

higher with the girl's suppressed excitement. He took a pri

that she could afford to use it for decorative purposes. Step into the next

t its questions so pertinently. "Where last employed?"

to press the button that would summon Applicant No. 180. But before his finger touched it

et Bazaar. You know-the Cheap Store. I lied and sent word I was sick so I could come

his fingers. "I can't listen to all this.

which is a heritage of her ra

ce has a girl got over there on the West Side? I'm different. I don't know why, but I am. Look at my face!

y glove and held one hand

g hardware over at Twelfth and Halsted. Look at

d in their laps. Slender, tapering, sensitive hands they were, pink-tipped, temperamental. Wistful hands they were, speaking hands, an inheritance, perhaps, from some dreamer ancestor within the old-world

folks?" snapped t

erent! Give me a chance, will you? I'm straight

surrounding colourlessness. His face, too, took on a glow that seemed to come from within. It was like the lifting of a thick grey mist

his chair, a queer ha

g to watch you. I'm not going to have you watched. Of course your sale slips will show the office whether you

you mean-Why, I want t

e l

with ribbon and handwork and yards and yards of real lace. I've seen 'em in the g

vne is the head of your department. You'll spend two hours a day in the st

t to press the desk button. Ray Willets passed out at the do

s an engineering blueprint. She learned that a clerk must develop suavity and patience in the same degree as a customer waxes waspish and insulting, and that the spectrum's colours do not exist in the costume of the girl-behind-the-counter. For her there are only black and white. These things she lea

he soft charmeuse in her graceful gown was real and miraculously draped. The cobweb-lace collar that so delicately traced its pattern against the black background of her gown was real. So was the ripple of lace that cascaded down the front of her blouse. The straight, correct, hideously modern lines of her figure bespoke a real eighteen-dollar corset. Realest of all, t

ad been on terms of dreadful intimacy with those affairs in each other's lives which popularly are supposed to be private knowledge. They knew the sum which each earned per week; how much they turned in to help swell the family coffers and how much they were allowed to keep for their own use. They knew each time a girl spent a quarter for a cheap sailor collar or a pair of near-

o feel a shock when she saw Miss Jevne displaying a robe-de-nuit made up of white cloud and sea-foam and languidly assuring the customer that of course it wasn't to b

clever, ambitious little head that the pink of her cheeks had deepened to carmin

like one of those exquisite imbeciles that Rossetti used to love to paint. Hers were the great cowlike eyes, the wonderful oval face, the marvellous little nose, the perfect lips and chin. Miss Myrtle could don a forty-dollar gown, parad

t anyway, kid? You must of been brought up on peac

of lace there. "Me! The L-train runs so near my bed that if it was ever to

e's grasshopper mind never

y. "Did you think I had

hands. Miss Myrtle always leaned when there was anything to lean on. Involuntarily she fell into melting poses. One shoulder always drooped slightly, one toe always trailed

he looked up at the picturesque Myr

id Myrtle

mean? The applica

unintelligent hands, that so perfectly reflected her character in that marvellous way hands have. "Mine are stupid-looking

y live then?"

I am dumb. My folks couldn't get along without what I bring home ever

er plump face with its int

ng that they don't try to come to see her. They live way over on the West Side somewhere. She makes her buying trip to Europe every year. Speaks French

pin's real,

d! Well, you'd have thought that birds of paradise were national pests, like English sparrows. Not that she looked lou

the shining black-clad figure of Miss Jevne moving about again

er folks, h'm?"

less, regarded the tip

it ain't the six-dollar girl that needs looking after. She's taking her little pay envelope home to her mother that's a widow and it goes to buy milk for the kids. Sometimes I think the more yo

e disjointedly, purposelessly, all unconscious that her slow, untrained mind had groped for a great and vital t

house," she said aloud suddenly.

?" laughed Myrtle.

ing finger of a saleswoman in the evening-coat section. Ten minutes later her exquisite face rose above the soft folds of a

arbed figure that flitted about in the costly atmosphere of the French section. It must be a very special cust

Miss Jevne was frowning. "Miss Myrtle's busy. Just slip

fragile little ivory-and-rose chairs, in the centre of the costly little room, sat a large, blonde, perfumed woman who clanked and rustled and swished as she moved. Her eyes were white-lid

needle-scarred fingers of some silent, white-faced nun in a far-away convent, paced slowly up and down the short length of the room tha

e blonde woman grudgingl

smoothly. "I selected it myself when I

came once more to her brow. She bent close to Ray's ear

"Look at the colour on that girl! And it's real too." She rose heavily and came over to R

sweetly. "Take this along and chan

almost reverently. It was more than a garment. It represented in her m

thrown open would mark an epoch in the retail drygoods business of the city, the order began. Thousands were to be spent on perishable decorations alone. The highest type of patronage was to be catered to. Therefore the women in th

it. Then she did a mental sum in simple arithmetic. A childish sum it was. And yet before sh

e's was that style. Fast black you might term it. Miss Jevne was aware of the flurry and flutter that followed her majestic progress down the aisle to her own section. She knew that each eye was caught in the tip of the little dog-eared train that slipped and slunk and wriggled along the ground, thence up to the soft drapery caught so cunningly just below the knee, up higher to the marvelously simple sash that swayed with each step, to the soft folds of black against which rested the very real diamond and platinum bar pin, up to the lace at her throat,

at sight of Miss Jevne's wondrous black. Miss Jevne, her train wound round her

at costume!

repeated Ra

nderstood that women in this department wer

e twisted smile. "

n wh

was going to-The baby took sick-the heat I guess, coming so sudden. We had the

Ray's left arm where a few days before the torn p

in this departme

Halsted Street bravado. "If my customers

y form of the floor manager was visible among the glass showcases beyond. Miss Jevne sought him agitat

Jevne, he approached Ray Willets, whose deft fingers, trembling a very

ensils, fifth floor," he said. Then at sight of the girl's face: "We can't have one

enware one could don black sateen sleevelets to protect one's clean white waist without breaking the department's tenets of

g beaters, and waffle irons, and pie tins. She handled them contemptuously. She sold them listlessly. After weeks of expatiating to customers on the beauties and excellencies of gossa

tell a woman how graceful and charming she's goin

ying problems of the practical and plain-visaged housewives who patronised thi

er over to an idle clerk and sought out Miss Jevne. Some of that lady's statuesqueness was gone. The bar pin on her bosom ros

rooms. Be quick about it. It's your siz

oy in Ray's face. Ten minutes later she emerged in the limp and clinging little

ting a ceaseless tattoo up and down the thronged aisles. On the Monday following thousands swarmed down upon the store again, but not in such overwhelmi

. Her slender shoulders had carried an endless number and variety of garments during those fo

down." She glanced sharply at the gown. "Looks jus

le reached out a weary, graceful arm and touched one of the lacy piles

ut that shadow lace. It's swell under voiles. I w

usly. "That's just a cheap skirt. Only twelve-f

at Myrtle with the fixed and wide

just say

lated Myrtle

ust say?" r

id that was a cheap junk skirt at only twel

s writing at his desk. He did not look up as Ray entered, thus observing rules one and two in the proper conduct of superintendents when interviewing employees. Ray Willets, standing by his desk, did not cough o

s you!"

ay Willets simply. "I've

wn forelock stood away from the grey. "You've lost some of you

the folds of her gown. She hesitated a moment awkwardly. "You

etty sure I hadn't made a mistake. I can gauge applicants p

es

changed my mind. I don't want to stay in the lingeries. I'd lik

see what I can do. What w

Willets' face, a look of d

d. "My name is