rather dull. In the meantime I glanced in at her little
room. There was a chair or two, a cheap oak dresser,
and an iron bed. The room looked neat.

"Ain't I got a nice clean place?" suggested Madam
Leo. Then as I assented, she pointed to a calendar
which hung upon the wall. At the top of it was a colored
print from some French painting, showing a Cupid. kiss-
ing a filmily draped Psyche.

"That's me," said Madam Leo. "That's me when
I was a young girl!" Again she loosed her laugh.

I started to move on.

"Where are you from?" she asked.

"I came up from Colorado Springs," I said.

"Well," she returned, "when you go back send some
nice boys up here. Tell them to see Madam Leo. Tell
them a middle-aged woman with spectacles. I'm
known here. I been here four years. Oh, things ain't
so bad. I manage to make two or three dollars a day."

As I passed to leeward of her on the narrow walk I
got the smell of a strong, brutal perfume.

"Have you got to be going?" she asked.

"Yes," I answered. "I must go to the train."

"Well, then--so long," she said.

"So long."

"Don't forget Madam Leo," she admonished, giving
utterance, again, to her strident, feeble-minded laugh.

"I won't," I promised.

And I never, never shall.

-438-