tryin' to gyp Dolores out of some heavy jack. But unless he gets somethin' on him, why, beatin' this bird up would only make matters worse between him and his wife and might even rebound in the Don's favor. So he decides to lay low for the time bein', trustin' to luck that this gil from Madrid will speak out of turn with Dolores or do somethin' which will show him up in his true colors. Personally he don't ever expect to lay a eye on the Don again and neither do I, for that matter, but we did—sweet spirits of niter, I'll say we did!
At the Hotel Escope, the trap where me and Kid Roberts is parked in New York, there's a telephone girl by the name of Beatrice Brown and she's a eye filler of the first water— Oh, a darb! She's made to order for the Follies, with the movies a set-up for her when she gets tired of the sport there. As usual, Ptomaine Joe can't sleep from thinkin' about her. Her switchboard just groaned under the load of confectionery and flowers which he loaded it with daily and all Bee did was to split amongst the other girls these costly sacrifices which Ptomaine laid at her altar and give Ptomaine a flock of wrong numbers in return.
But there was one member of our party which knocked Beatrice's heart for a trip, and that was Kid Roberts. Bee did eye work and all-around vampin' on the handsome Kid that had poor Ptomaine and the other males in the lobby gnashin' their teeth, but the Kid kept his head with her, bein' used to this kind of notice from the adjacent sex. In the worried state of mind the boy was in then, Beatrice, with her wise-
