But the next day, as Jimmy was heading for the La Salle restaurant to

get his luncheon, who should call to him airily from a passing taxi

but Zoie. It was apparent that she wished him to wait until she could

alight; and in spite of his disinclination to do so, he not only waited

but followed the taxi to its stopping place and helped the young woman

to the pavement.

"Oh, you darling!" exclaimed Zoie, all of a flutter, and looking exactly

like an animated doll. "You've just saved my life." She called to the

taxi driver to "wait."

"Are you in trouble?" asked the guileless Jimmy.

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"Yes, dreadful," answered Zoie, and she thrust a half-dozen small

parcels into Jimmy's arms. "I have to be at my dressmaker's in half an

hour; and I haven't had a bite of lunch. I'm miles and miles from home;

and I can't go into a restaurant and eat just by myself without being

stared at. Wasn't it lucky that I saw you when I did?"

There was really very little left for Jimmy to say, so he said it; and a

few minutes later they were seated tete-a-tete in one of Chicago's most

fashionable restaurants, and Zoie the unconscious flirt was looking up

at Jimmy with apparently adoring eyes, and suggesting all the eatables

which he particularly abominated.

No sooner had the unfortunate man acquiesced in one thing and

communicated Zoie's wish to the waiter, than the flighty young person

found something else on the menu that she considered more tempting to

her palate. Time and again the waiter had to be recalled and the order

had to be given over until Jimmy felt himself laying up a store of

nervous indigestion that would doubtless last him for days.

When the coveted food at last arrived, Zoie had become completely

engrossed in the headgear of one of her neighbours, and it was only

after Jimmy had been induced to make himself ridiculous by craning his

neck to see things of no possible interest to him that Zoie at last gave

her attention to her plate.

In obeyance of Jimmy's order the waiter managed to rush the lunch

through within three-quarters of an hour; but when Jimmy and Zoie at

length rose to go he was so insanely irritated, that he declared they

had been in the place for hours; demanded that the waiter hurry his

bill; and then finally departed in high dudgeon without leaving the

customary "tip" behind him.

But all this was without its effect upon Zoie, who, a few moments

later rode away in her taxi, waving gaily to Jimmy who was now late for

business and thoroughly at odds with himself and the world.




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