Not in her memory could she delve for pleasant things, not yet.

Eh, but some day she might be among the lucky ones, if--if her plan went through-- Howard lit another cigarette at the end of the song, but before he could get his hands on the notes again Irene bounded to her feet and went over to the piano.

"Say, can you play 'Love's Epitome' ?" she pronounced it "Eppy-tomy." "Can a duck swim ?" asked Howard, resisting a temptation to emit a howl of mirth.

She was too good a sort to chaff about her frequent maltreatment of the language.
"Go ahead, then, and I'll give you all a treat." He played the sentimental prelude of this characteristic product of the vaudeville stage, every note of which was plagiarized from a thousand plagiarisms and which imagined that eternity rhymed with serenity and mother with weather.

With gestures that could belong to no other school than that of the twice-dailies and the shrill nasal voice that inevitably goes with them, Irene, with the utmost solemnity, went solidly through the whole appalling thing, making the frequent yous "yee-ooo" in the true "vawdville" manner.
To Tootles it was very moving, and she was proud of her friend.