# Her Arabian Knight

Extracted from Everybody's magazine, May 1923, pp. 134–142. Illustrations by Harold Anderson may be omitted.
Her Arabian Knight
Just What Happened to a Stout Lady after Seeing a Movie “Entitled Passion Amidst the Pyramids" Is Related by a Humorist
By Richard Connell
WINNIE weighed two hundred and twenty-nine pounds. Matter-of-fact dwellers in a matter-of-fact world called her fat. But this Winnie did not know, for she dwelt in a world of her own; and in this she was never more than—well, a maid of queenly figure. She was sitting, wrapped in reverie, on the edge of her own world that night.
To New York, darkness was coming. In the giant office-buildings of lower Manhattan gleamed a hundred thousand bright-lit windows. From her bedroom—three dollars a week in advance and no cooking allowed—Winnie Bout could see them. She sat there in the darkness, gazing out and up at the vast, dim shapes as they merged into the gentle blackness of the spring night. Vague mountains she saw, that would have been ghostly but for here and there odd, unstudied patterns of streaming orange-yellow light.
To one of an unromantic nature those lighted windows might bespeak overtime toilers, but not to Winnie Bout; she was twenty-two. She held out her round young arms to the nearest and most luminous of the towering buildings.
"My Christmas tree!" she called softly.
Her favorite of them all was the great cathedral of business with its spired heights, from whose summit flamed a torch of red. On this, as on other nights, Winnie let her gaze dwell long on the lofty edifice, and her eyes were full of dreams and wishes.
"So this is your castle!" she said aloud, in tones of tender rapture. "Oh, Abdul-el-Kafar, my prince, how wonderously beauteous! To think that this should happen to little me! Ah, to dwell with thee in this palace till the sands of the desert grow cold!"
To this, Abdul-el-Kafar made no reply, for he was present in her tiny room in spirit only.
It could not be said of Winnie Bout that she had a natural gift for poetic expression or that, normally, she voiced her emotions with such abandon. Her phrases were borrowed from the moving-picture screen, specifically from a picture called "Passion Amidst the Pyramids," which Winnie had seen three times. Moving-picture titles have made poets of us all.
Truth to tell, in business-hours Winnie was aloof, brisk, dignified. This untrammeled mode of expression was reserved for that happiest hour of her day when, after her work behind the counter in Dignowity's delicatessen store, she came back to her furnished room, sat at her kimono-clad ease in a battered wicker chair and gave way to reverie. It was then that Winnie Bout really lived; her hours behind the bean counter were the unreal part of her life, a nightmare that recurred daily. Back in her three-dollar-a-week room—cooking strictly forbidden—she shook off the nightmare and talked with princes.
Princes? That was in the past. There was but one prince for her now; there had been but one since she saw "Passion Amidst the Pyramids." In it, as all patrons of the silent drama will recall, was Prince Abdul-el-Kafar the noble-browed, brilliant-eyed, gleaming-toothed chieftain of a band of nomads. He votes, receives his mail and is shaved as Angelo Belmonte. In the rôle of intrepid and hot-blooded leader of his band of Bedouins, Abdul spies the blond beauty of Miss Evelyn Dalrymple, of New York, who is traveling in the desert, pursued by Sir Ruthven Mainwaring, scion of a noble house but cad at heart. Such strong emotions are kindled beneath Abdul's burnoose—local color for "shirt"—that into the desert air he breathes the memorable words: "At last! My mate-woman!" and swears by Allah to make her his. (Music-cue: "Pale Hands I Love.")
On his snow-white charger Abdul overtakes her caravan in the exact center of the Sahara at the precise moment when Sir Ruthven is basely trying to hug her on a camel. This makes Abdul pretty sore. Scorning to use his simitar or yet his yataghan, he uppercuts Sir Ruthven on his patrician chin, and this leads to blows. Both desert-chieftain and white aristocrat are, providentially, fairly showy rough-and-tumble fighters, and they indulge in a good many running film-feet of fisticuffs, almost upsetting a pyramid or two. A right swing to the Adam's apple puts the dastardly Sir Ruthven down for the count, and Abdul snatches up Miss Dalrymple, who has missed ten dollars' worth of fighting by fainting, and bears her off to his desert boudoir, that looks like an interior decorator's idea of heaven. He tries to hold her hand, but, to quote the subtitle, "Before the virginal armor of her glance, the prince shrank back." (Music-cue: "Less Than the Dust Beneath Thy Chariot-Wheels.")
She is a haughty captive for several hundred feet, and wears some charming negligees, of which, it would seem, the prince is a collector. Her glance, her trusting smile make him remember that he is a gentleman; so he behaves himself and goes off to hunt ibexes. Up comes a sand-storm. Abdul gallops across the desert to the rescue of his captive. Rescue her he does, but, in so doing, a panic-stricken camel kicks him in the head, and he swoons. For several hundred feet he hovers between life and death; but is nursed back to health by Miss Dalrymple, who, seeing his essential manliness long after the audience does, melts in his arms and says, "My mate-man!" (Music-cue: "Kiss Me Again.")
It's all right, though. Lest there be any question of the propriety of a blond Caucasian permanent wave being joined in wedlock to black-brilliantined locks, he confesses that he is really Harold Emerson Throckmorton, of a fine old cotton-mill owning Boston family, who, disgusted with the tawdry glitter of Beacon Street, has spurned it for the simple life of a desert wanderer. He has, however, built himself on the edge of the desert a palace about the size of the Grand Central Station, and thither, arm in arm, go he and the no longer supercilious Miss Dalrymple, followed by a Baptist missionary from Des Moines, Iowa, who, as luck would have it, was passing at the moment. (Music cue: Mendelssohn's "Wedding March.")
With all her eyes and soul Winnie had devoured this drama. In her world of reverie she played it over and over. But Miss Dalrymple—otherwise Miss Peggy Charming—was eliminated, and her rôle was played by Winnie Bout. All that was left of Miss Dalrymple in the new version was her smile, which Winnie borrowed.
Over Winnie's golden-oak wash-stand hung a picture of Angelo Delmonte, cut from a motion-picture magazine. winnie knew the legend beneath the picture by heart.
    Angelo Delmonte, idol of the screen, snapped unawares at his country-place, Kum Rite Inn. He loves outdoor life, but speaks English with a delicious foreign accent, he being of a noble Spanish-Italian family but a naturalized American citizen.
To this picture Winnie turned from her contemplation of the glittering heights of her castle, and, apparently in reply to some questions, said:
"What was it that first attracted me to you, my prince? Oh, Abdul, it was your delicious foreign accent."
A KNOCK on the door startled Miss Bout from her musings.
"You may enter," she said in a voice that was, she hoped, queenly. It was her secret belief that she was a changeling, the daughter of a king, inexplicably left to be raised by her parents, who, before their demise, were in the delicatessen business.
Holding to this belief, she had cultivated a regal manner. It quite intimidated some of the customers who came into Dignowity's, where stern economic necessity compelled her to hold court daily from nine to six, with a pickle-fork for a scepter.
The girl who entered was a bony slip of a thing in a cotton-crêpe kimono. Everything about the newcomer seemed sharp—her eyes, her elbows, her chin, her voice and her manner.
"Lissen, Tiny," she said; "lemme have the loan of your frizzle-iron, will you? I got a date with Eddie."
"You will find the curling-iron on the chiffonier, Gertrude," said Winnie. It was the tone of a sovereign speaking to one of her ladies in waiting—gracious, yet majestic. "And, Gertrude, I've asked you before not to call me 'Tiny.'"
"Oh, all right!" said Gertrude, who also worked in Dignowity's delicatessen. "You can't help your shape, I s'pose."
"Gertrude!" Winnie drew herself up.
"Gee! This iron takes a long time to heat," said Miss Shultz, which was the name on Gertrude's fourteen-dollar-a-week pay-envelope. She began to make attempts to reach the back of her hair that a contortionist might have envied.
"Here! Let me do it for you," said Winnie. With deft fingers she manipulated the hot iron.
"You're a good kid, Winnie," said Gertrude gratefully.
"Where are you and Edward going this evening?" asked Winnie, with languid interest.
"To see a film," replied Gertrude.
"What one?"
"'The Handsome Bedouin,' one of them desert things," replied Miss Shultz. "You know—the kind where they play 'Pale Hans I Love Beside the Cellar Door.' Say—who was this Hans, anyhow?"
"Hands, Gertrude," corrected Winnie. "Did you see 'Passion Amidst the Pyramids'?"
"Yeah."
"Wasn't Angelo—Mr. Delmonte—adorable?"
"Uh huh. Don't burn my ear."
Winnie busied herself with her tonsorial art. Then she said,
"Gertrude——"
"Yeah?"
"Wouldn't it be wonderful to be loved by him?"
"Who?"
"Angelo—Mr. Delmonte."
"Aw, he's a foreigner," said Miss Shultz.
"He's a naturalized American," returned Winnie, with a show of warmth.
"Why, in Film Favorites I read he can't speak English."
"He's got a delicious foreign accent," retorted Winnie. "And he's so masterful! Wouldn't it be just too wonderful to have a man like that swoop down and carry you off?"
"Not me," said Miss Shultz. "Eddie Meany ain't got a delicious foreign accent, but he's good enough for me."
Winnie shrugged her ample shoulders.
"I think it would be just heavenly," she said, and shyness was mingled with her queenliness as she said it.
Miss Shultz eyed Winnie critically.
"I guess you ain't in no danger," she said. Before her gaze Winnie winced. She sought to change the subject.
"Didn't you think Peggy Charming was a little—well, a little too thin for the part?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Gertrude. "Of course she wasn't much like you. She had to be little, or how could he have slung her over his saddle?"
"She looked a little skinny to me," said Winnie.
"Aw, you're jealous!" said Gertrude, with a sharp laugh. To this Winnie could offer no rebuttal; it was the truth.
THERE was a jaunty masculine ring at the door-bell. Miss Shultz gave her mop of hair a last hasty scrutiny in the cracked mirror.
"It's Eddie!" she cried jubilantly. "Thanks for frizzing me, Tiny." She skipped from the room.
Winnie turned out the gas that had been lighted to heat the curling-iron, sat down again in her wicker chair and gazed out at the panorama of the city. But the shapes outlined by their lighted windows seemed only office-buildings to her now. Stern reality was thrusting its disillusioning head into the country of her fancy. She could not escape the fact that no Eddie had come to take her out; nor could she avoid reflecting that no Eddie had ever come to take her out. A little while before, her fancy had furnished her room with rich and color ful tapestries, soft, thick rugs, chairs carved with armorial crests, inviting divans, rose-hued lights—had, indeed, transformed it into a spacious, luxurious apartment, worthy of the prospective bride of a noble gentleman with a delicious foreign accent.
Now she turned from her window and, by the unsympathetic rays of a street-light, saw it as it was—a crowded little room, papered with roses that had once been pink but which were now pale blurs, carpeted with a worn material that was no particular color unless it were brown. Her inviting divan became a narrow iron bed, her chiffonier a golden-oak chest of drawers needing varnish, her rose-hued light a single gas-jet in its petticoat of frosted glass.
She let herself sink down on the bed, and for long minutes she studied the ceiling. Why had she no prince—or even an Eddie? This was a question that had been forcing its way into her day-dreams of late. Until only a few months before her dream-romances had entirely contented her, but now vicarious wooings began to pall a little. She was growing tired of second-hand romance; hopefully, diffidently, she was beginning to reach out for the real thing.
She stood up, lit the gas and studied her face in the decrepit mirror. Yes; most certainly her complexion was better than Gertrude's. An unusually pink and glowing complexion, she, in all modesty, could say. And there was something queenly about her face; it wasn't sharp and pert, like Gertrude's. Also, her collar-bones did not show, as Gertrude's unquestionably did. Her figure, she had to admit, was not the sort that can be conveniently slung over a saddle; it was much too generous and heroic of mold for that. Statuesque! That was the word for it. She had seen the word used in a movie-title and had taken it for her own. She liked to think of herself as statuesque, something like Empress Catharine of Russia. Hadn't she been called "the Great"? Clearly this referred to her size.
"Empress Winnie—the Great," she said, softly.
Her eyes brightened as she turned toward a chair in the corner where lay new garments, to be donned for the first time next morning, Sunday, when she went to church and afterward for a stroll up Fifth Avenue. Her hands caressed the garments, and they trembled a little as they did so, for on the morrow she was going to essay a new and daring rôle. She was going to try to be a flapper.
She was taking this step on the advice of Gertrude Shultz, who was greatly experienced in the art. Shyly she had questioned Gertrude, and Gertrude had said:
"The trouble with you, Tiny, is that you're too up-stage. You act like you thought you was a queen or something. You got a Ritzy smile that don't fit on lower Seventh Avenue. You ought to giggle and you ought to flap."
"But that isn't my style," objected Winnie. "Besides, I don't know how."
Gertrude shrugged her sharp shoulders.
"Aw, all you need is the uniform," she said.
SO, AFTER consideration, Winnie Bout had bought the particular and peculiar garb which distinguishes the flapper. To-morrow she would test it. To-morrow she would try to forget that she was majestic, statuesque and probably the offspring of royal parents. And, since real romance had not come to her, she would set out in search of it.
During the past few months she had fumbled for romance. She had cajoled Gertrude into bringing young men, friends of Eddie, to call on her in the red-plush parlor of the rooming-house, but these princes had slipped away after a murmured "Pleased tuh meetchuh" and "Looks like rain, don't it?" never to return.
With Gertrude and a patently reluctant Eddie she had gone to several dances in the hall of the Algonquin-Rafferty Social and Athletic Club, of which Eddie was a member. To Winnie Bout they had been sorry affairs, for she had sat all evening in a corner, alone, obviously unwanted, and this despite the fact that she had tried very hard to be amiable, even coquettish. The young gentlemen of the Algonquin-Rafferty Social and Athletic Club did not, it would appear, care for statuesque girls.
She had gone to a surprise-party at the Bronx home of one her coworkers in Dignowity's. But when they played post-office and other hilarious kissing-games, Winnie's name had never been called.
As she ran over these events, Winnie Bout was forced to admit to herself that her search for romance had been perilously near a total failure.
To-morrow, she felt, would be a crisis in her life. It would tell her, she said to herself, if she could ever be attractive in the eyes of men and princes.
In the morning Winnie's alarm-clock woke her very early, and she dressed with infinite care. At last she was ready to sally forth, to conquer or to fail. Her final glance in the mirror was not very reassuring. She did look—well, rather wide, and her legs—well, she hadn't realized there was quite so much of them. However, bravely she set forth.
She was dressed in the garb of the younger generation. Her feet were adorned with flat, rubber-soled sport-shoes of banana-hued elkskin, with brown bands across the toes; her stockings were of the popular buffish tint; her skirt was plaid—rather violently plaid—and its brevity made even a casual observer aware that she had knees. Her light coat was of alleged camel's hair, and was of the type called "polo." Her shirt-waist had a generous, sweeping Peter Pan collar, and her tie was widely striped, even as a barber pole is. Her hat was the regulation free-and-easy straw, bound with braid and cocked at an angle that obliterated one eye entirely and imperiled the other. A rainbow scarf was twisted nonchalantly about her throat.
When church was over Winnie started on her stroll up Fifth Avenue. Inwardly she was trembling at her own audacity. Never in her twenty-two years had she done a thing like this.
At Fiftieth Street she saw approaching a young man, a very superior young man, in top-hat and morning coat, with a gardenia in his buttonhole. That he was dark and had a foreign air, she could tell, even when he was a block away. As his features grew more distinct, Winnie's heart stopped short. There could be no doubt about it. It was he—Angelo Delmonte!
Winnie gathered together all her courage. As he drew near she raised her eyes to his archly. She gave him a lingering little look; then she dropped them again. She ventured to look up. Her prince was looking at her. But he was not smiling; he was laughing! Not the least doubt in the world that he was laughing at her!
Flushing, sick at heart, Winnie hurried on. She took the elevated train back to lower Seventh Avenue. As she hurried homeward she heard a voice call:
"Well, look who's here! Why, Tiny!"
It was Miss Shultz, another girl, Eddie and a fellow member of the social and athletic club out for a Sunday stroll.
Winnie nodded to them as pleasantly as a numbed heart would permit. In the faces of Eddie and his friend she saw the same look she had seen in the face of her prince in Fifth Avenue. They were laughing at her. Their laughter pursued her as, with burning cheeks, she climbed the stairs to her bedroom. She was sitting in her wicker chair, her hands shut tightly, trying to keep out the truth and to keep back the tears, when Gertrude thrust in her head.
"You know what Eddie said, Tiny?"
Winnie raised her stricken face.
"What?" she asked feebly.
"He said," replied Miss Shultz, "that you looked like a load of hay going somewhere to be pitched." She slammed the door and rattled down-stairs again.
With dull fingers Winnie pulled off her finery, let it fall to the floor, lay down on her bed, buried her face in a pillow and tried to shut out the world.
WINNIE had to go to work that afternoon, for Sunday is a banner day in delicatessendom. As, in her white apron, she arranged the cold baked beans in their little paper canoes, something globular and damp rolled down her cheek and splashed into the beans. It was a tear. She glanced round guiltily, lest the agile eye of Mr. Dignowity should have seen. She felt that she could not bear a rebuke, or even a cross look. She felt that the world was staring at her, pointing its finger at her, laughing at her. But the thought that tortured her most was that no prince would ever come for her now.
Winnie was fat. That was her sin. Not just pleasingly plump, not just stylishly stout—fat. She did not spare herself now. She knew the cold truth. She had thought of herself as statuesque, but now——
Winnie weighed two hundred and twenty-nine pounds. It may strike the fortunate thin that it was odd that she had never noticed this damning fact until her twenty-second year. But what girl of romantic temperament will admit to herself that she is unattractive to men until the cruel truth is forced upon her?
Winnie couldn't help being like that. She inherited her physique and her romantic temperament. Some people are born fat; some attain fatness, and some have fatness thrust upon them. With Winnie it was a case of all three. She had been an unusually large baby, the daughter of adipose parents, and up in Harlem the tubbier a child the healthier it is deemed. It made Winnie's mother proud to have customers come into the Bout Delicatessen Emporium and say, as they pinched young Winnie's bulging cheeks or chubby legs,
"There's a fine, healthy child for you!"
Her father said it was a good advertisement for his business to have Winnie so palpably well nourished, and he permitted, even encouraged, her as a child to range at will among the macaroons, the pies, the potato chips and the candies. Odd bits of ham from the slicing-machine were her customary rewards for good conduct. Thus fat stole on Winnie unawares, and buried deep her romantic heart. When she grew a little older she wrapped herself round in dreams, made believe to herself that slender girls were jealous of her superior statuesqueness, closed the door of her mind to the horrid truth. Now the door was wide open; it could never be closed again. Winnie was fat. And she knew it. Oh, the unutterable tragedy of it! She could not keep back the hot tears.
Back in her little room that night, Winnie, her head in her hands, sat on her bed and resolved to be thin. She stood up resolutely. She tried to bend and touch her toes with her finger-tips. She almost reached them—almost. Her face grew peony-red; her head began to swim; she panted. She gave up after three bends, for fear of doing herself an injury. No; something more drastic than exercise, and less dangerous, must be attempted.
Earnestly Winnie Bout began to diet. Three starved and anguished months crawled their slow, hungry way in Winnie's life. She breakfasted on toast and weak tea, lunched on parsley and dined on lettuce and oranges. Twice she fainted as she gazed at the cold pork on Dignowity's counters. Valiantly she walked miles, always after dusk, for she had grown acutely self-conscious. She shunned scales. Hopefully each morning, however, she studied her face in the mirror. Yes; she was growing thinner. At last she went to the rear of the store and weighed herself. Round spun the indicator, and down went Winnie's heart, for the relentless pointer hesitated, quivered, then stopped. Winnie stared through the mist of her tears at the figures "228."
THAT little metal arrow was to Winnie the finger of Fate. To her it said that hope was gone. When she got back to her room that night she locked the door. She went to the wash-stand, over which the handsome features of Angelo Delmonte smiled a dazzling smile. For long minutes the sad blue eyes of Winnie Bout gazed into the rotogravure eyes of the knight of her dreams; then, with a fierce, despairing gesture, she plucked out the tack that held the picture in place, kissed the sepia lips, and convulsively crumpled up the picture and threw it into the waste-basket. Then, though the night was warm, she pulled down the shade to shut out the sight of the castles and tried not to sob too loudly.
In the morning her opening eyes fell on the clean spot on the wall-paper that the picture had covered. She forced herself to get up, to dress, to start for Dignowity's and work. She didn't know if she could get through the day.
Her route to her store led her past many bill-boards, and before one of these she stopped, for she saw the pink-and-white face of Peggy Charming, whose features were lit by that bewitching smile known to picture-lovers the world over. Winnie paused to ponder. Whatever happened, Winnie reflected, Miss Charming smiled. Captured by brigands and in imminent peril of being carried off to a fate worse than death, she smiled. Bound hand and foot in the path of an onrushing locomotive, she smiled. As a tenement drudge, beaten by alcoholic parents, she smiled. Always she smiled until romance came to her.
Winnie thought about this as she trudged on to work.
Her mind had been casting about hungrily for something to compensate her for the prince that could never be. It occurred to her that here was a new rôle she could play. She would smile, although her heart was breaking. She knew that her smile could never have the devastating effect that Miss Charming's had. No; it would not be that kind of smile. It would be a patient, brave smile—the smile of one concealing a secret sorrow, a pensive smile that would say to any one who cared to analyze it: "The world has not used me well, but I forgive it. See? I smile." She practised this smile as she took her stand behind the counter and began to do some landscape-gardening with olives and salmon salad.
"Hello, Tiny!" called Gertrude Shultz from her counter. "Why so happy? Got that dark, handsome feller?"
It cost Winnie an effort of will, but she smiled back. The other girls in Dignowity's noticed it. They teased her.
"Winnie's in love," they said, nudging each other and giggling.
"She's got a sweetie."
"Is he a count or a dook?"
"Take me out in your Rolls-Royce, Tiny."
"Can I come see you when you got a castle?"
"Has he a delicious foreign accent?"
In unguarded moments in the past, Winnie had confided her dreams to some of them. She regretted that now. To their banter she returned a smile. But there was no smile in her heart. For as it beat it seemed to say: "Too fat! Too fat!"
HOWEVER, dinging to her resolution, she bestowed a smile on all her customers. Age or sex mattered not. What could a man mean to her now? She almost stopped smiling as this thought crossed her brain. But she didn't. She smiled at the customer who had huskily ordered some cold beans. He smiled back—a surprised, almost frightened smile.
"Anything else?" asked Winnie, smiling.
"Nudding," said the customer. He reached out a huge hand for the little canoe of beans. The timidity of his voice and manner was not at all in keeping with his big, bulging shoulders that fitted tightly into his blue suit. He was not tall, or fat, yet his shoulders seemed to fill the store. His face was tanned, and his mustache curled in a tight black curl on either end. He took his beans, made a queer, ducking bow to Winnie and shouldered his way out.
"Hey, Winnie, who's your friend?" called Gertrude Shultz.
"Is that the dook?" called another girl.
"Why, here he is again!" exclaimed Gertrude.
The man with the bulgy shoulders had returned. He seemed disconcerted to find Winnie smiling at him; he approached her counter slowly, met her glance, looked away, embarrassed.
"Piggle," he said in his husky voice.
"Piggle? I beg pardon?"
"Piggle," he repeated, pointing.
"Oh, pickle."
He nodded emphatically.
Winnie speared a large green pickle swimming with its mates in a glass aquarium.
The stranger solemnly laid down a dime, grasped the pickle and, with another ducking bow, bore it away.
In the afternoon, after a hard day, during which Winnie forced herself to smile only after some severe inner struggles, she was sitting wistfully staring at the bowl of mayonnaise when she became aware that some one was standing at her counter. She looked up, smiled. It was the man of the bulgy shoulders.
"Piggle," he said shyly.
She captured a pickle from the tank, and he carried it away. Again she returned to her melancholy musings. A customer at her counter brought her back to the world of reality. With a little start Winnie recognized the buyer of pickles.
"Piggle," he said. His tone was plaintive.
With a smile Winnie gave him his pickle. For the smallest part of a second he dared to raise his black eyes to her blue eyes. Then he made a ducking bow and vanished from the store.
In her room that night, Winnie did not smile. That rôle was reserved for the day; it helped her get through the long work-hours. In the morning, shortly after she had taken her place behind the counter, the man with the bulgy shoulders made his appearance. He advanced to Winnie's counter with a more determined stride, opened his mouth as if to say something important, thought better of it or else lost courage, and said simply,
"Piggle."
Winnie smiled.
"Say," she said affably; "you'd save time if you bought 'em by the dozen."
He actually blushed beneath his tan. Suddenly he uncurled, then curled, his mustachc-ends with a deft, rapid gesture and said,
"Name, please?"
"Beg pardon?"
"Name?"
"My name?"
"Yes. Sure."
"Winnie."
"Weenie?"
"Yes."
Confusion seemed to overtake him at this point. He seized the pickle in his brown hands and carried it off as if he were performing a religious rite.
Some busy hours passed. Winnie turned from the butter-tub to find the man with the bulgy shoulders gazing at her intently. There was a curious light in his eyes. Somehow, it made Winnie blush.
"Piggle, Weenie," he said in a tone of almost abject deference.
She covered her own confusion by pretending to search the aquarium for the largest pickle. He took it, bowed, departed.
The long day in the store was nearing an end, and Winnie was trying not to think of the cheerless evening ahead of her in her hall bedroom when she heard, or, rather, felt, the presence of a customer. She looked. It was the bulgy buyer of pickles, who had come in softly and was watching her. She saw that same odd look in his black eyes.
"Piggle, Weenie," he said, almost reverently.
"Say," remarked Winnie; "you must be fond of pickles."
The bulgy man shook his head.
"I hate zem," he said sadly. "Zey make me seek."
"They make you sick?"
"Veree, veree seek," he affirmed.
"Then why do you eat them?"
"I don't eat zem."
"You don't eat them? Then what do you do with them?"
"I throw zem away," he said, twisting the pickle in his hand in his embarassment.
"Do you mean to say you buy good pickles to throw away?" Winnie stared at him.
He gazed at the shining buttons on his tan shoes. He nodded.
"But why do you buy them?" Winnie persisted.
He looked up at her with sudden courage,
"Because, Weenie," he said, "you smile when you sell zem to me."
"But I—I don't see—" faltered Winnie.
"Outside, by the gutter, I will await you," he said. "Zen I will tell you, O daughter of the sun!"
IT MUST have been after midnight that night when Miss Gertrude Shultz, in her hall bedroom on lower Seventh Avenue, was wakened from her slumbers by the excited entrance of Winnie Bout.
"Wake up, Gertrude; wake up!"
"Fire?" asked Miss Shultz, sitting up in bed.
"No. Me."
"You, Tiny? What's the row?"
"Guess."
"Guess what?"
"He said I was more beauteous than the full moon over the Bosporus!"
"Who? What——"
"And he said my smile was like a wreath of stars shining down on Stamboul!"
"Tiny Bout, are you sober?" Miss Shultz stared at Winnie.
"Yes, yes, yes! And he said that in his country I'd be considered very beautiful." Winnie hesitated and blushed. "Only—if anything—I was a little underweight."
"Who said this?" demanded Miss Shultz.
"The prince—my prince!"
"Your prince?"
"Yes, Abdul. We're to be married Saturday."
"You? Tiny? To a prince?" Miss Shultz took the tone of one humoring a lunatic. "I suppose he's got a milk-white stallion."
"He has," replied Winnie proudly. "Six of them. I saw them."
"You saw them? Where?"
"Madison Square Garden."
"The circus?" Winnie nodded. "Say," questioned Miss Shultz; "what kind of a prince is he?"
"I don't know exactly," admitted Winnie, "but on the bill-boards it says he is Abdul, the equestrian prince from Constantinople."
"Equestrian?" Miss Shultz wrinkled her sharp forehead. "Never heard of Equestria. Where is it?"
"I don't know," said Winnie; "but I'll get the prince to take me there."
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1949, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 75 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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