"What's the matter? Is it time to get up?" Sally asked dazedly. "What are you doing, Betty?"
The midget answered in her tiny, brisk voice: "I'm bathing your face with ammonia which Mrs. Bybee sent. It should be cologne, and this ammonia will probably dry your skin something dreadful, but it was the only thing we could get. You fainted, you know."
"Oh, I remember!" Sally moaned, her head beginning to thresh from side to side on the pillow. "Have they found David? I know he's been hurt!"
"They're looking for him," the midget assured her briskly. "Mr. Bybee took a vote on whether he was to notify the police about David's being gone, as well as Nita, and the vote was 'No!' That ought to make you feel happier!"
"Oh, it does!" Sally began to cry softly. "You have all been so kind, so kind! You said Mrs. Bybee sent the ammonia?" she asked wistfully.
"She certainly did, and she's in the kitchen of the privilege car right now, making you some hot tea. She won't say she's sorry, probably, but she'll try to make it up to you. She's like that--always flying off the handle and suspicious of everybody, but she's got a heart as big as Babe, the fat girl."
"And so have you!" Sally told her brokenly, taking both of the tiny hands into one of hers and laying them softly against her lips.
"Ain't love grand?" Mazie sighed deeply. "If it had been my sweetie, I'd a-fell for that line of Ma Bybee's about him running off with Nita, but you sure stuck by him! I was in love like that once, when I was a kid. I married him, too, and he run off with the albino girl and took my grouch bag with him. Every damn cent I had! But it sure was sweet before we was married and he was nuts about me."
"Aw, let the kid alone!" Sue slipped from the edge of the berth and yawned widely. "Gawd, I'm sleepy! If the cops don't catch that Hula hussy I'm going out looking for her myself, and when I get through with her she'll never shake another grass skirt! C'mon, Mazie. It's three o'clock in the morning, and we've got eighteen shows ahead of us."
"Maybe!" Mazie yawned. "If Pop wasn't stringing us, we'll be stranded in this burg. G'night, Sally. G'night, Midge. And say, Sally, even if this Dave boy has blowed and left you flat, you won't have no trouble copping off another sweetie. Gus was telling us about that New York rube that's trailing you. Hook up with him and you'll wear diamonds. Believe me, kid, they ain't none of 'em worth losing sleep over when you've got eighteen shows a day ahead of you. G'night."