Richard Connell

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”