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WISCONSIN LITERARY MAGAZINE
Hard-Boiled
EARL HANSON.
The stars were sprinkled, like burning salt, over
the sky. A man and a girl sat on the shore of the
lake and watched the reflections of the stars in the
black, motionless water.
"I wish there was a moon," she said sentimentally.
"I'm glad there's not."
"Why not?"
"He reminds me of a fat libertine grinning down
from above. He's too highly sensuous."
"How horrid", she said. And after a pause,
"You're rather firm in your views, aren't you?"
"I pretend I am."
"Hard-boiled?"
"Hard-boiled."
"Ever since Fanny Gray?"
He looked at her a moment. "What makes you
ask that?"
"Oh, just thinking. Tell me, Al, how did you
feel toward Fanny?"
"I liked her very much. I liked her companion-
ship. And after she became engaged to John, I was
wildly in love with her."
She laughed. "After? Why didn't you speak
up? You could have had her if you'd gotten in be-
fore John."
"All that spring I was hoping and praying that
John would get engaged to her. I didn't know how
I was going to get out of it otherwise."
"Philanderer?"
"Pretend to be."
"I haven't seen you for so long! Tell me, how
have you acted toward girls since then?"
"Oh, played around wildly. Kissed them when-
ever I had a chance. Acted rough and all that."
"Are you one of those men that are eternally kiss-
ing girls?"
"Yes."'
"I don't like that kind of a man."
"That's a shame."
There was a moment of silence. Both stared at
the north star, out in the middle of the lake.
"I suppose," he said flippantly. "I suppose when
a man tries to kiss you, you say just like all the rest
'Please! Please don't! You mustn't!' "
There was a mockery in his voice of a shy pleading
tone.
She laughed. "Bashful, maidenly retreat, daring
you to follow?"
"And hoping you will!"
"That isn't what I say," she answered, 'real hard-
boiled like' as he thought about it afterward, "I say
'Damn it, when I tell you to quit, I mean it'!"
"That's the way" he answered approvingly, "hard-
boiled."
"Yes, hard-boiled."
"Tell me more about yourself."
"Well,-I don't like, to be pawed-very much."
"Pawed is an excellent word," he commented
gravely.
"Isn't it though? I think it describes the thing
exactly."
"Do many men try to paw you?"
"Oh, men are all alike. They all think they have
to try it."
"Even your latest affliction, the high-school super-
intendent ?"
"That mutt! I tell you, they're all alike. They
haven't any originality.  Put one through his paces
and you have them all."
"A highly conventionalized view. I wonder if you
can say the same thing about girls."
"I wonder.'
Again there was silence. A slim fingure of northern
light appeared in the sky and shyly, delicately played
in the black eternity.
"I think I'm going to kiss you," he said slowly.
"You'd better not."
"What would you do?"
"I'd never speak to you again."
"I'll do it anyway,"-and he grasped her firmly
in his embrace and kissed her.
She struggled feebly in his arms. "Please don't,"
she whispered with a shy, pleading tone in her voice.
"Please don't! You mustn't."
October, 1921