When Diana Dickey came back from France in the spring of 1919, her parents considered that she had atoned for her nefarious past. She had served a year in the Red Cross and she was presumably engaged to a young American ace of position and charm. They could ask no more; of Diana's former sins only her nickname survived——

Diamond Dick!—she had selected it herself, of all the names in the world, when she was a thin, black-eyed child of ten.

“Diamond Dick,” she would insist, “that's my name. Anybody that won't call me that's a double darn fool.”

“But that's not a nice name for a little lady,” objected her governess. “If you want to have a boy's name why don't you call yourself George Washington?”

“Be-cause my name's Diamond Dick,” explained Diana patiently. “Can't you understand? I got to be named that be-cause if I don't I’ll have a fit and upset the family, see?”

She ended by having the fit—a fine frenzy that brought a disgusted nerve specialist out from New York—and the nickname too. And once in possession she set about modeling her facial expression on that of a butcher boy who delivered meats at Greenwich4 back doors. She stuck out her lower jaw and parted her lips on one side, exposing sections of her first teeth—and from this alarming aperture there issued the harsh voice of one far gone in crime.

“Miss Caruthers,” she would sneer crisply, “what's the idea of no jam? Do you wanta whack the side of the head?”

“Diana! I’m going to call your mother this minute!”

“Look at here!” threatened Diana darkly, “If you call her you’re liable to get a bullet the side of the head.”

Miss Caruthers raised her hand uneasily to her bangs. She was somewhat awed.

“Very well,” she said uncertainly, “if you want to act like a little ragamuffin——”

Diana did want to. The evolutions which she practiced daily on the sidewalk and which were thought by the neighbors to be some new form of hop-scotch were in reality the preliminary work on an Apache slouch.