w
he was half a man and come to my defense, and he just stood there
and pretended he hadn't heard a word, and so I said to him, 'Well,' I
said--"

"Oh, cut it, cut it, Zill!" Paul groaned. "We all know I'm a
mollycoddle, and you're a tender bud, and let's let it go at that."

"Let it go?" Zilla's face was wrinkled like the Medusa, her voice was a
dagger of corroded brass. She was full of the joy of righteousness and
bad temper. She was a crusader and, like every crusader, she exulted
in the opportunity to be vicious in the name of virtue. "Let it go? If
people knew how many things I've let go--"

"Oh, quit being such a bully."

"Yes, a fine figure you'd cut if I didn't bully you! You'd lie abed till
noon and play your idiotic fiddle till midnight! You're born lazy, and
you're born shiftless, and you're born cowardly, Paul Riesling--"

"Oh, now, don't say that, Zilla; you don't mean a word of it!" protested
Mrs. Babbitt.

"I will say that, and I mean every single last word of it!"

"Oh, now, Zilla, the idea!" Mrs. Babbitt was maternal and fussy. She
was no older than Zilla, but she seemed so--at first. She was placid
and puffy and mature, where Zilla, at forty-five, was so bleached and
tight-corseted that you knew only that she was older than she looked.
"The idea of talking to poor Paul like that!"

"Poor Paul is right! We'd both be poor, we'd be in the poorhouse, if I
didn't jazz him up!"

"Why, now, Zilla, Georgie and I were just saying how hard Paul's been
working all year, and we were thinking it would be lovely if the Boys
could run off by themselves. I've been coaxing George to go up to Maine
ahead of the rest of us, and get the tired out of his system before we
come, and I think it would be lovely if Paul could manage to get away
and join him."

At this exposure of his plot to escape, Paul was startled out of
impassivity. He rubbed his fingers. His hands twitched.

Zilla bayed, "Yes! You're lucky! You can let George go, and not have to
watch him. Fat old Georgie! Never peeps at another woman! Hasn't got the
spunk!"

"The hell I haven't!" Babbitt was fervently defending his priceless
immorality when Paul interrupted him--and Paul looked dangerous. He rose
quickly; he said gently to Zilla:

"I suppose you imply I have a lot of sweethearts."

"Yes, I do!"

"Well, then, my dear, since you ask for it--There hasn't been a time in
the last ten years when I haven't found some nice little girl to
comf