room kitchenette
apartment situated in the Bronx at a surveyor's farthest point between two
Subway stations, and her present state one of frequent red-faced forays
down into a packing-case. But there was that in her eyes which witchingly
bespoke the conquered, but not the conqueror. Hers was actually the
titillating wonder of a bird which, captured, closes its wings, that
surrender can be so sweet.

Once she sat on the edge of the packing-case, dallying a hammer, then laid
it aside suddenly, to cross the littered room and place the side of her
head to the immaculate waistcoat of Mr. Jimmie Batch, red-faced, too, over
wrenching up with hatchet-edge a barrel-top.

"Jimmie darling, I--I just never will get over your finding this place for
us."

Mr. Batch wiped his forearm across his brow, his voice jerking between the
squeak of nails extracted from wood.

"It was you, honey. You give me the to-let ad, and I came to look, that's
all."

"Just the samey, it was my boy found it. If you hadn't come to look we
might have been forced into taking that old dark coop over on Simpson
Street."

"What's all this junk in this barrel?"

"Them's kitchen utensils, honey."

"Kitchen what?"

"Kitchen things that you don't know nothing about except to eat good things
out of."

"What's this?"

"Don't bend it! That's a celery-brush. Ain't it cute?"

"A celery-brush! Why didn't you get it a comb, too?"

"Aw, now, honey-bee, don't go trying to be funny and picking through these
things you don't know nothing about! They're just cute things I'm going to
cook something grand suppers in, for my something awful bad boy."

He leaned down to kiss her at that. "Gee!"

She was standing, her shoulder to him and head thrown back against his
chest. She looked up to stroke his cheek, her face foreshortened.

"I'm all black and blue pinching myself, Jimmie."

"Me too."

"Every night when I get home from working here in the flat I say to
myself in the looking-glass, I say, 'Gertie Slayback, what if you're only
dreamin'?'"

"Me too."

"I say to myself, 'Are you sure that darling flat up there, with the new
pink-and-white wall-paper and the furniture arriving every day, is going to
be yours in a few days when you're Mrs. Jimmie Batch?'"

"Mrs. Jimmie Batch--say, that's immense."

"I keep saying it to myself every night, 'One day less.' Last night it was
two days. To-night it'll be--one day, Jimmie, till I'm--her."

She closed her e