ss, gambling, and all. You got it in you to be something
more than a tango lizard or a cigar-store bum, honey. It's only you
ain't got the stuff in you to stand up under a five-hundred-dollar
windfall and--a--and a sporty girl. If--if two glasses of beer make you
as silly as they do, Jimmie, why, five hundred dollars would land you
under the table for life."

"Aw--there you go again!"

"I can't help it, Jimmie. It's because I never knew a fellow had what's
he's cut out for written all over him so. You're a born clerk, Jimmie."

"Sure, I'm a slick clerk, but----"

"You're born to be a clerk, a good clerk, even a two-hundred-a-month
clerk, the way you can win the trade, but never your own boss. I know
what I'm talking about. I know your measure better than any human on
earth can ever know your measure. I know things about you that you don't
even know yourself."

"I never set myself up to nobody for anything I wasn't."

"Maybe not, Jimmie, but I know about you and--and that Central Street
gang that time, and----"

"You!"

"Yes, honey, and there's not another human living but me knows how
little it was your fault. Just bad company, that was all. That's how
much I--I love you, Jimmie, enough to understand that. Why, if I thought
May Scully and a set-up in business was the thing for you, Jimmie, I'd
say to her, I'd say, if it was like taking my own heart out in my hand
and squashing it, I'd say to her, I'd say, 'Take him, May.' That's how
I--I love you, Jimmie. Oh, ain't it nothing, honey, a girl can come here
and lay herself this low to you----"

"Well, haven't I just said you--you deserve better."

"I don't want better, Jimmie. I want you. I want to take hold of your
life and finish the job of making it the kind we can both be proud of.
Us two, Jimmie, in--in our own decent two-by-four. Shopping on Saturday
nights. Frying in our own frying-pan in our own kitchen. Listening to
our own phonograph in our own parlor. Geraniums and--and kids--and--and
things. Gas-logs. Stationary washtubs. Jimmie! Jimmie!"

Mr. James P. Batch reached up for his hat and overcoat, cramming the
newspaper into a rear pocket.

"Come on," he said, stalking toward the side door and not waiting to see
her to her feet.

Outside, a banner of stars was over the narrow street. For a chain of
five blocks he walked, with a silence and speed that Miss Slayback could
only match with a running quickstep. But she was not out of breath. Her
head w