the same feeling that we used to have as flapperettes when
the circus-manager mounted the tub and began to announce the
after-concert, all for the price of ten cents, one dime!

"I wanted to, Tabbie, but you impressed me as looking rather
unapproachable that day."

"When the honey is scarce, my dear, even bees are said to be cross," I
reminded him. "And that's the thing that disturbs me, Dinky-Dunk. It
must disturb any woman to remember that she's left her happiness in
one man's hand. And it's more than one's mere happiness, for mixed up
with that is one's sense of humor and one's sense of proportion. They
all go, when you make me miserable. And the Lord knows, my dear, that
a woman without a sense of humor is worse than a dipper without a
handle."

Dinky-Dunk sat studying me.

"I guess it was my own sense of proportion that got out of kilter,
Gee-Gee," he finally said. "But there's one thing I want you to
remember. If I got deeper into this game than I should have, it wasn't
for what money meant to me. I've never been able to forget what I took
you away from. I took you away from luxury and carted you out here to
the end of Nowhere and had you leave behind about everything that made
life decent. And the one thing I've always wanted to do is make good
on that over-draft on your bank-account of happiness. I've wanted to
give back to you the things you sacrificed. I knew I owed you that,
all along. And when the children came I saw that I owed it to you more
than ever. I want to give Dinky-Dink and Poppsy and Pee-Wee a fair
chance in life. I want to be able to start them right, just as much as
you do. And you can't be dumped back into a three-roomed wickiup, with
three children to bring up, and feel that you're doing the right thing
by your family."

It wasn't altogether happy talk, but deep down in my heart I was glad
we were having it. It seemed to clear the air, very much as a good
old-fashioned thunder-storm can. It left us stumbling back to the
essentials of existence. It showed us where we stood, and what we
meant to each other, what we must mean to each other. And now that the
chance had come, I intended to have my say out.

"The things that make life decent, Dinky-Dunk, are the things that we
carry packed away in our own immortal soul, the homely old things like
honesty and self-respect and contentment of mind. And if we've got to
cut close to the bone before we can square up our ledger of life,
let's start