Jimmie, I--I feel ashamed."

"Just you stick to me, peaches, and there ain't one at that table that's
got on anything you can't have twice over. I know that gang--the pink
queen and all. 'Longside of you they look like stacks o' bones tied up
in a rag o' satin."

"Aw, Jimmie, look at 'em, so blond and all!"

"They're a broken-winded bunch. Look at them bottles on their table!
We're going to have twice as many and only one color in our glasses,
kiddo. Yellow, the same yellow as your hair, the kinda yellow that's
mostly gold. That's the kind of bubble water we're going to buy, kiddo!"

"Jimmie, such a spender!"

"That's me!"

"It's sure like the girls say--the sky's your limit."

"Look, Doll, there's the swellest little dancer in this town--one
swell little pal and a good sport. Watch her, kiddo--watch her do that
staircase dance. Ain't she a lalapaloo!"

A buxom nymph of the grove, whose draperies floated from her like
flesh-colored mist, spun to the wild passion of violins up the eight
marble steps of the marble flight. A spotlight turned the entire range
of the spectrum upon her. She was like a spinning tulip, her draperies
folding her in a cup of sheerest petals, her limbs shining through.

"Classy, ain't she, Doll?"

"Well, I guess!"

"Wanna meet her? There ain't none of 'em that 'ain't sat at my table
many a time."

"I like it better with just you, Jimmie."

"Sweetness, don't you look at me like that or you'll get me so mixed up
I'll go out and buy the Metropolitan Tower for your Christmas present.
Whatta you want for Christmas--eh, Doll?"

"Aw, Jimmie, I don't want nothing. I 'ain't got no right to take nothing
from you!" She played with the rich, unpronounceable foods on her plate
and took a swallow of golden liquid to wash down her fiery confusion.
"I--'ain't got no right."

"When I get to likin' a little girl there ain't nothing she 'ain't got a
right to."

"Aw, Jimmie, when you talk like that I feel so--so--"

"So what, Doll?"

"So--so--"

"Gowann, Doll."

"Aw, I can't say it. You'll think I'm fresh."

But she regarded him with the nervous eyes of a gazelle and the red swam
high up into her hair, and he drained his glass down to the bottom of
its hollow stem and leaned his warming face closer.

"You treat me white, sweetness, and understand me right, and you won't
be sorry for nothing you say. Drink, Doll, drink to you 'n' me--you 'n'
me."

Their bubble-thin glasses met in a tink