.

"Can't," he said, and seated himself.

"Gowan, guess like you used to, dearie."

He fell immediately to sampling with short, quick stabs of his fork the
dish of carmine-red pickled beets beside his plate.

"Aw, gowan, Max, give a guess. What did you used to pay for with six big
kisses every time I candied them for you? Guess, Max."

"Sit down," he said, and with his foot shoved a small stool before her
chair.

"Lordy!" she said, drawing up en tete-a-tete, unpinning and spreading
her lacy train in glory about her, "but you're some little sunbeam to
have around the house."

"What these beets need is a little sugar."

She passed him the bowl; elevated her left foot in its slightly soiled
white slipper to the footstool; fastened her napkin to her florid bosom
with one of her numerous display of breastpins; poured some opaque wine
into his glass, coming back to flood her own to the brim; smiled at him
across the red head of the potted geranium, as if when the heart bleeds
the heart grows light.

"Here's _to_ you, Max!"

He raised his glass and drank in through his rather heavy mustache, then
flecked it this way and that with his napkin "Ahh-h-h-h, that's the
stuff!"

"S'more?"

"Yah-h-h-h-h-h!"

"Such a cotton mouth my bad boy brought home."

"Aha! Fee, fie, fum! Aha!"

"I broiled it under the single burner, Max, slow like you like. Here,
you carve it, dearie. Just like always, eh?"

His fleshy, blue-shaved face took on the tenseness of concentrated
effort, and he cut deep into the oozing beef, the red juice running out
in quick streams.

"Ah-h-h-h-h!"

"No, no, you keep that, Max; it's your rare piece."

"Gravy?"

"Yes, dearie."

The small dog shook himself and rose from sleep and the depths of a
pillow, nosing at her bare elbow.

"Was muvver's ittsie Snookie Ookie such a hungry bow-wow?"

He yapped shortly, pawing her.

"Ask big bossie sitting over there carving his din-din if him got
chocolate tandy in him pocket like always for Snookie Ookie. No, no, bad
red meat no good for ittsie bittsie bow-wow. Go ask big bossie what
him got this time in him pocket for Snookie. Aw, look at him, Max; he
remembers how you used to bring him--"

"Get down! Get down, I said! For God's sake get that little red-eyed,
mangy cur out of here while we're eating, can't you? Good gad! can't
a man eat a meal in this joint without having that dirty cur whining
around? Get him down off your dress there, Mae. Ge