t out, you little cur!
G-e-t out!"

"Max!"

"Chocolate candy in my pocket. Chocolate arsenic, you mean! My damn-fool
days are over."

"What's got you, Max? Didn't you buy him for me yourself that day at the
races five whole years ago? Wasn't the first things you asked for, when
you woke in the hospital with your burns, me and--and Snookie? What's
soured you, Max? What? What?"

"I'm soured on seeing a strapping, healthy woman sniveling over a little
sick-eyed cur. Ain't that enough to sour any man? Why don't you get up
and out and exercise yourself like the right kind of wimmin do? Play
tennis or get something in you besides the rotten air of this flat, and
mewling over that sick-eyed cur. Get out! Scc-c-c-c-c!"

The animal bellied to the door, tail down, and into the rear darkness of
the hallway.

"Max, what's got you? What do I know about tennis or--things like that?
You--you never used to want--things like that."

"Aw, what's the use of wasting breath?"

He flecked at his mustache, inserting the napkin between the two top
buttons of his slight bay of waistcoat; carved a second helping of meat,
masticating with care and strength so that his temples, where the hair
thinned and grayed, contracted and expanded with the movements of his
jaws.

"What's the use?"

"Max, I--"

"Thigh bother you?"

"A--a little."

"Didn't I tell you not to spare expense on trying new doctors if--"

"That ain't my real trouble, Max; it--"

"Been out to-day?"

"No, Max, I been sick as a dog, I tell you."

"No wonder you're sick, cooped up in this flat with nobody but a
servant-girl for company. Gad! ain't you ashamed to get so low that your
own servant-girl is your running-mate? Ain't you?"

"Max, she--"

"I know. I know."

"I been so blue, Max. Loo can tell you how I been waiting and wondering.
I--Lord, I been so blue, Max. She's good to me, Max, and--and I been so
blue."

"Never knew one of you wimmin that wasn't that way half her time. You're
a gang of sob sisters, every one of you--whining like you got your foot
caught in a machine and can't get it out."

"How you mean, Max?"

"Aw, you're all either in the blues or nagging. Why ain't you sports
enough to take the slice of life you get handed you? None of you ain't
healthy enough, anyways, I tell you, indoors, eating and sleeping and
mewling over poodle-dogs all the time. I'm damn sick of it all. Damn
sick, if you want to know it."

"But, Max, what's put th