to sponge on you.
Now let me tell you I've kept account of every red cent you've spent on
me, and I expect to pay it back."

She tried to resist her impulse, but she couldn't keep from saying, as
nastily as possible: "How nice. When?"

"Oh, I'll pay it back, all right, trust you for that! You won't fail to
keep wising me up on the fact that you think I'm a drunken bum. You'll
sit around all day in a hotel and take it easy and have plenty time to
figger out all the things you can roast me for, and then spring them on
me the minute I get back from a trip all tired out. Like you always used
to."

"Oh, I did not!" she wailed.

"Sure you did."

"And what do you mean by my sitting around, from now on--"

"Well, what the hell else are you going to do? You can't play the piano
or maybe run an aeroplane, can you?"

"Why, I'm going to stay on my job, of course, Ed."

"You are not going-to-of-course-stay-on-your-job-Ed, any such a thing.
Lemme tell you that right here and now, my lady. I've stood just about
all I'm going to stand of your top-lofty independence and business
airs--as though you weren't a wife at all, but just as 'be-damned-to-you'
independent as though you were as much of a business man as I am! No,
sir, you'll do what _I_ say from now on. I've been tied to your apron
strings long enough, and now I'm the boss--see? Me!" He tapped his florid
bosom. "You used to be plenty glad to go to poker parties and leg-shows
with me, when I wanted to, but since you've taken to earning your living
again you've become so ip-de-dee and independent that when I even suggest
rushing a growler of beer you scowl at me, and as good as say you're too
damn almighty good for Eddie Schwirtz's low-brow amusements. And you've
taken to staying out all hours--course it didn't matter whether I stayed
here without a piece of change, or supper, or anything else, or any
amusements, while you were out whoop-de-doodling around-- You _said_ it
was with women!"

She closed her eyes tight; then, wearily: "You mean, I suppose, that you
think I was out with men."

"Well, I ain't insinuating anything about what you _been_ doing. You
been your own boss, and of course I had to take anything off anybody as
long as I was broke. But lemme tell you, from now on, no pasty-faced
female is going to rub it in any more. You're going to try some of your
own medicine. You're going to give up your rotten stenographer's job,
and you're going to stay home where