job. Promote it!"

"Ah, that sounds familiar. The way you promoted away every cent of your
mother's fortune until the bed she died in was mortgaged. One of your
wildcat schemes again! Oh, I watched you before I lost track of you in
South America--just the way you're watching--us--now! I know the way you
squandered your mother's fortune. The rice plantation in Georgia. The
alfalfa ranch. The solid-rubber-tire venture in Atlanta. You don't get
your hands on my affairs. My way suits me!"

The tumult in her was so high and her panic so like a squirrel in the
circular frenzy of its cage that she scarcely noted the bang on the door
and the hairy voice that came through.

"All out!"

"Yes," she said, without knowing it.

"You're losing a fortune, Hattie. Shame on a fine, strapping woman like
you, black-facing herself up like this when you've hit on something with
a fortune in it if you work it properly. You ought to have more regard
for the girl. Black-face!"

"What has her--father's regard done for her? It's my black-face has kept
her like a lily!"

"Admitting all that you say about me is right. Well, I'm here eating
humble pie now. If that little girl doesn't know, bless my heart,
I'm willin' she shouldn't ever know. I'll take you out to Greenwich
to-morrow and marry you. Then what you've told her all these years is
the truth. I've just come back, that's all. We've patched up. It's done
every day. Right promoting and a few hundred dollars in that there cream
will--"

She laughed. November rain running off a broken spout. Yellow leaves
scuttling ahead of wind.

"The picture puzzle is now complete, Morton. Your whole scheme, piece
by piece. You're about as subtle as corn bread. Well, my answer to you
again is, 'Get out!'"

"All right. All right. But we'll both get out, Hattie. Come, I'm a-goin'
to call on you-all up home a little while this evenin'!"

"No. It's late. She's--"

"Come, Hattie, you know I'm a-goin' to see that girl one way or another.
If you want me to catch that fruit steamer to-morrow, if I were you I'd
let me see her my way. You know I'm not much on raisin' my voice, but if
I were you, Hattie, I wouldn't fight me."

"Morton--Morton, listen! If you'll take that fruit steamer without
trying to see her--would you? You're on your uppers. I understand. Would
a hundred--two hundred--"

"I used to light my cigarette with that much down on my rice swamps--"

"You see, Morton, she's such a little t