have for something of her own all her days; there's times, no matter how
she's held in, that all of a sudden comes a minute when she busts out."

"I understand, Gert, but--"

"For two years and eight months, Jimmie, life has got to be worth while
living to me because I could see the day, even if we--you--never talked
about it, when you would be made over from a flip kid to--to the kind of a
fellow would want to settle down to making a little--two-by-four home for
us. A--little two-by-four all our own, with you steady on the job and
advanced maybe to forty or fifty a week and--"

"For God's sake, Gertie, this ain't the time or the place to--"

"Oh yes, it is! It's got to be, because it's the first time in four weeks
that you didn't see me coming first."

"But not now, Gert. I--"

"I'm not ashamed to tell you, Jimmie Batch, that I've been the making of
you since that night you threw the wink at me. And--and it hurts, this
does. God! how it hurts!"

He was pleating the table-cloth, swallowing as if his throat had
constricted, and still rearing his head this way and that in the tight
collar.

"I--never claimed not to be a bad egg. This ain't the time and the place
for rehashing, that's all. Sure you been a friend to me. I don't say
you haven't. Only I can't be bossed by a girl like you. I don't say May