"I know I got a big job, Jimmie, but I want to make a man out of you,
temper, laziness, gambling, and all. You got it in you to be something more
than a tango lizard or a cigar-store bum, honey. It's only you 'ain't
got the stuff in you to stand up under a five-hundred-dollar windfall
and--a--and a sporty girl. If--if two glasses of beer make you as silly as
they do, Jimmie, why, five hundred dollars would land you under the table
for life."

"Aw-there you go again!"

"I can't help it, Jimmie. It's because I never knew a fellow had what's
he's cut out for written all over him so. You're a born clerk, Jimmie.

"Sure, I'm a slick clerk, but--"

"You're born to be a clerk, a good clerk, even a two-hundred-a-month clerk,
the way you can win the trade, but never your own boss. I know what I'm
talking about. I know your measure better than any human on earth can
ever know your measure. I know things about you that you don't even know
yourself."

"I never set myself up to nobody for anything I wasn't."

"Maybe not, Jimmie, but I know about you and--and that Central Street gang
that time, and--"

"You!"

"Yes, honey, and there's not another human living but me knows how little
it was your fault. Just bad company, that was all. That's how much I--I