"Is it any wonder, being in the business twenty years?"

"Twenty years! Why, Phonzie, you--you don't look much more than twenty
yourself."

He laughed, shifting one knee to the other. "That's because you can't
see that my eye teeth are gold, madam."

"You're so light on your feet, Phonzie, and slick."

"To look twenty and feel your forty years ain't what it's cracked up to
be. If I had a home of my own, you know what I'd buy first--a pair of
carpet slippers and a patent rocker."

"I bet you mean it, too, Phonzie."

"Sure I mean it! How'd you like to go through life like me, trying to
keep the kink ironed in my hair and out of my back, or lose my job at
the only kind of work I'm good for? It's like having to live with a grin
frozen on your face so you can't close your mouth."

"I--I just can't get over it, Phonzie, you _forty_! You five years older
than me and me afraid--thinking all along it was just the other way."

"I had already shed my milk teeth before you were born, madam."

"Whatta you know about that!"

"Ask Gert. She's been following me around from place to place for years,