"Sure she is, but what's that got to do with it? That girl's like--well,
she's like a sister or--or a pal to me, but she's got about as much time
for a fellow of my pace, except when she gets blue, as--as the Queen of
Sheba has."

"That's what you think, maybe, but everybody else knows she--she's been
after you for years, trying--"

"Aw, cut the comedy, madam. Honest, you make me sore. She's nothing
to me off the floor but a darn good pal. Say, I can treat her to a
sixty-cent table d'hôte twice a week; but don't you think in the back
of my head, when it comes to a showdown, that I couldn't even buy silk
shoelaces for a girl of her kind. I ain't her pace and we both know it.
Bosh!"

"You'd like to be, all right, if--if she didn't have so many rich ones
hanging around."

"Just the same, many's the time she's told me if she could land a
regular fellow and do the regular thing and settle down on seventy-five
a month in a Harlem flat, why she'd drop all this skylarking of hers for
a family of youngsters, so quick it would make your head swim."

"Sure, that's just what I say, she--"

"Many's the time she--she's cried to me--just cried, because the kind of
life she has to live don't lead to anything, and she knows it."

"I ain't blaming you for liking her, Phonzie; a girl with her figure can