"I don't know what's come over you, Marco Polo," -- and there was a
touch of temper in her voice, -- "but these poems of yours show me you
haven't your mind on your subject. Would you mind telling me when
I had bound black hair?" she says. "And you say my bosom is like
two little russet apples. Now, a regular poet once compared it to
two great silver cups, and that was a good comparison, though in
truth," she says, "he knew as little about it as you. And my hands
are not like soft Eastern flowers. They're like lilies. I don't
know where you do be getting these Eastern comparisons," she says.
"But I don't like them. Tell me, pretty boy," -- she looks suspicious,
-- "you haven't been taking any of the strange Egyptian drugs the dark
people do be selling in the dim shops on the quiet canals? Look out,
pretty boy! Look out!"

And the little cloak-maker grumbled when he was gone. "I don't know
what's wrong with him," says she. "Or maybe it's something that's
wrong with myself, but this delicate love isn't all it's cracked
up to be. It's all right in books," she says, "and it's a grand
sight, and the players doing it; but I like a hug," she says,
"would put the breath out of you, and a kiss," she says, "you could
feel in the soles of your feet." And she lay awake and grumbled.
"Let him be taking his la-di-da courting to those as favor it,"
says she. "It's not my kind," and she grumbled through the lonely
night. "I wonder where my husband is now," she said. "And wasn't
I the foolish girl to be sending him off! Sure, he drank like a
fish and beat me something cruel, but he was a rare lover, and the
mood on him. Sure, a woman never knows when she's well off,"
says she.

And Marco Polo didn't miss them any more nor you'd miss an old