"Enjoyed it!" I snapped. "I'm an old woman before my time, Mr. Sam. What
with trailing back and forward through the snow to the shelter-house,
and not getting to bed at all some nights, and my heart going by fits
and starts, as you may say, and half the time my spinal marrow fairly
chilled--not to mention putting on my overshoes every morning from force
of habit and having to take them off again, I'm about all in."

"It's been the making of you, Minnie," he said, eying me, with his hands
in his pockets. "Look at your cheeks! Look at your disposition! I don't
believe you'd stab anybody in the back now!"

(Which was a joke, of course; I never stabbed anybody in the back.)

He sauntered over and dropped a quarter into the slot-machine by the
door, but the thing was frozen up and refused to work. I've seen the
time when Mr. Sam would have kicked it, but he merely looked at it and
then at me.

"Turned virtuous, like everything else around the place. Not that I
don't approve of virtue, Minnie, but I haven't got used to putting my
foot on the brass rail of the bar and ordering a nut sundae. Hook
the money out with a hairpin, Minnie, and buy some shredded wheat in
remembrance of me."

He opened the door and a blast of February wind rattled the
window-frames. Mr. Sam threw out his chest under his sweater and waved
me another good-by.

"Well, I'm off, Minnie," he said. "Take care of yourself and don't sit