“How the hell did you know?” he queried.
“I know a lot of things I ain’t supposed to know,” replied she.
“You’re a wise guy, all right, Eva, and one thing I like about you is that you don’t let anything you know hurt you.”
And then, after a pause: “I like him,” she said. “What’s his name?”
The Lizard eyed her for a moment.
“Don’t you get to liking him too much,” he said. “That bird’s the class. He ain’t for any little—”
“Cut it!” exclaimed the girl. “I’m as good as you are and a damn straighter. What I get I earn, and I don’t steal it.”
The Lizard grinned. “I guess you’re right at that; but don’t try to pull him down any lower than he is. He is coming up again some day to where he belongs.”
“I ain’t going to try to pull him down,” said the girl. “And anyhow, when were you made his godfather?”
Jimmy saw Eva almost daily for many weeks. He saw her at her post-meridian breakfast—sober and subdued; he saw her later in the evening, in various stages of exhilaration, but at those times she did not come to his table and seldom if ever did he catch her eye.