Dan replied with a snort of righteous indignation. “Ever since you were bit by the crazy bug and started out to be a lady hobo you have lost all your natural pride, Ethel. It was bad enough for me, a high-class electrical engineer with a paid-up union card in my pocket, to stoop to the job of a common labourer as I did last week for your sake. Now I’ll be damned if I become a dirty roustabout and have some old hen ordering me around while I sweep off the front porch.”
“Oh, all right,” I answered cheerily. “But the interesting hour of high noon approacheth. Will you please be so kind as to furnish me with exact information regarding your financial standing? I am pained to confess myself the victim of a too familiar craving which calls aloud for attention.”
Dan thrust his hand into his pocket and withdrew a solitary ten cent piece, nor did a prolonged search of numerous pockets yield further riches.
“’Tis sad,” I sighed, “but a still voice tells me that that bit of silver will prove strangely inadequate to the demands of nature. However, no doubt you can dine off your natural pride, served up on your paid-up union card, while I eat a dime’s worth of doughnuts or something.”
We approached a rather pretentious place as I spoke. A large brass sign announced “J. Stanchley Loane, M.D., Physician and Surgeon.” I paused to study the white house with the red-roofed garage in the rear.
“This looks like a good place to make a start. Think I’ll just go in and call on my fellow practitioner and see what happens.”
Dan stepped in front of me. “Now see here, Ethel!” he began angrily. “Don’t go to pulling off foolish stunts. You are my wife and I absolutely forbid you to go about like an Irish washerwoman and——”
“Now see here, Dan!” I mimicked, breaking in upon his authoritative harangue, “I am your wife, ’tis true, but sad to say, the fact does not prevent me from growing hungry. ’Tis also true that I am only a graduate physician with a high-class appetite. I have no paid-up union card to stand between me and possible employment with its promise of a square meal. Moreover, I have never felt myself to be so wonderfully superior to the Irish washerwomen who earn an honest living by honest labour. At any rate, I shall not attempt to hold myself above them unless I can prove by my conduct that I have that right. Just now I fail to see how either you or I can do better than by marching up to that back door and asking for work like the genuine bundle stiffs that we are. Of course if you desire to remain here on the curb, upholding your dignity while I ask for employment, you are entirely at liberty to do so. As for me, I’m going in right now.”
As I turned up the concrete driveway Dan leaned the wheel against the fence and followed. I rapped at the door of the screen porch. The inner door was opened and a heavy-set man with bristling, reddish hair stepped out.
“Good morning, Doctor Loane,” I began. “My husband and I are cycling to California, and being short of funds are looking for employment. My husband is an excellent mechanic and will be glad to go over your car for you. I can cook, wash, scrub or do any kind of housework.”