"You—you don't know nothing about him. He—he never knew he had a lung till a month after the kid came, and they moved the gents' furnishing over by the Broadway door where the draught caught him."
"Sure, he didn't, Doll; no harm meant. That's right, stand by him. I like to see it. Why, a little queen across the counter from you tole me you'd have married him if he'd had three bum lungs, that crazy you was!"
"Like fun! If me or him had dreamt he wasn't sound we—I wouldn't be in this mess, I—we—I wouldn't!"
Her little face was pale as a spray of jessamine against a dark background, and, try as she would to check them, tears sprang hot to her eyes, dew trembled on her lashes.
"Poor little filly!"
More tears rushed to her eyes, as if he had touched the wellsprings of her self-compassion. "You gotta excuse me, Jimmie. I ain't cryin', only I'm dog tired from nursin' and drudgin', drudgin' and nursin'."
"Hard luck, little un!"
"Him layin' there and me tryin' to—to make things meet. You gotta excuse me, Jimmie, I'm done up."
"That's why I wanna blow you, sweetness. I can't bear to see a little filly like you runnin' with the odds dead agin her."
"You been swell to me, Jimmie."