"He—he can't stand no snow-storm. That's why the doctor said if—if we could get him South before the first one, if we could get him South before the first one—South, where the sun shines and he could feel it clear through him, he—Oh, ain't I—ain't I in a mess!"
"Poor little filly!" He focused his small eyes upon her plump and throbbing throat. "Poor little filly, all winded!"
"I—oh, I—"
"There's the bell, Doll. Poor, tired little girlie, hurry and I'll buy you a taxicab. Hear it—there's the closing bell! Merry Christmas, Doll! Merry Christmas!"
A convulsion tore through the store, like the violent asthma of a thirty-thousand-ton ocean liner breathing the last breath of her voyage and slipping alongside her pier. On that first stroke of ten a girl behind the candy-counter collapsed frankly, rocking her left foot in her lap, pressing its blains, and blubbering through her lips salty with her own bitter tears. A child, qualified by legislation and his fourteen years to brace his soft-boned shoulder against the flank of life, bent his young spine double to the weight of two iron exit doors that swung outward and open. A gale of snow and whistling air danced in. The crowd turned about, faced, thinned, died.
Mrs. Violet Smith turned a rose-white face to the flurry. "Snowin'!"
"A real, made-to-order white Christmas for you and me, Doll. The kind you read about."
"It—it don't mean nothing to me, but—"
"Sure, it does; I'm goin' to blow you right, Doll. Half the money is yourn, anyways. You made that winning down in Atlanta yesterday as much as me, girlie. If I hadn't named that filly after you she'd 'a' been left at the post."
"You—you never had the right to name one of your race-horses after me. There ain't a girl ever went out with you that you 'ain't named one after. You—you never had the right to!"