"I took it, kiddo, 'cause I like you! Gad! I like you! Nix, it ain't every little girl I'd name one of my stable after. 'Violet!'—some little pony that, odds ag'in her and walks off with the money."
"I—honest, I sometimes—I—just wish I was dead!"
"No, you don't, Doll. You know you just wanna go to-night, but you 'ain't got the nerve. I wanna show you a Christmas Eve that'll leave any Christmas Eve you ever spent at the post. Gad! look out there, will you? I'm going to taxicab you right through the fuzz of that there snow-storm if it costs every cent the filly won for us!"
Mrs. Smith leaned back against the shelves limp, as if the blood had run from her heart, weakening her, but her eyes the color of lake-water when summer's moment is bluest. Her lips, that were meant to curve, straightened in a line of decision.
"I'll go, Jimmie."
"That's the goods!"
"A girl's just gotta have something to hold herself together, don't she? It—it ain't like the kid and Harry was layin' awake for me—last Tuesday they was both asleep when I got home. They don't let each other get lonesome, and Harry—he—There ain't nothing much for me to do round home."
"Now you're talkin' the English language, Doll."
"I'll go, Jimmie."
He extended his cane at a sharper angle until it bent in upon itself, threatening to snap, and flung one gray-spatted ankle across the other.