"Chocolate candy in my pocket. Chocolate arsenic, you mean! My damn-fool days are over."
"What's got you, Max? Didn't you buy him for me yourself that day at the races five whole years ago? Wasn't the first things you asked for, when you woke in the hospital with your burns, me and—and Snookie? What's soured you, Max? What? What?"
"I'm soured on seeing a strapping, healthy woman sniveling over a little sick-eyed cur. Ain't that enough to sour any man? Why don't you get up and out and exercise yourself like the right kind of wimmin do? Play tennis or get something in you besides the rotten air of this flat, and mewling over that sick-eyed cur. Get out! Scc-c-c-c-c!"
The animal bellied to the door, tail down, and into the rear darkness of the hallway.
"Max, what's got you? What do I know about tennis or—things like that?
You—you never used to want—things like that."
"Aw, what's the use of wasting breath?"
He flecked at his mustache, inserting the napkin between the two top buttons of his slight bay of waistcoat; carved a second helping of meat, masticating with care and strength so that his temples, where the hair thinned and grayed, contracted and expanded with the movements of his jaws.
"What's the use?"
"Max, I—"
"Thigh bother you?"