"I know life, kiddo. I've used up thirty years of my lease on it getting wise to it. Come now, is it Checkers, queenie? What's your game?"
She leaned forward, looking him evenly between the eyes, but her lips seared as if from his hot insult. "You take that back."
"What you green around the gills for, kiddo? Didn't you say yourself that the name and the game come together in the same package? I ain't arguing it with you."
"You take it back, I said."
He laughed and flecked his fingers for a waiter, flinging out his legs at full length alongside the table. "You're a clever little girl, Marj, and I've got to hand it to you. Another stein there, waiter, and one for the girl; she needs it."
"I'll spill it right out if it comes."
"Lord! what you so sheety-looking for? White with temper and green at the gills, eh? Gad! I like you that way. I like you for your temper, and if you want to know it, I like you for every blamed thing about you."
"You—quit! Let go! Let go, I say! Ug-gh!" Her lips, with the greenish auro about them, would only move stiffly, and she pushed back from the table only half articulate. "Let me pass—please."
"Where you going, peaches?" He reached for her hand. "You mad, Marj? I didn't mean to get you sore."
"N-no, Blink."