He was pleating the table-cloth, swallowing as if his throat had constricted, and still rearing his head this way and that in the tight collar.
"I—never claimed not to be a bad egg. This ain't the time and the place for rehashing, that's all. Sure you been a friend to me. I don't say you haven't. Only I can't be bossed by a girl like you. I don't say May Scully's any better than she ought to be. Only that's my business. You hear? my business. I got to have life and see a darn sight more future for myself than selling shirts in a Fourteenth Street department store."
"May Scully can't give it to you—her and her fast crowd."
"Maybe she can and maybe she can't."
"Them few dollars won't make you; they'll break you."
"That's for her to decide, not you."
"I'll tell her myself. I'll face her right here and—"
"Now, look here, if you think I'm going to be let in for a holy show between you two girls, you got another think coming. One of us has got to clear out of here, and quick, too. You been talking about the side door; there it is. In five minutes I got a date in this place that I thought I could keep like any law-abiding citizen. One of us has got to clear, and quick, too. God! you wimmin make me sick, the whole lot of you!"
"If anything makes you sick, I know what it is. It's dodging me to fly around all hours of the night with May Scully, the girl who put the tang in tango. It's eating around in swell sixty-cent restaurants like this and—"
"Gad! your middle name ought to be Nagalene."