"I ain't hungry—honest!"
"Quit standing over her, Eddie; you make her nervous. Let me feed you, Goldie."
"Gee! Ain't you swell to me!" Ready tears sprang to her eyes.
"Like you ain't my old chum, Goldie! It don't seem so long since we were working in the same office and going to Recreation Pier dances together, does it?"
"Addie! Addie!"
"Do you remember how you and me and Ed and Charley Snuggs used to walk up and down Ninth Avenue summer evenings eating ice-cream cones?"
"Do I? Oh, Addie, do I?"
"I'm glad we had them ice-cream days, Goldie. They're melted, but the flavor ain't all gone." Addie's face was large and white and calm-featured, like a Botticelli head.
"You two girls sure was cut-ups! Remember the night Addie first introduced us, Goldie? You came over to call for her, and us three went to the wax-works show on Twenty-third Street. Lordy, how we cut up!"
"And I started to ask the wax policeman if we was allowed to go past the rail!" They laughed low in their throats, as if they feared to raise an echo in a vale of tears. "It's like old times for me to be staying all night with you again, Addie. It's been so long! He—he used to get mad like anything if I wanted to see any of the old crowd. He knew they didn't know any good of him. He was always for the sporty, all-night bunch."