"I guess you're right. Don't I wish I had some steady clerkin' job, like Bill! But it don't seem like I am cut out fer anything but pounding ragtime—you knew that, honey, before we was—" He stopped, reddening.
"No, I didn't! If I'd known before we was married what I know now, things might be different. How was I to know that you was goin' to be changed from matinée work to all-night shows? How was I to know you was goin' to make me put up with a life like this? When I see other girls that's married out of the department, and me, I jest wanna die! Look at Sally Lee and Jimmy—they go to vaudyville every week and to Coney Saturdays. You even kick if I wanna go over to Loo's to spend a evening!"
"I don't kick, Lil; I jest don't like to have you running round with that live wire. She ain't your style."
"That's right—run down my friends that I worked next to in the gloves fer four years! She was good enough fer me then. Me and her is old friends, and jest 'cause I'm married don't make me better'n her."
"I'm sorry I kicked up about it, honey. Maybe I was wrong."
"She can tell you that I had swell times when I was in the gloves—even when I was in the notions, too. There wasn't a night I didn't have a bid for some dance or something."
"Well, if this ain't a darn sight better'n pushing gloves at six per I'll—I'll—"
"I'll give you to understand, Charley Harkins, that I was making eight dollars when I married you, and everybody said that I'd 'a' been promoted to the jewelry in another year."
She rose, gathered a pyramid of dishes, and clattered them into the dish-pan as he talked. He followed after her.
"Aw, quit your foolin', Lil, can't you? Don't treat a feller like this when he comes home at night. I'll get Shorty to take the piano next Saturday, and we'll do Coney from one end to the other. We only live once, anyway. Come on, Lil; be nice and see what I got fer you, too."