“Rob ain’t on time,” he muttered; then, “Emily!”
A voice that sounded like the action of a saw in contact with a nail came from below.
“Yeah?”
“My bill—quick!”
“But you ain’t had no breakfas’ yet.” 5
“Ain’t takin’ none. Come along right now and give a hand with these grips.”
The owner of the voice, a shriveled-up, extremely untidy girl of about eighteen, with her hair in “crackers” and her eyes scarcely more than half open, entered the room, and stood gaping at him. She had gaped at him consistently for two whole days, and he didn’t like it. He wasn’t used to women—didn’t understand them and didn’t want to. He didn’t even understand that the romantic Emily had fallen passionately in love with him exactly forty seconds after her sleepy eyes had first beheld him.
“For God’s sake don’t stare at me! Take the grips, gal, take ’em. Not that one, it would dislocate your internals.”
She dropped the big one like a hot brick and grabbed the two smaller ones. At the door she found opportunity to scan him once more, and to murmur under her breath, “Lor’, ain’t he wonderful!” before her master came along and ended her rapturous soliloquies. He entered the room and nodded to Jim.
“So you’re making out, Jim?”