"I know," he continued, in the same tone. "That's what I'm doing at the Plow Factory. Keeping the water running."
She smiled, just a flash of a smile. "Doesn't sound so bad, even if you are secretive about it. How did the nigger take care of his job?"
Joe looked up quickly. "Oh—he? He fell asleep. And then he fell in the creek."
Mary Louise was watching him, waiting for him to finish. At last he seemed to have got her entire attention. "And then?"
"Then he got pneumonia—and died."
They crossed the street. Up ahead the lights of the theatre gleamed dazzling white. The crowd was getting almost too thick to permit conversation.
"You don't like your job then?"
He flared into sudden unexpected defense of it. "Well, I haven't gone to sleep on it yet."
They said no more, for the task of passing the ticket chopper and then of getting settled in their seats was all absorbing. And then directly the curtain rose and Joe found himself slipping into a delightfully relaxed forgetfulness. He was being amused. His good humour was returning. He got an occasional glance at Mary Louise, sometimes during contagious gales of laughter that would sweep the audience, and saw her smiling slightly, mostly with her eyes; and was puzzled, for the humour was not that sort. Had he stopped to think, or had he been more experienced, he would not have been thus puzzled, for he would have realized that the sudden putting on of sophistication is always a puzzling thing.
But he banished the question and gave himself up entirely to enjoyment. And when the final curtain fell he rose to his feet with a faint inner sigh of regret. It was with high good humour that he gained his companion's side outside the theatre.