It was just six weeks to a day after his introduction to her that Good made this announcement, and executed a lumbering step of his own devising, to prove its truth.
"It's now the season of the sere and yellow leaf. There's work to be done. I must be about it," he added more seriously.
"If you work as you gambol, I shouldn't think you'd be much in demand," laughed Judith.
"Quite so," admitted Good, blithely. "But if my feet are clumsy my wits are nimble. I guess I can find someone to hire them at twelve dollars per week."
"Twelve dollars a week! You don't mean to say...."
Good raised his eyebrows. "Why, surely. Does that surprise you? Of course," he added half apologetically, "that doesn't represent my own valuation, by any means. But The World is a poor paper for poor people. It couldn't pay much."
"That's all very well," she cried, "but why did you work for it?"
"It needed me," he said simply, and she was silenced. There were stranger things in this man revealed at every conversation. She had never known anyone before who toiled because someone "needed" him. She was shamed by her own amazement.
"I guess I'll go on the 10.46," he said.
"No," she cried. "You won't."