“Oh, Gawd!” she said, disgustedly.
Joe echoed her disgust. “Oh, Gawd!”
They looked at each other and laughed.
“You’ll always come back,” she said.
“I’m gonna marry a swell dame,” said Joe; “the pick of the whole four hundred. . . . You needn’t laugh. You wait!”
“Go ahead,” she said.
“You kin marry, too, if you play your cards right.”
Jewel laughed suddenly. “Thanks for the favor,” she said. . . . “Not on your life! I like my own self too well. I like to live alone. . . . Why should I marry? I ain’t ambitious.”
“To get a man to keep you when you’re old,” said Joe.
“I’ll put by enough for me old age,” said Jewel. “I don’t want much. All this—” she waved her arm about, “is all right to attrac’ custom, but it don’t mean nottin’ to me. . . . A nice plain room wit’ a winda on a busy street. There I’ll sit. . . . All I want good is a bed. My bed must be of the best; a1 box spring and a real hair mattress. Plenty of tasty food cooked the way I like it. Nobody to hinder my comin’ and goin’; nobody wit’ the right to bother me! That’s livin’!”