"From me to you," he says, plunking it on the floor. And there is a long pause and then he adds, "Temporarily."
Ditsy looks at the bridle, hiccuping slightly like a baby what has been having colic.
"I do not get it," she says, hiccuping again.
Jimmie indicates the bridle. "Remember the time," he says, "that we was in the Home and you found a four-leaf clover in a book what belonged to Miss Watson? I had a toothache, so you snitched the four-leaf clover to put in my shoe so as it would go away—the toothache I mean. Only you said it was 'temporarily' because it was somebody else's four-leaf clover and might have repre ... repercussions being as how it does not actually belong to me. So I did—put it in my shoe I mean—and I got a blind abscess and it was—well, you know how it was."
"I still do not get it," Ditsy says looking at the bridle like she is expecting it to turn into a four-leaf clover.
"It is like this," Jimmie says. "That there"—he points to the bridle—"is the same as the four-leaf clover. Maybe you got a toothache now, but, if I lose, it might turn out to be a blind abscess. So it is only temporary. I am not giving it to you. I am only letting you keep it for me."
"I still do not get it," Ditsy says, blowing her nose in my handkerchief.
"I do," I says. "He is saying you thinks you wants a canary bird when what you really wants is a grand piano, which you have already got."
"You stay out of this," Jimmie says.
"Lay off Jacks," Ditsy says to Jimmie. "He is all right."