"Oh, Billy, don't! What do you care!" Susan said, soothingly.
"I don't care," he snapped. Adding, after another brooding minute, "we ought to have better sense than to go into such places!"
"We're as good as anyone else!" Susan asserted, hotly.
"No, we're not. We're not as rich," he answered bitterly.
"Billy, as if MONEY mattered!"
"Oh, of course, money doesn't matter," he said with fine satire. "Not at all! But because we haven't got it, those fellows, on thirty per, can throw the hooks into us at every turn. And, if we threw enough money around, we could be the rottenest man and woman on the face of the globe, we could be murderers and thieves, even, and they'd all be falling over each other to wait on us!"
"Well, let's murder and thieve, then!" said Susan blithely.
"I may not do that--"
"You mayn't? Oh, Bill, don't commit yourself! You may want to, later."
"I may not do that," repeated Mr. Oliver, gloomily, "but, by George, some day I'll have a wad in the bank that'll make me feel that I can afford to turn those fellows down! They'll know that I've got it, all right."