“See here—you think you got some other swell game you want to use Maggie in?”
Old Jimmie's shifty gaze wavered before Barney's glare.
“No. But she's my daughter, ain't she?”
“Yes. But who's running this?” Barney demanded. Thank Heavens, Old Jimmie was one person he did not have to treat like a prima donna!
“You are.”
“Then shut up, and let me run it!”
“You might at least tell if you've decided how you're going to run it,” persisted Old Jimmie.
“Will you shut up!” snapped Barney.
Old Jimmie said no more. And having asserted his supremacy over at least one of the two, Barney relented and condescended to talk, lounging back in his chair with that self-conscious grace which had helped make him a figure of increasing note in the gayer restaurants of New York.
It did not enter into Barney's calculations, present or for the future, to make Maggie the mistress of any man. Not that Barney was restrained by moral considerations. The thing was just bad business. Such a woman makes but comparatively little; and what is worse, if she chooses, she makes it all for herself. And Barney, in his cynical wisdom of his poor world, further knew that the average man enticed into this poor trap, after the woman has said yes, and after the first brief freshness has lost its bloom, becomes a tight-wad and there is little real money to be got from him for any one.