“Uh-huh, I was there,” said Blanche.
“Well, I wouldn’t be seen in a bum joint like that,” Mabel commented. “You certainly have a gift f’r pickin’ out the penny-squeezers, Blanie. Me f’r the Club Breauville, ’r places like that. They put on the best show you ever saw—Hawkins ’n Dale, straight from the Palace Theater, and a big, A-number-one chorus.”
“Aw, rats, you’re always worrying what a fella’s going to spend on you,” said Blanche. “They’ve got a peach of a jazz-band at Dreamland, and a dandy floor—that’s all I care about.”
“Your tastes ’r sim-ply aw-ful,” Mabel answered, “and what’s more, why shouldn’t a girl go with high-class fellas and have ’em spend piles on her? That’s what they’re made for.”
“Well, I don’t blame you none,” said Philip, “but believe me, I’d never pick out a wife like you. You sure would keep a fella on the go digging it up for you.”
“Mabel don’t mean anything by it,” said his mother, who had come in from the kitchen, “but I wish she wouldn’t stay out so late. I get to worryin’ when she comes home three an’ four an’ five in the mornin’. You never can tell what’ll happen to a girl in this city.”
“Aw, ma, don’t fret, I can take care of myself,” Mabel said.
“That’s what they all say,” Harry broke in. “I was talkin’ to a fella to-day, said his kid sister got into a scrape out in Jersey. Two guys started scrappin’ over her in a machine, and one of ’em’s dyin’ in the hospital, and the bulls ’r after her. It was in the papers yesterday. You better watch y’r step, Mabe.”
“Listen, no girl ’cept a fool would go out in a machine with two guys,” answered Mabel. “I’ll take ’em one at a time, believe me.”
“Well, I do think you’re too free with the men, an’ you only eighteen,” her mother said, looking at Mabel in a ruefully helpless way. “It’s I that can’t hold you down, and it’s I that never could, but I’m wishin’ you’d stay home once’n a while. How’ll you ever get a decint man to make a decint proposal to you, how’ll you ever, runnin’ round with that fast crowd uh yours?”