“I’m that curious, Tammy.”
“If you act like a missionary’s wife I shall dismiss you from my service, Julia. I have no religion. I am free. I do what I jolly well please. Yes, you bet.”
“An’ there’s an idea for you!” Julia soliloquized as she passed softly out. “Begorry, we’ll have a grand time of it with that one, so we will. Somebody’s been puttin’ notions in her head. Ochone! Where the divil was that one raised, I dunno. Angel that she is to look at she’s had a slack father an’ mother, I’ll lay odds on that.”
Julia sighed and went downstairs to seek the aid of Sooey Wan in scratching out the numbers of her choice on a ticket for the next day’s drawing in the Chinese lottery. She found Sooey Wan washing the dishes and singing softly.
“Are you singin’ or cryin’, Sooey Wan?” Julia greeted him.
“Hullah for hell,” said Sooey Wan. He tossed a soup plate to the ceiling and caught it deftly as it came down. “Boss ketchum velly nice girl,” he began.
“Can’t the poor man be kind to an orphan without you, you yellow divil, puttin’ dogs in windows?”
“Velly nice,” Sooey Wan repeated doggedly. “Pretty soon I think give boss many sons.”
“Say-y-y, what sort o’ place is this gettin’ to be, anyhow?”
“Pretty soon Sooey Wan think this going be legular place. One house no ketchum baby, no legular house.”