"But, Margaret, I can win as much as I wish by gambling."
"Not a chance, blobby. Nobody will gamble with you any more. You're through, blob. I will miss you, though. There will be a new blue note in my ballads when I sing for my supper, after the mink coats are all gone. 'By now."
"Margaret, do not leave me! What of all our golden days together?"
But all she said was "'By now."
And she was gone forever.
I am desolate and my old space-ineptitude has returned. My recovery was an illusion. I am so ill with awkwardness that I can no longer fly. I must walk on the ground like one of the giant grubs. A curse on this planet Florida and all its sister orbs! What a miserable world this is!
How could I have been tricked by a young Gamma type of the walking grub? Let her crawl back under her ancestral rocks with all the rest of her kind.... No, no, I do not mean that. To me she will always remain a dream, a broken dream.
I am no longer welcome at the Casino. They kicked me down the front steps.
I no longer have a home at the Reptile Ranch.