CHAPTER VI
Since Kedzie, by the time her marriage had reached its first morning-after, had already found her brand-new husband odious, there was small hope of her learning to like him or their poverty better on close acquaintance.
When he left her for his office she missed him, and her heart warmed toward him till he came home again. He always brought new disillusionment with him. He spent his hours out of office in bewailing his luck, celebrating the hardness of the times, and proclaiming the hopelessness of his prospects.
And then one evening he arrived with so doleful a countenance that Kedzie took pity on him. She perched herself on his lap and asked him what was worrying him.
“Nothing much, honey,” he groaned, “except that I've lost my job.”
Kedzie was thunderstruck. She breathed the expletive she learned from her latest companions. “My Gawd!”
Gilfoyle nodded dreadfully: “Business has been bad, anyway. Kalteyer, with his chewing-gum, was about our only big customer, and now he's gone bust. Yep. The bank's shut down on his loans, and he was caught with a mountain of bills on his hands. And the Breathasweeta Chewing Gum stopped selling. People didn't seem to take to the perfume idea.”
“I just hate people!” Kedzie growled, pacing the floor.
Gilfoyle went on, bitterly: “Remember how they all said I was such a genius for thinking up the name 'Breathasweeta,' and the perfumery idea? And how they liked my catch-phrase?”
Kedzie nodded.