"I know what I mean alrighty."
"I—I was the one that suggested it, Jimmie, but—but you fell in. I—I just couldn't bear to think of it, Jimmie—your going and all. I suggested it, but—you fell in."
"Say, when a fellow's shoved he falls. I never gave a thought to sneaking an exemption until it was put in my head. I'd smash the fellow in the face that calls me coward, I will."
"You could have knocked me down with a feather, Jimmie, looking at it his way, all of a sudden."
"You couldn't me. Don't think I was ever strong for the whole business. I mean the exemption part. I wasn't going to say nothing. What's the use, seeing the way you had your heart set on—on things? But the whole business, if you want to know it, went against my grain. I'll smash the fellow in the face that calls me a coward."
"I know, Jimmie; you—you're right. It was me suggested hurrying things like this. Sneakin'! Oh, God! ain't I the messer-up!"
"Lay easy, girl. I'm going to see it through. I guess there's been fellows before me and will be after me who have done worse. I'm going to see it through. All I got to say is I'll smash up the fellow calls me coward. Come on, forget it. Let's go."
She was close to him, her cheek crinkled against his with the frank kind of social unconsciousness the park bench seems to engender.
"Come on, Gert. I got a hunger on."
"'Shh-h-h, Jimmie! Let me think. I'm thinking."