“You are a bad man, aren’t you?”
“Very bad. I ain’t no better than a crook. Only richer. My wife dresses better.” His eyes twinkled.
“Well, I can’t help it. I like you.”
He smiled at her with his weary slow-twinkling eyes. She saw his hands ... gnarled yet fat, ugly yet expressive.
“And I like you, Fanny Luve. What’s the difference why you like me? Don’t ask no foolish questions about a good thing. Take it.”
“But are you glad I like you?”
“I should say so! That sort of foolishness ... that’s all that makes life liveable, I say! That sort of foolishness—you know what it is?—it’s Trut’.”
“You think.”
“O no. I am too tired to think. When I was young, I thought. I was clever. I was full of dreams. I thought—I thought ... instead of learning to make money. When it was too late, I had to stop thinking of anything except how to make money, because earlier I hadn’t thought of that at all. It don’t pay to be a thinker. You end up by being a gambler.”
“All thinkers——?”