"Not when I got somethin' like Hazel to talk about," declared the relentless Riley, warming to his subject. "Y'oughta notice her eyes once, Bill. Tell you, you never saw eyes till you see hers. They're eyes, they are! Big and black and soft and eyewinkers long as a pony's. Fact. And she ain't lost a tooth. She's still got the whole thirty-four. You take my word for it, Bill, she's a whole lot different from other folks."
"She's two teeth different anyway. Most generally all other folks can crowd in their mouth are thirty-two."
"What's a tooth more or less between friends?" said the unabashed Riley. "She's got a whole mouthful, and when she smiles she shows 'em all."
"That's great," yawned Billy, closing his pocket-knife with a click. "You forgot to say whether she's a good cook or not."
"She's a number one cook," Riley told him seriously. "Her coffee is coffee, lemme tell you, and she don't fry a steak to boot-leather neither. Not her. No. She broils it, she does. Y'oughta taste her mashed potatoes. No lumps in 'em or grit or nothin', only the mealy old potato; and butter beets! My Gawd!"
"Mixes 'em up with the potato, huh?"
"Of course not, you jack—separate. And canned peas—separate. Actually she cooks those peas so they're tender as fresh ones; tenderer, by gummy! Makes her own butter, too, in a churn."
"Well, well, in a churn. I never knew they made butter thataway."
"Shut up, Bill. You ain't got any soul. I stop at Walton's for a meal every chance I get. Y'oughta see her cookin' a meal, Bill. She rolls her sleeves up and she's got dimples in her elbows. She's a picture, and you can stick a pin in that."
"Why don't you marry the girl?"