"
"But not now, Gert. I--"
"I'm not ashamed to tell you, Jimmie Batch, that I've been the making of
you since that night you threw the wink at me. And--and it hurts, this
does. God! how it hurts!"
He was pleating the table-cloth, swallowing as if his throat had
constricted, and still rearing his head this way and that in the tight
collar.
"I--never claimed not to be a bad egg. This ain't the time and the place
for rehashing, that's all. Sure you been a friend to me. I don't say
you haven't. Only I can't be bossed by a girl like you. I don't say May
Scully's any better than she ought to be. Only that's my business. You
hear? my business. I got to have life and see a darn sight more future for
myself than selling shirts in a Fourteenth Street department store."
"May Scully can't give it to you--her and her fast crowd."
"Maybe she can and maybe she can't."
"Them few dollars won't make you; they'll break you."
"That's for her to decide, not you."
"I'll tell her myself. I'll face her right here and--"
"Now, look here, if you think I'm going to be let in for a holy show
between you two girls, you got another think coming.
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