Carmella Commands
“I’m no contractor, kid,” said Dixon, laughing. “If I was, I wouldn’t be all dolled up in a uniform driving other folks’s wagons. I’d be contracting.”
“You mean you’d be expanding,” said Carmella. And as she made the pun she was conscious of a new mastery of language.
“Well, you know what I—oh, I see! Joke by La Piccola Padrona. Good girl, kid! Well, you asked questions, and you’ve answered them.”
Carmella’s face registered bewilderment, and Dixon chuckled.
“Thought you were so bright you’d get that one. You said a contractor ought to expand, didn’t you?”
“Ye-e-es!”
“Well, that’s that! Your dad’s on a big job. It’s grown bigger since he took it. Is he expanding?”
“Isn’t he? He’s got more men, and one more truck.”
“Not enough! Not enough! He hasn’t kept up with the job. His excavation work has been holding up masons and carpenters for two weeks. He needs two more trucks and a lot more men, and he needs ’em toot sweet, meaning pronto, alias sudden.”
“But that takes money,” said Carmella earnestly.
“Like enough. Everything else does.”
“And dad has blown most of his bank roll into it already. So what the hell?”
“Maybe it’ll be more hell if he doesn’t speed up,” said Dixon.
Suddenly they were interrupted by the opening of
[181]
