Jump to content

Page:The Happy End (1919).pdf/223

From Wikisource
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

amalgamated lady bootblack and nautch dancer. You're a joke to a free white woman. I'm sorry for your wife. She ought to slip you a bichloride tablet. If it was worth while I'd turn you over to the authorities for breaking the food regulations."

She rose, unceremoniously shoving back her chair. "For a fact, I'm tired of watching you eat. You down as much as a company of good boys on the march. Don't get black in the face; I'd be afraid to if I were you."

August Turnbull's rage beat like a hammer at the base of his head. He, too, rose, leaning forward with his napkin crumpled in a pounding fist.

"Get out of my house!" he shouted.

"That's all right enough," she replied; "the question is—is Morice coming with me? Is that khaki he has on or a Kate Greenaway suit?"

Morice looked from one to the other in obvious dismay. He had a pleasant dull face and a minute spiked mustache on an irresolute mouth.

"If you stay with me," she warned him further, "I'll have you out of that grocery store and into a trench."

"Pleasant for you, Morice," Louise explained.

"Things were so comfortable, Rosalie," he protested despairingly. "What in the name of sense made you stir this all up? The governor won't do a tap for us now."

His wife stood by herself, facing the inimical Turnbull front, while Morice wavered between.

"If you'll get along," the former told him, "I can make a living till you come back. We can do without any Trübner money. I'm not a lot at German, but I