But her with her she-devil of a mother, they no sooner got in
than they began to side with each other against me--her and her old
mother trying to learn me how to run my own shebang."
"Where--"
"Gad! they're living in a dirty Harlem flat now and tryin' to put it
over on me that they're better off in it. Bah! if I had to double up on
alimony, I wouldn't give her a smell at this house, not a smell."
"Say, but ain't it pretty, Jerry, right up over the river, and country
all around, and right over there in back the street-cars for the city
when you want them?"
"This is going to be your street-car, Peachy, a six-cylinder one."
She colored like a wild rose.
"Oh, Jerry, I--I keep forgetting."
"By Gad! it's a good thing I'm going to give up my city rooms and come
out here to watch my p's and q's. Gosh darn her neck! I told her to quit
cluttering up that side-yard turf with her gosh darn little flower-beds!
Gosh darn her neck! There never was a servant worth her hide."
"Jerry, why, they're beautiful! They just look beautiful, those pansies,
and is that the little girl sitting up there on the porch steps? Is--is
that Maisie?"
They drew to a stop before the box-shaped ornate house, its rough
concrete front pretentiously inlaid over the doors and windows with a
design of pebbles stuck like dates on a cake, and perched primly on the
topmost step of the square veranda the inert figure of a small girl.
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