"Wanna meet her? There ain't none of 'em that 'ain't sat at my table many a time."
"I like it better with just you, Jimmie."
"Sweetness, don't you look at me like that or you'll get me so mixed up I'll go out and buy the Metropolitan Tower for your Christmas present. Whatta you want for Christmas--eh, Doll?"
"Aw, Jimmie, I don't want nothing. I 'ain't got no right to take nothing from you!" She played with the rich, unpronounceable foods on her plate and took a swallow of golden liquid to wash down her fiery confusion. "I--'ain't got no right."
"When I get to likin' a little girl there ain't nothing she 'ain't got a right to."
"Aw, Jimmie, when you talk like that I feel so--so--"
"Aw, I can't say it. You'll think I'm fresh."
But she regarded him with the nervous eyes of a gazelle and the red swam high up into her hair, and he drained his glass down to the bottom of its hollow stem and leaned his warming face closer.
"You treat me white, sweetness, and understand me right, and you won't be sorry for nothing you say. Drink, Doll, drink to you 'n' me--you 'n' me."
Their bubble-thin glasses met in a tink and a pledge and her ready laughter rose in duet with his. She caught the lilt of a popular song from, the tenpiece orchestra and sang upward with the tirralirra of a lark, and the group at the adjoining table threw her a shout. Mr. Fitzgibbons beat a knife-and-fork tattoo on his plate and pinched her cheek lightly, gritting his teeth in a fine frenzy of delight.
"That's the way to make 'em sit up and take notice, Doll, that's the way I like 'em. Live! As live and frisky as colts!"
An attendant placed a souvenir of the occasion beside her plate--a white wool bear, upright and with bold bead eyes and a flare of pink bow beneath its chin.
"See, Doll, a Teddy bear! By Gad! a Teddy bear with his arms stretched out to hug her! Gad! if I was that Teddy I'd hug the daylight out of her, too! Gad! wouldn't I!"
Mrs. Violet Smith wafted the bead-eyed toy a kiss, then slapped him sharply sidewise, toppling him in a heap, and her easy laughter mingled with her petulance.
"I wanna big grizzly, Jimmie; a great big brown grizzly bear with a grin. I wanna big brown grizzly."
"'Ain't you got one, Doll? A little white one with a pink bow. Here, let's give him a drink!"