"Aw, Hat, cut it! Wasn't I home in bed last night by eleven?" "I ain't much on higher mathematics." "Sure I was. I had to shove you over on your side of the bed; that's how hard you was sleeping." "A girl can't gad round dancing and rough-housing every night and work eight hours on her feet, and put her lunch money on her back, and not pay up for it. I've seen too many blue-eyed dolls like you get broken. I--" "Amen!" Sara Juke rolled her blue eyes upward, and they were full of points of light, as though stars were shining in them; and always her lips trembled to laugh. "There ain't nothing funny, Sara." "Oh, Hat, with you like a owl!" "If I was a girl and had a cough like I've seen enough in this basement get; if I was a girl and my skirtband was getting two inches too big, and I had to lie on my left side to breathe right, and my nightie was all soaked round the neck when I got up in the morning--I wouldn't just laugh and laugh. I'd cry a little--I would." "That's right, Hat; step on the joy bug like it was a spider. Squash it!" "I wouldn't just laugh and laugh, and put my lunch money on my back instead of eggs and milk inside of me, and run round all hours to dance-halls with every sporty Charley-boy that comes along." "You leave him alone! You just cut that! Don't you begin on him!" "I wouldn't get overheated, and not sleep enough; and--" "For Pete's sake, Hat! Hire a hall!" "I should worry! It ain't my grave you're digging." "Aw, Hat!" "I 'ain't got your dolly face and your dolly ways with the boys; but I got enough sense to live along decent." "You're right pretty, I think, Hat." "Oh, I could daub up, too, and gad with some of that fast gang if I didn't know it don't lead nowheres. It ain't no cinch for a girl to keep her health down here, even when she does live along decent like me, eating regular and sleeping regular, and spending quiet evenings in the room, washing out and mending and pressing and all. It ain't no cinch even then, lemme tell you. Do you think I'd have ever asked a gay bird like you to come over and room with me if I hadn't seen you begin to fade like a piece of calico, just like my sister Lizzie did?" "I'm taking that iron-tonic stuff like you want and spoiling my teeth, ain't I, Hat? I know you been swell to me and all." "You ain't going to let up until somebody whispers T.B. in your shell-pink ear; and maybe them two letters will bring you to your senses." "T.B.?" "Yes, T.B." "Who's he?" "Gee! you're as smart as a fish on a hook! You oughtta bought a velvet dunce-cap with your lunch money instead of that brown poke-bonnet. T.B. was what I said--T.B." "Honest, Hat, I dun'no'--" "For Heaven's sake! _Too Berculosis_ is the way the exhibits and the newspapers say it. L-u-n-g-s is another way to spell it. T.B." "Too Berculosis!" Sara Juke's hand flew to her little breast. "Too Berculosis! Hat, you--you don't--"