"Well, I--I guess, honey, if the truth was told, your old man ain't cut out for nothing much besides the gamin'-table--a fellow that's knocked around the world the way I have." "You are, Blutch; you are! You're an expert accountant. Didn't you run the Two Dollar Hat Store that time in Syracuse and get away with it?" "I know, Babe; but when a fellow's once used to makin' it easy and spendin' it easy, he can't be satisfied lopin' along in a little business. Why, just take to-night, honey! I only brought home my girl a peach this evening, but that ain't sayin' that before morning breaks I can't be bringin' her a couple of two-carat stones." "No, no, Blutch; I don't want 'em. I swear to God I don't want 'em!" "Why, Babe, I just can't figure out what's got into you. I never heard you break out like this. Are you scared, honey, because we happen to be lower than--" "No, no, darlin'; I ain't scared because we're low. I'm scared to get high again. It's the first run of real luck you've had in three years, Blutch. There was no hope of gettin' you out while things was breakin' good for you; but now--" "I ain't sayin' it's the best game in the world. I'd see a son of mine laid out before I'd let him get into it. But it's what I'm cut out for, and what are you goin' to do about it? 'Ain't you got everything your little heart desires? Ain't we going down to Sheepshead when the first thaw sets in? Ain't we just a pair of love-birds that's as happy as if we had our right senses? Come, Babe; get into your jacket. Joe'll be here any minute, and I got that porterhouse at Jack's on the brain. Come kiss your hubby." She held up her face with the tears rolling down it, and he kissed a dry spot and her yellow frizzed bangs. "My girl! My cry-baby girl!" "You're all I got in the world, Blutch! Thinkin' of what's best for you has eat into me." "I know! I know!" "We'll never get nowheres in this game, hon. We ain't even sure enough of ourselves to have a home like--like regular folks." "Never you mind, Babe. Startin' first of the year, I'm going to begin to look to a little nest-egg." "We ought to have it, Blutch. Just think of lettin' ourselves get down to the last seventy-five! What if a rainy day should come--where would we be at? If you--or me should get sick or something." "You ain't all wrong, girl." "You'd give the shirt off your back, Blutch; that's why we can't ever have a nest-egg as long as you're playin' stakes. There's too many hard-luck stories lying around loose in the gamblin' game." "The next big haul I make I'm going to get out, girl, so help me!" "Blutch!" "I mean it. We'll buy a chicken-farm." "Why not a little business, Blutch, in a small town with--" "There's a great future in chicken-farmin'. I set Boy Higgins up with a five-hundred spot the year his lung went back on him, and he paid me back the second year." "Blutch darlin', you mean it?"