"Let's play I'm Rockefeller laying on his country estate, Teenie. Come on; let's kid ourselves along. Gimme the six hundred, Teenie--" "Why don't you ask me, Jas, except for what I'd be the happiest girl? Well, it's this. If only I could wear a cloak so when I got in it you couldn't see me! If only I never had to walk in front of you so--so you got to look at me!" "You been a good gal to me, Big Tent. I never even look twice at you--that's how used a fellow can get to anything. I'm going to square it up with you, too." "You mean it's me will square it with you, Jas--you see if I don't. Why, there'll be nothing too much for me to do to make up for the happiness we're going to have, Jas. I'm going to make this the kinda little home you read about in the magazines. Tear out all this old rented junk furniture, paint it up white after we got the six hundred paid down and the money beginning to come in. I'm even going to fix up the little trap-door room in the attic, so that if the Baron or any of the old exhibit crowd happens to be showing in Xenia or around, they can visit us. Just think, Jas--a spare room for the old crowd. Honest, it's funny, but there's not one thing scares me about all these months on the place alone here, Jas, now that we bought the gun, except the nightmares sometimes that we--we're back exhibiting. That's why I want to keep open house for them that ain't as lucky as us. Honest, Jas--I--I just can't think it's real, not, anyways, till we've paid down six hundred and--the fellow you keep joking about that wears his collar wrong side 'fore comes out from Xenia to read the ceremony. Oh, Jas, I--I'll make it square with you. You'll never have a sorry day for it!" "You're all right, Big Tent," said the Granite Jaw, lying back suddenly, lips twitching. "Ain't you feeling well, honey? Let me fix you an egg?" "A little swig, Teenie--a little one, is all I ask." "No, no--please, Jastrow; don't begin--just as I had you forgetting." "It does me good, I tell you. I know my constitution better than a quack country boob does. I'm a freak, I am--a prize concession that has to be treated special. Since that last swig, I tell you, I been a different man. I need the strength. I got to have a little in my system. I'm a freak, I tell you. Everybody knows there's nothing like a swig for strength." "Not for you! It's poison, Jas, so much poison! Don't you remember what they said to you after the operation? All your life you got to watch out--just the little prescribed for you is all your system has got to have. Wouldn't I give it to you otherwise--wouldn't I?" "Swig, Teenie! Honest to God, just a swig!" "No, no, Jas! No, no, no!" Suddenly Jastrow the Granite Jaw drew down his lips to a snarl, his hands clutching into the coverlet and drawing it up off his feet. "Gimme!" he said. "I've done it before and I'll do it now--smash up the place! Gimme! You're getting me crazy! This time you got me crazy. Gimme--you hear--gimme!"