"You are not going-to-of-course-stay-on-your-job-Ed, any such a thing. Lemme tell you that right here and now, my lady. I've stood just about all I'm going to stand of your top-lofty independence and business airs--as though you weren't a wife at all, but just as 'be-damned-to-you' independent as though you were as much of a business man as I am! No, sir, you'll do what _I_ say from now on. I've been tied to your apron strings long enough, and now I'm the boss--see? Me!" He tapped his florid bosom. "You used to be plenty glad to go to poker parties and leg-shows with me, when I wanted to, but since you've taken to earning your living again you've become so ip-de-dee and independent that when I even suggest rushing a growler of beer you scowl at me, and as good as say you're too damn almighty good for Eddie Schwirtz's low-brow amusements. And you've taken to staying out all hours--course it didn't matter whether I stayed here without a piece of change, or supper, or anything else, or any amusements, while you were out whoop-de-doodling around-- You _said_ it was with women!" She closed her eyes tight; then, wearily: "You mean, I suppose, that you think I was out with men." "Well, I ain't insinuating anything about what you _been_ doing. You been your own boss, and of course I had to take anything off anybody as long as I was broke. But lemme tell you, from now on, no pasty-faced female is going to rub it in any more. You're going to try some of your own medicine. You're going to give up your rotten stenographer's job, and you're going to stay home where I put you, and when I invite you to come on a spree you're going to be glad--" Her face tightened with rage. She leaped at him, shook him by the shoulder, and her voice came in a shriek: "Now that's enough. I'm through. You did mean to insinuate I was out with men. I wasn't--but that was just accident. I'd have been glad to, if there'd been one I could have loved even a little. I'd have gone anywhere with him--done anything! And now we're through. I stood you as long as it was my job to do it. _God!_ what jobs we women have in this chivalrous world that honors women so much!--but now that you can take care of yourself, I'll do the same." "What d' yuh mean?" "I mean this." She darted at the bed, yanked from beneath it her suit-case, and into it began to throw her toilet articles. Mr. Schwirtz sat upon the bed and laughed enormously. "You women cer'nly are a sketch!" he caroled. "Going back to mamma, are you? Sure! That's what the first Mrs. Schwirtz was always doing. Let's see. Once she got as far as the depot before she came back and admitted that she was a chump. I doubt if you get that far. You'll stop on the step. You're too tightwad to hire a taxi, even to try to scare me and make it unpleasant for me." Una stopped packing, stood listening. Now, her voice unmelodramatic again, she replied: