Red and fat and crying like Niobe or Niagara, Mrs. Peters threw her
arms around her lord and dissolved upon him. Mr. Peters would have
striven to extricate the dollar bill from its deposit vault, but his
arms were bound to his sides.
"Do you love me, James?" asked Mrs. Peters.
"Madly," said James, "but--"
"You are ill!" exclaimed Mrs. Peters. "Why are you so pale and tired
looking?"
"I feel weak," said Mr. Peters. "I--"
"Oh, wait; I know what it is. Wait, James. I'll be back in a minute."
With a parting hug that revived in Mr. Peters recollections of the
Terrible Turk, his wife hurried out of the room and down the stairs.
Mr. Peters hitched his thumbs under his suspenders.
"All right," he confided to the ceiling. "I've got her going. I
hadn't any idea the old girl was soft any more under the foolish rib.
Well, sir; ain't I the Claude Melnotte of the lower East Side? What?
It's a 100 to 1 shot that I get the dollar. I wonder what she went
out for. I guess she's gone to tell Mrs. Muldoon on the second floor,
that we're reconciled. I'll remember this. Soft soap! And Ragsy was
talking about slugging her!"
Mrs. Peters came back with a bottle of sarsaparilla.
"I'm glad I happened to have that dollar," she said. "You're all run
down, honey."
Mr. Peters had a tablespoonful of the stuff inserted into him. Then
Mrs. Peters sat on his lap and murmured:
"Call me tootsum wootsums again, James."
He sat still, held there by his materialized goddess of spring.
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