Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/154

 year to crack wise to a fightin' chance. You're a boob to stick to a nut who hasn't a show in the runnin'. He's in bad, an' you know it. An' that guinney Morello's as bughouse as the Gov'nor hisself. He'll hang the Indian sign on you. An' when them dagoes git to makin' love, I want somethin' to back up against so I won't git a knife in the back for stallin' him off when his zooin' bug gits workin' overtime! They ain't safe, dearie! An' he's so stuck on you he'd file his way into Sing Sing if they sent you up!"

"Cherry, you're not telling me the truth about that lumberman from Saginaw!"

"So help me Mike, dearie, I got that old pineland fossil so he'll eat out o' my hand! An' I breeze into that house o' his just off the upper Avenoo an' tell the butler I want covers laid for four an' holler for a Clover Club quick before I pass away! Why, all I gotta do is dust the cigar ashes off that ol' guy's vest-front an' feed the gold-fish!"

"And what is this going to lead to?" was the other woman's question. "What do you expect to get out of it?"

"I expec' to git took care of," was the deliberate answer, "an' I expec' to eat regular an' to be able to hold my head up when I walk into a Winter Garden first night and show them lobster-palace broads what a year in Paris can do for a girl who keeps her eyes open!"

"And you intend to blackmail that ridiculous old man, the same as you blackmailed Novikoff and—"

"Have a heart, woman, have a heart!" broke in the other voice. "I've never so much as lifted a