Page:Bad Girl (1929).pdf/144

 After dinner they went back to the living-room. Eddie, sat down in his chair, and Dot took the sofa. He was smoking again.

"When did the doctor think the baby would be here?" he asked.

"Around the middle of July."

"Hm," said Eddie, and added: "Well, it's almost Christmas."

"Yeh, in ten or twelve days Christmas will be here. Say, you know, Eddie, it takes ten months for a baby."

"Go on. It's nine months."

"No, the doctor said ten months."

"He must be a horse-doctor."

"He said it took ten lunar months."

"Well, that's something different again. It means something about the moon."

"What's the moon got to do with me having a baby?"

Eddie smiled thinly. "They don't say nine months," he said, "because if they did you could understand it. They say ten lunar months to make it harder and to give you something to dope out. It's just like charging two hundred dollars. That's something to dope out, too. The whole damn thing is a puzzle. Why is having a baby so expensive? Why does it hurt so? Why is the only other way out so rotten? Ten lunar months explains it great. If they said nine months the poor saps who were going to have the kid would understand it."

"Well, look, Eddie, at all the calls the doctor's got to make on you, and he's got to deliver the baby and all. If you think it's too expensive I'll get another doctor."

Eddie leaped from his chair with an oath. "There you go," he said. "Always trying to start a fight."

"Didn't you say—"

"Yes, I said, but I'm not blaming your wonderful doctor. He's got to charge that much for what he's got to