Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/35

 Jane's house, hey? Well,—I swear to myself that the day will come when she'll be tickled silly to have me, or even to say she knew me! I'm good enough for Judy Willcox and Spence—and then I begin to wonder what Spence thinks about me being gave the air. Stella's his girl and he means more than she does in the town. He's been palling around with me, too, and of course he knows I expected to go to this party. Well, I get the idea that maybe he's also laughed me off.

I went down in the stock room, where I had hung up my clown's layout to let the carmine dry, and they ain't nobody in no hospital nowheres feels half so bad as I do! I look at this here masquerade costume, which half a hour ago seems very nifty to me, and now it's just a lot of, which I have went to work and ruined by dabbing it with carmine. I think of how I sit on the side of my bed all night when I can hardly keep awake, jabbing that needle into my fingers and attempting to learn the mysteries of sewing at a minute's notice. I think of how I kept trying it on and taking it off, and taking it off and trying it on, and—well, I make a wild grab at that clown's costume and I rip it to shreds, and that kind of eases my feelings a little, anyways!

When I go back to the fountain I begin polishing up, and a guy can do a great deal of first-class thinking when he's polishing something, if he ain't one of them whistlers or hummers. What I mean is, did you ever notice how some people, mostly women, will keep humming or whistling when they're polishing and dusting