Page:Manhattan Transfer (John Dos Passos, 1925).djvu/321

Rh pouting under the pink bow of her boudoir cap. "Mother may I have another cup of coffee?"

"Deary you know you oughtnt to drink two cups. Dr. Fernald said that was what was making you so nervous."

"Just a little bit mother very weak. I want to finish this muffin and I simply cant eat it without something to wash it down, and you know you dont want me to lose any more weight." James pushed back his chair and went out with the Times under his arm. "It's half past eight James," said Mrs. Merivale. "He's likely to take an hour when he gets in there with that paper."

"Well," said Maisie peevishly. "I think I'll go back to bed. I think it's silly the way we all get up to breakfast. There's something so vulgar about it mother. Nobody does it any more. At the Perkinses' it comes up to you in bed on a tray."

"But James has to be at the bank at nine."

"That's no reason why we should drag ourselves out of bed. That's how people get their faces all full of wrinkles."

"But we wouldn't see James until dinnertime, and I like to get up early. The morning's the loveliest part of the day." Maisie yawned desperately.

James appeared in the doorway to the hall running a brush round his hat.

"What did you do with the paper James?"

"Oh I left it in there."

"I'll get it, never mind My dear you've got your stickpin in crooked. I'll fix it There." Mrs. Merivale put her hands on his shoulders and looked in her son's face. He wore a dark gray suit with a faint green stripe in it, an olive green knitted necktie with a small gold nugget stickpin, olive green woolen socks with black clockmarks and dark red Oxford shoes, their laces neatly tied with doubleknots that never came undone. "James arent you carrying your cane?" He had an olive green woolen muffler round his neck and was slipping into his dark brown winter overcoat. "I notice the younger men down there dont carry