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 summer clouds, floated in the sink like small reflections of clouds. “Have you known him long?” she asked. “Mr. Fairchild, I mean?”

“I didn’t know him any until a couple of days ago. I was in that park where that statue is, down close to the docks, and he came by and we were talking and I wasn’t working then, and so he got me this job. I can do any kind of work,” he added with quiet pride.

“You can? You don’t live in New Orleans, do you?”

“Indiana,” he told her. “I’m just traveling around.”

“Gee,” the niece said, “I wish I were a man, like that. I bet it’s all right, going around wherever you want to. I guess I’d work on ships. That’s what I’d do.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “That’s where I learned to cook—on a ship.”

“Not—”

“Yes’m, to the Mediterranean ports, last trip.”

“Gee,” she said again. “You’ve seen lots, haven’t you? What would you do, when the ship got to different places? You didn’t just stay on the ship, did you?”

“No’m. I went to a lot of towns. Away from the coast.”

“To Paris, I bet.”

“No’m,” he admitted, with just a trace of apology, “I never seemed to get to Paris. But next—”

“I knew you wouldn’t,” she said quickly. “Say, men just go to Europe because they say European women are fast, don’t they? Are European women like that? promiscuous, like they say?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I nev—”

“I bet you never had time to fool with them, did you? That’s what I’d do: I wouldn’t waste my time on women, if I went to Europe. They make me sick—these little college boys in their balloon pants, and colored stickers all over their