Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/176

 the money did not pass directly from Ket to Dads; the funds flowed from Ket to Elmen, as installments of Elmen, EImen, Kleppman and Wein's perfectly legal retainer and then separated into several devious streams, like the water of a river divided at its delta, yet all contributing to a common end, which was Ket's defense.

If Dads harbored the knowledge that he was not actually earning his weekly check, by nothing did he avow it; by nothing did he betray cognizance that his debts had been paid. He preserved, in respect to all money matters, the same discreet aloofness as before; and when she learned of Elmen's arrangement, Joan Daisy did not make the mistake of mentioning it to Dads.

Collectors ceased to come and installment men no longer demanded admittance; the furniture in the flat, even the extravagant radio set, as well as the fine linen sheets which Joan Daisy pulled over herself when she went to sleep, all were paid for—by Ket's money. In return, Dads probably made some sort of a gesture at working; and certainly he was drunk less often. Frequently Joan Daisy was able to arouse him by half past seven; and it was to help her that Herman made an occasional early morning call on the telephone.

"We're both up and all right," responded Joan Daisy, cheerfully, as soon as she recognized Herman Elmen's voice on this next morning; and after she had received her instruction to come to the office, she returned to the kitchenette where she was making coffee and toast and scrambling eggs for Dads and herself.

She served breakfast upon a pretty, lacquered table (selected by Dads' unerring taste and now paid for by Ket's money) in the room where her bed again was a couch and where the bright November sun shone in.

Mamma slumbered heavily, in the adjoining bedroom,