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 "I'm here on business—didn't I tell you? Vacuum cleaners. What's so funny about that?"

"Oh, Joe! As long as I've known you, you still have the power to surprise me!"

He wanted to slap the doorman on the back so hard that he would knock the stuffing out of him; he wanted to run, tossing his arms, shouting. He paid the taxi driver, seventy-five cents, with a dollar for a tip, and swung off through the snow.

To have found her—to have found the answer to life's question!

How did he know it was true? That she was a living girl who loved him? Only by this tide of feeling that surged through him. He had to stand still, caught breathless in the flood of his love for her.

A small cold wave of sorrow crept through. She was going away, and he must let her go, because he was too poor to take care of her yet, and take care of his mother, too. People no longer gave Kate orders, as they had when they were sorry for her after her husband died, when she had Jodie and Charlotte to bring up; and everything was so much more expensive now; her little amount went almost no distance.

I'll work twice as hard, Joe thought. I'll get extra work to do at night. I'll manage somehow, because if I should lose you, my darling

He remembered Susette Ricardo's face; he understood her anguish.