Page:Wilson - Bunker bean.djvu/205

Rh "Don't be too domineering, that's all," warned the Demon. "She wouldn't put up with it."

"I understand all that," insisted Bean, resolutely seizing a fork for which he had no use. "I can look ahead!"

He began hurriedly to eat toast, hoping it would seem that he had more to say but was too hungry to say it.

"I know you," persisted the Demon. "Brow-beating, bound to have your own way, and, after all, she's nothing but a child."

"I'll want him to have his own way," declared the child. "I'll see that he just perfectly gets it, too!"

"Give and take, that's my motto, he muttered, wondering if more toast would choke him.

"Be a row back there, of course," said Grandma, "but Julia's going to marry off the other child after her own heart, and it's only right for me to have a little say about this one. You're a better man than he is. You have a good situation and he's just a waster; couldn't buy his own cigarettes if he had to work for the money, say nothing of his gloves and ties. Born to riches, born to folly, say I. Still, Julia will fuss just about so much. Of course, Jim"

"Oh, poor old Pops!" The flapper gracefully destroyed him as a factor in the problem.

Bean was feeding toast to Nap, who didn't choke.

"She always has to come around though when the girl makes up her mind. I haven't had that child in my charge for nothing."