"Then you aren't married?"
"Nobody would have me."
"Yes, they would, if ..."
She did not turn up her nose, but she favored his dirt and rags with a
look of disapprobation he could not mistake.
"Go on," he half-shouted. "Shoot it into me. If I was washed--if I wore
good clothes--if I was respectable--if I had a job and worked
regular--if I wasn't what I am."
To each statement she nodded.
"Well, I ain't that kind," he rushed on. "I'm no good. I'm a tramp. I
don't want to work, that's what. And I like dirt."
Her face was eloquent with reproach as she said, "Then you were only
making believe when you wished you had a little girl like me?"
This left him speechless, for he knew, in all the depths of his
new-found passion, that that was just what he did want.
With ready tact, noting his discomfort, she sought to change the
subject.
"What do you think of God?" she asked. "I ain't never met him. What do
you think about him?"
His reply was evidently angry, and she was frank in her disapproval.
"You are very strange," she said. "You get angry so easily. I never saw
anybody before that got angry about God, or work, or being clean."
"He never done anything for me," he muttered resentfully.
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