produced a package of gold tipped Egyptian Deities. "Four months' pay"; he slapped his thigh. "Seen May Sweitzer?" Emile shook his head. "I'll have to find the little son of a gun. . . . In those goddam Scandinavian ports they come out in boats, big fat blond women in bumboats. . . ."

They were silent. The gas hummed. Congo let his breath out in a whistle. "Whee . . . C'est chic ça, Delmonico . . . Why havent you married her?"

"She likes to have me hang around. . . . I'd run the store better than she does."

"You're too easy; got to use rough stuff with women to get anything outa them. . . . Make her jealous."

"She's got me going."

"Want to see some postalcards?" Congo pulled a package, wrapped in newspaper out of his pocket. "Look these are Naples; everybody there wants to come to New York. . . . That's an Arab dancing girl. Nom d'une vache they got slippery bellybuttons. . . ."

"Say, I know what I'll do," cried Emile suddenly dropping the cards on the bed. "I'll make her jealous. . . ."

"Who?"

"Ernestine . . . Madame Rigaud. . . ."

"Sure walk up an down Eighth Avenue with a girl a couple of times an I bet she'll fall like a ton of bricks."

The alarmclock went off on the chair beside the bed. Emile jumped up to stop it and began splashing water on his face in the washbasin.

"Merde I got to go to work."

"I'll go over to Hell's Kitchen an see if I can find May."

"Don't be a fool an spend all your money," said Emile who stood at the cracked mirror with his face screwed up, fastening the buttons in the front of a clean boiled shirt.

"It's a sure thing I'm tellin yer," said the man again and again, bringing his face close to Ed Thatcher's face and rapping the desk with his flat hand.