"Oh, no, no," protested Jimmy nervously. "I wouldn't say that."
"Even if she weren't running around," continued Alfred excitedly,
without heeding his friend's interruption, "what have we to look forward
to? What have we to look backward to?"
Again Jimmy's face was a blank.
Alfred answered his own question by lifting his arms tragically toward
Heaven. "One eternal round of wrangles and rows! A childless home! Do
you think she wants babies?" he cried, wheeling about on Jimmy, and
daring him to answer in the affirmative. "Oh, no!" he sneered. "All she
wants is a good time."
"Well," mumbled Jimmy, "I can't see much in babies myself, fat, little,
red worms."
Alfred's breath went from him in astonishment "Weren't YOU ever a fat, little, red worm?" he hissed. "Wasn't I
ever a little, fat, red----" he paused in confusion, as his ear became
puzzled by the proper sequence of his adjectives, "a fat, red, little
worm," he stammered; "and see what we are now!" He thrust out his chest
and strutted about in great pride.
"Big red worms," admitted Jimmy gloomily.
But Alfred did not hear him. "You and I ought to have SONS on the way to
what we are," he declared, "and better."
"Oh yes, better," agreed Jimmy, thinking of his present plight. "Much
better."
"But HAVE we?" demanded Alfred.
Jimmy glanced about the room, as though expecting an answering
demonstration from the ceiling.
"Have YOU?" persisted Alfred.
Jimmy shook his head solemnly.
"Have I?" asked the irate husband.
Out of sheer absent mindedness Jimmy shrugged his shoulders.
As usual Alfred answered his own question. "Oh, no!" he raged. "YOU have
a wife who spends her time and money gadding about with----"
Jimmy's face showed a new alarm.
"--my wife," concluded Alfred.
Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief.
"I have a wife," said Alfred, "who spends her time and my money gadding
around with God knows whom. But I'll catch him!" he cried with new fury.
"Here," he said, pulling a roll of bills from his pocket. "I'll bet you
I'll catch him. How much do you want to bet?"
Undesirous of offering any added inducements toward his own capture,
Jimmy backed away both literally and figuratively from Alfred's
proposition.
"What's the use of getting so excited?" he asked.