"What a choice to have to make!"

"The one you let me keep will be no farther away than down the hall. If you had married me when you so obviously should have, you lecherous old rapist, you wouldn't have to make a choice; both would be yours. Jake, what does it cost to buy a job lot of art critics?"

"Well, the present crop ought not to fetch more than ten cents a dozen but everything is higher these days. I take it you have Joe Branca in mind?"

"Of course. He's selling his paintings at ridiculously low prices and paying an outrageous commission—and sells so few that the kids hardly get enough to eat. While freaks and frauds and sign painters are all the rage. I thought—"

"You can stop thinking; I see the swindle. We'll get him agood agent, we'll buy up what he has on the market, using dummies—and keep them ourselves; they're a surefire investment... and we'll buy art critics here, then elsewhere as he becomes better known. The question is: How much of a success must he be? Do 1 have to get him into the Metropolitan?"

"Jake, I don't think Joe wants to be famous. And 1 don't want it to be so conspicuous that he might smell a rat. Or that Gigi might; she's a little more sophisticated. Not very, that is. I just want his pictures to sell regularly enough that Gigi can buy groceries without worrying and can have enough disposable sheets that she can change them every day if it suits her. The kid is trying to keep house on scraped icebox and boiled dishrag soup. I tried that in the Depression and it's not funny—and I see no reason why Gigi should have to do it when she's married to an honest-to-God artist who can paint—andworks at it. One who doesn't spend his time sopping up sauce or blowing weed, and talking about the painting he's going to do. Joe paints. He's a craftsman as well as an artist. Well, maybe I don't know what an artist is but I know what a craftsman is and I respect craftsmen. Too few of them in this decadent world."

"No argument. We'll do it. Even if we have to go as high as fifteen cents a dozen."

"Even two-bits. Let's finish getting paint off—I must send down for olive oil—and you could be a darling and get Winnie to fetch me a heavy robe or get it yourself, pretty please, if she isn't home—no, I can get back to my room in my street cape, no problem, and—"

"Hrrmph."

"Did I goof again?"

"My dear, I have an announcement. Dr. and Mrs. Roberto Carlos Garcia y Ibanez are on their honeymoon."

"What? Why, the dirty little rat! Didn't wait for big sister to hold her hand. Good for them! Jake, that's wonderful—Ithink I'll cry."

"Go ahead, you cry while I shower."

"Hell, no, I'll cry when Winnie is back. I'll take that shower with you and you can scrub me. My back, where I can't see the paint; not my front, I'm tired, too. When was it and do you know when they will be home? And, goodness, I must pick out a suite for them; Roberto won't want to be next to mine with a connecting door. And I need to think of a wedding present. I may give them the painting you don't pick; Roberto won't let me give them anything expensive, he's a stubborn man." (Boss, is there another sort?)

"I can't see why Bob wouldn't want to have a connecting door into your bedroom."

"I think that was meant to be an insult. Perhaps he would like it, dear—I would like it. But it would not look right to the servants." (Frimp the servants!) (All of them, Eunice? I'm kept busy as it is.)

"Eunice, I took the liberty of telling Cunningham to have the Gold Suite set up for the Garcias—"

"Perfect! I'll have a door cut from my lounge into theirs and there already is a lock-off that we can unlock between its foyer and the upstairs library we joined to your suite—and then we can quit this unseemly ducking back and forth through the hall."

"The newlyweds might prefer to be left alone."

"Hadn't thought of- that. Oh, well, ‘I have some friends of my own,' as the old gal said."

"In any case they'll be back too soon for carpentry. I have it from a usually dependable source that a reliably dishonest member of your staff agreed to phone Mrs. Garcia the instant you returned. I assume that the call was made. I assume that they will be back by, oh, nightfall."

"I wonder whom I should fire? That's a hell of a way to run a honeymoon."

"I understand the good Doctor was in on it—the idea being to keep you safe from harm, since between them they constitute your medical staff."

"What nonsense. I'm the Pioneer-Mother type. Rugged. If I had crossed with the prairie- schooners, they would have yoked me in with the oxen. But I'm glad they're coming home. I want to kiss them and cry on them."

"Johann, sometimes I can't make up my mind whether you are a silly young girl—or senile."

"The last time you called me ‘Johann' you acquired some scar tissue. Dear, has it occurred to you that I might be both? A senile silly young girl?"

"Interesting. A possible working hypothesis."

"If so, I'm a well-adjusted one—Jake, I'm as happy as a cat left alone with the Christmas turkey. With Joe squared away and the Supreme Court being sensible for a change my last fret is gone. Life is one long giddy delight. I'm not even morning sick."

"Can't see why you should be—huh?" (Boss, I thought you weren't going to tell him?) (Eunice, he was bound to know soon... and I couldn't just let him find out, can't do that to Jake. This is the perfect time—he's officially ‘first to know.')

"I said I wasn't bothered by morning sickness, Jake. I'm healthy as a horse and the only change I've noticed is that I'm hungry as a horse, too."

"You wish me to believe that you are pregnant?"

"Don't give me that stern-father look, Jake. I'm knocked up and happier than Happy Hooligan. I could have kept it to myself a while longer but I wanted to tell you before anyone else could notice. But be a dear and treat it as privileged—because the instant Winnie finds out she'll start mothering me and worrying. Which is not what a bride should be doing. With luck I can keep it from Winnie until she's pregnant, too." (Boss, what makes you think Winnie intends to get pregnant'?) (Use your head, Eunice—five to one she's got a Band-aid over the spot where that implant used to be this very minute.) (I don't have a head, Boss—just yours and it doesn't work too well.) (Complaints, huh? Talk that way and I won't marry you, either.) (We are married, Boss.) (I know it, beloved. Now be quiet; I've got to juggle eggs.)

"Eunice—are you sure?"

"Yes. Test positive."

"Did Bob make the test? Or some quack?"

"A patient's relations with a doctor are confo. But it was not a quack. Don't pursue this line of inquiry, Counselor."

"We'll get married at once."

"The hell we will!"

"Eunice, let's have no nonsense!"

"Sir, I asked you to marry me quite some time back. You emphatically refused. I asked you at a later time. Again I was turned down. I decided not to renew my request, and I do not do so now. I will not marry you. But I will be honored and delighted to continue as your mistress until I am benched by biology—and more than pleased to be allowed again to be your concubine when I am back in commission. I love you, sir. But I will not marry you."

"I ought to spank you."

"I don't think it would do me any damage, darling. But I don't think you could bring yourself to strike a pregnant woman." (Now kick him in the other shin, Boss. You little hellcat.) (Eunice, stay out of this row. I'm not only a woman scorned; I'm also old Johann Smith who never could be pushed too far. Jake can have us any time, sure. But I'm damned if I'll let him be ‘noble' about it when I'm knocked up.) (Boss, aren't we ever going to marry him? This is a mistake, dear; he needs us.) (And we need him, Eunice. Sure, we'll marry him—after we've whelped. After.) (Boss, you're making a big mistake.) (If so, I'm making it. I never make little mistakes—just big ones.)