“You didn’t have to bust him like that,” she snarled.
“Well, it’s done. You’d better get him straightened out.”
She put down the siphon and I helped her carry him up to his bedroom. When he began moving his eyes, I left her to finish the work and went down to the dining room again. She joined me there fifteen minutes later.
“He’s all right,” she said. “But you could have handled him without that.”
“Yeah, but I did that for him. Know why he took the shot at me?”
“So I’d have nobody to sell Max out to?”
“No. Because I’d seen you maul him around.”
“That doesn’t make sense to me,” she said. “I was the one who did it.”
“He’s in love with you, and this isn’t the first time you’ve done it. He acted like he had learned there was no use matching muscle with you. But you can’t expect him to enjoy having another man see you slap his face.”
“I used to think I knew men,” she complained, “but, by God! I don’t. They’re lunatics, all of them.”
“So I poked him to give him back some of his self-respect. You know, treated him as I would a man instead of a down-and-outer who could be slapped around by girls.”
“Anything you say,” she sighed. “I give up. We ought to have a drink.”
We had the drink, and I said: