The Actress Page #3

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Well, couldn't

she just take a orange

like any other

ordinary...

or is that

too big a piece of fruit

for her to lug

with that weak back?

Dribble, dribble,

dribble.

Well, that's where

the money goes.

The mellins food

pays me 37.50 a week.

You got me living

like i was w. k. Cottington

sitting at a roll-top

mahogany desk.

Clinton, saying you live

like mr. Cottington...

don't forget,

i got to pay something

on dr. Adams' bill.

On the 23rd,

the mutual premium comes due.

I'd like to go to sleep

and wake up on april 24th.

Clinton,

what a way to talk.

Why, suppose

that premium slid?

What would ruth and i do

if anything happened to you?

I guess you

wouldn't starve.

I'd like to know

why we wouldn't.

You'd be stuffed so full

of the food

i buy you from s. s. Purse

and backus grocery.

That's why

you wouldn't.

Don't forget.

Besides the $37.50,

there's your bonus.

Can't count on a bonus till

you got it in your hand.

A man has to grovel

and curtsy 364 days a year,

then on the 365th,

say something wrong

to old cottington,

and there goes

the bonus.

Oh, well. I guess

money isn't everything.

No, no, no,

but poverty is.

It's everything

in my whole world.

Clinton, you can't

call us poverty.

Yes, i can too.

I even know the color of it.

It's a dirty

rotten brown.

It's everywhere i go.

Every minute of my...

it's in my eyes,

my nose, my ears, my feet.

It's on the front walk

when i come home at night.

It's in this dog-eared,

borrowed-from-the-neighbors

magazine!

Clinton,

you're just crazy.

Yes, i'm crazy.

I'm crazy because i'm poor.

Just seems like there's

nothing i can afford.

Just nothing.

Not one blasted nothing.

I can't even afford

to catch cold.

Old swolman up on the hill

wants to have a cold,

he can have one seven days

a week if he wants to.

Can't even sit

on the furniture,

especially that stuff

in the parlor.

Whenever i sit,

i sit real careful like

because i'm afraid

i might spoil it, and...

and i buy

the new england gazette.

I'd like to buy

the scientific american,

but i buy

the new england gazette.

You know why i buy it?

Because it costs a measly

5 cents, and the other...

what's the use?

I got the brains

and the inclination.

I just haven't got

the 35 sou,

that's all.

Live on hash and stew

and louisiana cat meat,

for all i know,

when i got a taste

for oysters and curry

the way they used to

fix them in bombay.

Bird's nest soup

the way that little

french girl used to make it

in wiscasset when i went

with fred gee that time.

And rich custard apple

they almost give away

for nothing in mozambique.

I don't know what

to do, clinton.

I really don't.

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