"that you propose to hang around to see what's going to happen?"
"On the contrary, young lady, I'm going down to Hot Springs to-morrow morning to get some of the acid steamed out of my knee-joints. You're old enough to do as you like. I've always admitted that. And I've talked to Trummie about it, before he got away. I've talked to your dad. And he remarked that it wasn't a matter of such tremendous importance, after all, since he has just figured out that the planet on which we at present subsist will be completely obliterated in some six million years. And he seems to be more interested in Betelgeuse, at the moment, than he is in Greenwich Village. But I repeat that you've come into a crooked part of this old Island for any straight-cuts to freedom. You'll do just what the streets do down here: you'll get all twisted up. Just look at 'em! Look at 'em, I say. You've got Tenth Street doubling round and running into Fourth Street, and Waverley Place going in four directions at once—the same as the folks who live in it! They don't
