girls were dancing hugged close. As they sat down they smiled into each other's eyes.
"Jez I'm hungry."
"Are you Dutch?"
He pushed forward his knees until they locked with hers. "Gee you're a good kid," he said when he had finished his soup. "Honest I'll get a job this week. And then we'll get a nice room an get married an everything."
When they got up to dance they were trembling so they could barely keep time to the music.
"Mister . . . no dance without ploper dless . . ." said a dapper Chinaman putting his hand on Dutch's arm.
"Waz he want?" he growled dancing on.
"I guess it's the shirt, Dutch."
"The hell it is."
"I'm tired. I'd rather talk than dance anyway . . ." They went back to their booth and their sliced pineapple for dessert.
Afterwards they walked east along Fourteenth. "Dutch cant we go to your room?"
"I ain't got no room. The old stiff wont let me stay and she's got all my stuff. Honest if I dont get a job this week I'm goin to a recruiting sergeant an re-enlist."
"Oh dont do that; we wouldn't ever get married then Dutch. . . . Gee though why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't want to worry you Francie. . . . Six months out of work . . . Jez it's enough to drive a guy cookoo."
"But Dutch where can we go?"
"We might go out that wharf. . . . I know a wharf."
"It's so cold."
"I couldn't get cold when you were with me kid."
"Dont talk like that. . . I dont like it."
They walked leaning together in the darkness up the muddy rutted riverside streets, between huge swelling gas-tanks, brokendown fences, long manywindowed warehouses. At a corner under a streetlamp a boy catcalled as they passed.
