"Be-parent, if it isn't a word, I invent it. It's awfully tough luck
for you, and if you want me to I'll own up to the crowd that I can't
swing you, but if you are willing to stick, why, we'll fix up some
kind of a way to cut down expenses and bluff it out."

Eleanor considered the prospect. Jimmie watched her apparent
hesitation with some dismay.

"Say the word," he declared, "and I'll tell 'em."

"Oh! I don't want you to tell 'em," Eleanor cried. "I was just
thinking. If you could get me a place, you know, I could go out to
work. You don't eat very much for a man, and I might get my meals
thrown in--"

"Don't, Eleanor, don't," Jimmie agonized. "I've got a scheme for us
all right. This--this embarrassment is only temporary. The day will
come when I can provide you with Pol Roge and diamonds. My father is
rich, you know, but he swore to me that I couldn't support myself, and
I swore to him that I could, and if I don't do it, I'm damned. I am
really, and that isn't swearing."

"I know it isn't, when you mean it the way they say in the Bible."

"I don't want the crowd to know. I don't want Gertrude to know. She
hasn't got much idea of me anyway. I'll get another job, if I can only
hold out."

"I can go to work in a store," Eleanor cried. "I can be one of those
little girls in black dresses that runs between counters."

"Do you want to break your poor Uncle James' heart, Eleanor,--do
you?"

"No, Uncle Jimmie."

"Then listen to me. I've borrowed a studio, a large barnlike studio on
Washington Square, suitably equipped with pots and pans and kettles.
Also, I am going to borrow the wherewithal to keep us going. It isn't
a bad kind of place if anybody likes it. There's one dinky little
bedroom for you and a cot bed for me, choked in bagdad. If you could
kind of engineer the cooking end of it, with me to do the dirty work,
of course, I think we could be quite snug and cozy."

"I know we could, Uncle Jimmie," Eleanor said. "Will Uncle Peter come
to see us just the same?"

It thus befell that on the fourteenth day of the third month of her
residence in New York, Eleanor descended into Bohemia. Having no least
suspicion of the real state of affairs--for Jimmie, like most
apparently expansive people who are given to rattling nonsense, was
actually very reticent about his own business--the other members of
the sextette did not hesitate to show their chagrin and disapproval at
the change in his manner of living.