That's a fair starter. If you care to
be analytical you can insist that the reason she dresses like that
is--oh, just because she's so innocent that she doesn't know any
better, eh!
"All right! That establishes her very well. And then we can do just
what you planned to do with your dear lady. We'll run her through
three or four hundred pages, but with just a trifling change or two.
Every chapter or so I'd leave her, Joe, in a situation that ends with a
gasp--no pause even for a caramel! Three or four hundred pages, and
then, if you have to marry her off why, let's be honest about it--no?
Marry her off to the sort of a chap whom you'd man-handle to a pulp,
Joe, if he came near--say a sister of yours. A nice, white-skinned,
red-lipped, sweet, innocent sort of a little girl, Joe--and--and that
finish will keep her true to type!"
At the beginning Fat Joe had been all eager attention. His face became
heavy with amazement long before Garry's hard voice was still.
"But--but that ain't the kind of a yarn I'm figurin' on," he argued,
his high voice faint but dogged. "This ain't going to be any of that
tabasco stuff. Nope, I like it better the way I've got it planned.
It--it leaves a better taste in your mouth, too."
Again Garry laughed, to himself it seemed, this time.
"Have your own way," he muttered. "But if you're going to stick to it
you'd better label it a romance! Because there's only one kind of a
woman, Joe, in reality.
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