Since he couldn't do that he took it out in grinning.
Any word of praise from Clay made the world a sunshiny one for him.
"This here place ain't Arizona, but o' course we got to make the best
of it. You know I can cook when I got the fixin's," he agreed.
The two men were batching it. They had a little apartment in the Bronx
and Johnnie looked after it for his friend. One of Johnnie's
vices--according to the standard of the B-in-a-Box boys--was that he
was as neat as an old maid. He liked to hang around a mess-wagon and
cook doughnuts and pies. His talent came in handy now, for Clay was no
housekeeper.
After the breakfast things were cleared away Johnnie fared forth to a
certain house adjoining Riverside Drive, where he earned ten dollars a
week as outdoors man. His business was to do odd jobs about the place.
He cut and watered the lawn. He made small repairs. Beatrice had a
rose garden, and under her direction he dug, watered, and fertilized.
Incidentally, the snub-nosed little puncher with the unfinished
features adored his young mistress in the dumb, uncritical fashion a
schoolboy does a Ty Cobb or an Eddie Collins. For him the queen could
do no wrong. He spent hours mornings and evenings at their rooms
telling Clay about her. She was certainly the finest little lady he
ever had seen. In his heart he had hopes that Clay would fall in love
with and marry her. She was the only girl in the world that deserved
his paragon.
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