“‘You always got an explanation for everything,’ says Joyce. ‘If you are late getting to heaven, you will give Saint Peter some jive excuse. Well, I will go on my vacation alone, as usual. I had expected this vacation this year to be my second honeymoon—had we been married last spring. But I’m going to have a bang-up good trip anyhow. My vacation will not be no dud, with or without you, Jess Semple. My plans is laid.’

“‘Laid where?’

“‘You will find out in due time. I intends to relax and have myself a ball wherever I go. I have been working hard all winter and all summer. Now I am going to relax.’

“The way she said that word relax, daddy-o, I do not feel so good about. What do you reckons she means?”

“Probably just lying in a hammock and reading a book,” I said. “You don’t have to worry about Joyce.”

“I may not have to, but I do,” said Simple. “And this is one time I do not want her going off nowheres without me. To tell the truth, if I find out where she is going, I’m liable to take a week off from my work and relax with her.”

“You might be unwelcome,” I said, “since you say she’s holding you at arm’s length these days.”

“My arm is as long as hers. I will reach out and snatch her bald-headed if she fools with me. She must not know who I am. I am Jesse B. Semple. I loves that girl, and I have come to the point where I will not take no tea for the fever. In fact, I will get rough.”

“Do you intend to state all that to Joyce?”

“My statement is being considered,” said Simple.

Boys, Birds, and Bees

Boys, Birds, and Bees

“JOYCE is gone,” said Simple.

“Where?”

“That is just it. I do not know where. She must of left right from work yesterday, which were Friday, because when I rung them seven bells last night, her big old fat landlady waddled to the door and hollered, ‘Joyce is gone.’

“‘Gone where?’ I says.

“‘You ought to know. You closer than her shadow.’

“‘Madam, I am asking you a question.’

“‘You know her vacation has started. She told me to tell you she would be away for a fortnight, whatever that is.’

“‘A fourth-night?’

“‘Them is her words, not mine, so figure it out for yourself.’

“And she waddled on back through them double doors. What is a fourth-night?”

“Two weeks,” I said.

“Well, why didn’t Joyce say so? That girl is been around that Maxwell-Reeves woman too much. She’s talking in tongues. Two weeks! Well, she can stay gone two years for all I care. Facts is, Joyce can stay gone. She do not need to come back to me.”

“Consider well what you are saying, old boy.”