“So I went out. I didn’t take her. She got mad. I should have taken that with a grain of salt. Also take money. My wife said, ‘A man is due to have his own spending change.’ So every week I kept Five Dollars out of my salary. When that ran out ’long toward the end of the week, and I would ask Isabel for a quarter or so, she’d say, ‘What did you do with that Five Dollars?’

“I’d say, ‘I spent it.’

“‘Spent it on what?’ she’d say.

“‘I drunk it up.’

“‘What did you do that for?’ she’d yell. ‘Why didn’t you have your clothes pressed, or spend it on some good books?’

“‘I didn’t want any good books.’

“‘Why didn’t you send some of it to your old aunt?’

“‘Next time I will tell you that I sent it all to my old aunt.’

“‘Then you intend to lie to me?’ says my wife.

“‘Anything to keep down an argument,’ I says.

“‘You do not trust me,’ Isabel hollers. Then she starts to quarrel. So you see how it is. A woman will get you going and coming. You can’t outargue a woman. She even had the nerve to tell me, ‘Why don’t you buy your beer by the case and set up home here and drink it with me?’

“I said, ‘Baby, I cannot set up here at home and look into your face each and every night.’

“She said, ‘You took me for better or worse. Do I look worse to you now?’

“I said, ‘You do not look any worse, baby, but neither does you look any better as time goes on.’

“She said, ‘If you would buy me some clothes, maybe I could look like something.’

“I said, ‘Honey, we ain’t got our furniture paid for yet.’

“She said, ‘So you care more for an old kitchen stove than you does for me?’

“I said, ‘A man has to eat, and a woman can’t cook on the floor.’

“‘All you got me for is to cook,’ Isabel said. ‘If I had knowed that, I could of stayed home with my mother.’

“‘I must admit,’ I said, ‘your mother cooks better than you.’

“‘Huh! I can’t do nothing with them stringy old round steaks you bring home for us to eat,’ she says.

“‘My money won’t stretch to no T-bones,’ I says. ‘Anyhow, baby, no matter how tough the steak may be, you can always stick a fork in the gravy.’

“I just said that for a joke, but somehow it made her mad. She flew off the handle. I flew off the handle, too, and we had one of the biggest quarrels you ever saw. Our first battle royal—but it were not our last. Every time night fell from then on we quarreled—and night falls every night in Baltimore.”

“Night does,” I said.