“No,” said Simple, “but she thought she had found a rainbow. Minnie come telling me last month about some well-to-do old Negro she had met who had eyes for her like crazy, even spending seven or eight dollars to take her to Frank’s for dinner, to the Palm Café for drinks, and to Small’s to hear music. Then if she still was not ready to go home, down to that after-hours spot where they used to have the golden key and where drinks is a dollar a throw, even plain sodas with a cube of ice, and where the chicks are fine. I told Minnie she better keep that old geezer out of that speak-easy, else he might latch onto one of them pretty models and put her down.

“Minnie said, ‘All that glitters ain’t got what I got. I knows how to handle this old goat, myself. I am going to propose to him that we get married.’ And don’t you know, Minnie did. She proposed to the man herself.”

“What did the man say?” I asked.

“That is where the slip came,” said Simple. “But there was no use in Minnie’s crying—because she proposed to the man. He did not propose to her, so there was no breach of promise nor promises breached. Just a clop betwixt the lip and the chop, that’s all! That old man told Minnie, said, ‘Daughter, I been married four times, and I think it will be a long time before I try it again.’

“Minnie said, ‘But what about all your houses you owns over in Brooklyn and Corona, and them six lots full of potatoes out in Long Island? Where will they be? Who’s gonna benefit from all that when you gone?’

“That old Negro told Minnie, ‘Don’t worry about when I’m gone because, barring poison, I will be here awhile. And it takes all them potatoes on all them lots to feed my children I got, without taking on another wife. Wife Number 1 was O.K., and Wife Number 2 did do. Wife Number 3 quit me, and Wife Number 4 ain’t no more. And all of them cost me money’s mammy. But with what dough I got left, I intends to look out for myself. No jive, as long as I am alive, there will be no Number 5.’