“My heyday is over,” said Simple. “This is my stay-home day—now that I’m a married man. But Minnie! She can drink a poor boy friend under the table and not bat an eye—still be setting on her stool sober as an owl. Last Saturday night I watched a stevedore trying to get Minnie drunk so he could make his point. That man’s whole week’s salary went into Minnie—and she still sat there unhugged, unkissed, and untouched. She has done got hep to big city ways now, too. Minnie don’t just drink plain whiskey no more when she is being treated. She orders Scotch—which is ninety cents a throw. It do not take a working man long to unbalance his budget at that rate, before even the week end is over, let alone before next week’s expenses begin. A wise man would at least save something out for subway fare and for facing the landlady. But many a joker in this world is not wise, do you know that? Facts is, I can remember when I had so little sense myself as to let chicks like Zarita drink me up. But Minnie is another story. You know, she come around to my house Sunday whilst Joyce was at church.”

“Wanting money again?” I asked.

“Not this time,” said Simple. “This time she wanted some kind of jive protection from her latest boy friend who threatened to knock her on her anatomy.”

“Why?”

“Minnie says she does not know why,” said Simple, “but I think I know. Minnie has done asked that man for money one time too many, and he knows she does not do anything with money but pour it over a bar. Minnie has been in Harlem, New York, mighty near all winter and has not got herself a warm coat yet. Coming from a mild climate like the South, she is liable to catch her death of pneumonia and go into a decline. Yet to tell the truth, Minnie has not even had a cold. Licker is good for something, as I know myself. It is good for cold.”

“Then you cannot blame Minnie for wanting to keep warm,” I said.