“Especially when you’re spending it on two women,” I said. “You have got to learn to change your character and budget both your money and your pleasure.”

“God gave me this character,” said Simple. “In His own good time He will change it. You know that old saying:

A bobtail dog

Can’t walk a log.

Neither can a elephant

Hop like a frog.

My character is my character! It cannot change.”

“It’s certainly true that nobody can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” I said.

“Who wants to?” asked Simple.

Letting off Steam

Letting Off Steam

“WINTER time in Harlem sure is a blip,” Simple complained. “I have already drunk four beers and one whiskey and I am not warm yet.”

“Your blood must be thin,” I said.

“Thin, nothing! It’s just cold out there. I do not like cold; never did, and never will, no place, no time.”

“Well, what are you doing out in this weather if you’re so cold-natured? Why didn’t you stay home?”

“Man, this bar is the warmest place I know. At least they keep the steam up here.”

“You mean to tell me you haven’t got any steam in your room?”

“There’s a radiator in my room,” said Simple, “but my landlady don’t send up no steam. I beat on the radiator pipes to let her know I was home—and freezing.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. She just beat back on the pipes at me! I tell you, winter is a worriation.”

“I don’t like the cold, either,” I said. “But mortal man can do very little about the weather. Of course, one could be rich and go to Florida.”

“You couldn’t give me Florida and all that Jim Crow on a silver platter! But if these womens keep after me, I am liable to have to go somewhere.”

“What’s the matter now?” I asked.

“My wife writ me from Baltimore that if I don’t buy her that divorce she’s been wanting for seven years, she is going to get herself a new fur coat and charge it to me. She says I better pay for it or else! And Joyce has been hinting around lately that she needs a silver fox—and she ain’t even married to me yet. Here I am going around wearing my prewar Chesterfield and can’t get a new coat for myself. I ain’t even got no rubbers for this snow.”

“You love Joyce, don’t you? So I know you wouldn’t want to see her freeze.”

“Freeze, nothing,” said Simple. “If Joyce would put on some long underwear and drop them skirts down some more and wrap up her neck, she would be warm without a fur coat. Also, if she would stop wearing open-worked shoes. Women don’t wear enough clothes.”

“Do you want your best girl to look like somebody’s grandma?”