“I reckon inflation got him,” said Simple. “Some things makes me sad to speak of. It takes three payments to get a decree. He made the down payment. Isabel writ that if I would make one, she would make one, then everybody could marry again. But I cannot meet a payment now with food up, rent up, phones up, cigarettes up, Lifebuoy up—everything up but my salary. Isabel wrote that divorces are liable to go up if I don’t hurry up and pay up. I got a worried mind. Let’s order one more beer—then I won’t sleep restless. Have you got some change for this round?”

“I paid the last time.”

“Except that that were not the last time. This round will be the last time. Just like a divorce in three installments, the last time is not the last time—if you still have to pay another time. Kindly order two beers.”

“What do you take me for, a chump?”

“No, pal—a friend.”

Cocktail Sip

Cocktail Sip

ALONG about nine o’clock Sunday evening, Simple emerged grinning from the dusky backroom of Paddy’s Bar to spy me at the front. I was surprised to see him so early and so hilarious. He was half high.

“Mulberries, sweet, my Lord,” he cried, “also the lips of a woman!”

“You sound like an Elizabethan,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Lizzie who?” asked Simple.

“Poets of long ago I studied in school.’

“It must have been long ago, because you have been out of school a long time.”

“I still remember some of their poems, though. For instance:

Drink to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine,

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I’ll not ask for wine.”

Meanwhile, Simple was beckoning the bartender, and the juke box was blaring.

I said, “Are you listening?”

“I’m listening fluently,” he protested. “But I would like some beer. Besides, these kisses I’m talking about were not in no cup.”

“You’re probably in your cups,” I said.

“I am not,” said Simple. “I am half sober. See this lipstick on my handkerchief? I just got through wiping my mouth.”

“Whom, may I ask, were you kissing?”

“Zarita—in the phone booth.”

“Are you running with that light-o’-love again?”

“Only occasionally,” said Simple. “This evening is one of the occasions.”

“If Joyce catches you, you will run from Zarita, not with her.”

“I hope Joyce don’t catch me,” said Simple. “Sometimes a man likes a woman with experience.”

“Then you ought to like Zarita a lot.”

“I do and I don’t. Zarita is strictly a after-hours gal—great when the hour is late, the wine is fine, and mellow whiskey has made you frisky.”

I quoted over the juke-box blare:

“The thirst that from the soul doth rise

Doth ask a drink divine.…”