book_id
stringlengths 2
6
| title
stringclasses 1
value | author
stringclasses 1
value | conversations
listlengths 1
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|---|---|---|---|
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Aw, now, Peachy, you mustn't treat a fellow cold no more! Ain't I going to marry you? Ain't I going to set you up right in my house out in Newton Heights? Ain't I going to give you a swell ten-room house? Ain't you going to live right in the house with my girl, and ain't she going to have you for a little stepmother?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Jerry, the--the little girl. I wonder if she wants--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sure she does. Her mother gets her every other month. I'd let her go for good if you don't want her, except it would do her mother too much good. The courts give her to me every other month and I'll have her down to the last minute of the last hour or bust."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Jerry!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's what I gotta keep up the house out there for. The court says I gotta give her a home, and that's why I want a little queen like you in it. Gad! Won't her mother throw a red-headed fit when she sees the little queen I picked! Gad!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, Jerry, her your first wife and all! Won't it seem funny my going in her house and--and living with her kid."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Funny nothing. Cloonan won't think it's funny when I tell her she's finished running my house for me. Funny nothing. To-morrow's Sunday and I'm going to take you out in the afternoon and show you the place, and Monday, instead of going to your bargain bin, we're going down for a license, and you kiss the old hag good-by for me, too. Eh, how's that for one day's work?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Gee! and--and--Monday the spring opening and me not there! Jerry, I--I can't get over me being a lady in my own house. Me! Me that hates ugliness and ugly clothes and ugly living so. Me that hates street-cars and always even hated boat excursions 'cause they was poor folks' pleasures. Me a lady in my own house. Oh, Jerry!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ten rooms, Peachy--that's the way I do things."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Is this the place?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Right-o! Now for that steak smothered in mushrooms, and, gad! I could manage a sweetbread salad on the side if you asked me right hard."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Jerry!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How'd some Lynnhavens taste to you for a starter, Peachy?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Fine, whatever they are."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Jerry--gee! wouldn't I look swell in--in a dress like that? Gee! Jerry, stars and all!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Them ain't one-two-three-six to the duds I'm going to hang on you. I know her; she's an old-timer. Them duds ain't one-two-three-six."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Gee--Jerry!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Who's that?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Me, Dee Dee."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "All right, Dee Dee."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "God! I--I must have been sound asleep. What time is it?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It isn't late, Dee Dee."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Light the gas."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I--I can undress in the dark."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Light the gas."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Light it, I say."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's lit, Dee Dee."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lit?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Dee Dee, what's the matter?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Gimme--my glasses."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Quit your nonsense now and light the gas. I ain't in no humor for foolin'. Quit waving that little spark in front of me. Light the gas. I ain't going to look at the clock. I'm done worrying about your carryings-on. I'm done. Light the gas, Sadie, there's a good girl. Light the gas."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dee Dee! My God! Dee Dee, I--I tell you it's lit--big."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There's a good girl, Sadie. Don't fool your old aunt."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "See, dearie, I ain't fooling. See, the gas-jet here beside the dresser. Look--I can't turn it no higher. Hear it sing and splutter. You ain't awake good yet, Dee Dee."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Put my finger next to the gas flame. You--you're lying to me to--to fool your old aunt. Lemme feel my finger get burnt."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "God! God! God!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "God! God! God!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Dee Dee!--Dee Dee! my darling! my darling!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O God! O God! O God!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Dee Dee darling, it ain't nothing! A little too much strain, that's all. 'Shh-h-h! Lemme bathe them. 'Shh-h-h, my darling. Oh, my God! darling! 'Shh-h-h!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lemme go! Lemme go! He told me to-day it would come like this! Only he didn't say how soon. Not how soon. I'm done for, I tell you! I'm done! Kill me, Sadie; if you love me, kill me! He told me and I wouldn't believe it! Kill me, girl, and put me out of it! I can't breathe in the dark! I can't! I can't! I can't live in the dark with my eyes open! Kill me, girl, and put me out of it--kill me! Kill me!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Dee Dee, my darling, ain't I right here with you? Didn't you always say, darling, when it came you--you'd face it?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O God! Oh--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Dee Dee darling, try not to holler out so! Maybe it ain't for--for good. Aw, darling, keep your head down here next to me! Feel how close I am, Dee Dee, right here next to you. 'Shh-h-h! O God! Dee Dee darling, you'll kill yourself going on like that! Don't pull at your hair, darling--don't! Oh, my God, don't!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm done! Kill me! Kill me! Don't make me live in the dark with my eyes open--don't! There's a good girl, Sadie. Don't! Don't! Don't!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Cut it, in there! This ain't no barroom. Go tell your D. T.'s to a policeman."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No use. No use. He told me to-day he wouldn't operate. He told me. No, no, all the colors so pale--even the reds--so pale! Lavender and blue I--I just couldn't tell. I couldn't. So pale. Two yards she brought back next day, kicking at--Oh, my God! Oh, my God!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Shh-h-h, darling! Don't take on so! Wait till morning and we'll get new drops from him. 'Shh-h-h! Maybe it's only strain."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I know. I'm in the dark for good, Sadie. Oh, my God! I'm in the dark!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Lemme die! Lemme die!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dee Dee darling, you--you hurt."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You won't never leave me, Sadie, like you said you would? You won't leave me alone in the dark, Sadie?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, no, my darling; you know I won't, never, never."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You'll keep me with you always, promise me that, Sadie. Promise me _that_ on the curl of your mother's hair you wear in your locket. Promise me, little Sadie, you won't leave your aunt Dee Dee alone in the dark. My poor little girl, don't leave me alone in the dark. I can't see; Sadie, I can't see no more. Promise me, Sadie, promise me, promise me!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I--I promise, Dee Dee, on her curl of hair. Sure I promise. Always will I keep you with me, darling, always, always, so help me, always."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Is--is that the house up on the hill there, Jerry?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not yet. It's right around the next bend."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Gee! My--my hands are like ice, I--I'm that nervous."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Lemme feel."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's a swell way to treat a fellow who's promised to marry you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You--you must excuse me to-day, Jerry. Honest, without a wink of sleep last night--you must excuse me to-day. I--I'm so upset with poor Dee Dee, and on top of that so nervous about--your little girl and the house and everything. And, Dee Dee--when I think of Dee Dee."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't think, Peachy; that's the way to get around that."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I--I can't help it. You ought to seen her at the doctor's this morning, how--how the poor thing lost her nerve when he told her that there--there wasn't no hope."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Aw, now, cut the sob stuff, Peachy! You can't help it. Nobody can, that's the trouble. Say, what kind of a little queen will they think you are if I bring you home all soppy with crying?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I ought not to have come, Jerry. I'm no kind of company to-day, only all of a sudden she's got so--so soft with me and she made me come while she--she tried to take a nap. Poor old Dee Dee!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yeh, and poor old devil. Maybe she's just getting what's due to her."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Jerry!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sure, I believe every one of us gets what's coming to us."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Here we are, Tootsie. See, Peachy, that's the house I bought her and her mother, and they was kicking at it before the plaster was dry."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh! Oh!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's a concrete front. Neat, ain't it? That's a mosaic-floor porch, too, I built on a year after her and her mother vamoosed."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's a beau-tiful house, Jerry."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're the land of a kid that knows how to appreciate a home when she gets it. But her with her she-devil of a mother, they no sooner got in than they began to side with each other against me--her and her old mother trying to learn me how to run my own shebang."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Where--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Gad! they're living in a dirty Harlem flat now and tryin' to put it over on me that they're better off in it. Bah! if I had to double up on alimony, I wouldn't give her a smell at this house, not a smell."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, but ain't it pretty, Jerry, right up over the river, and country all around, and right over there in back the street-cars for the city when you want them?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "This is going to be your street-car, Peachy, a six-cylinder one."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, Jerry, I--I keep forgetting."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "By Gad! it's a good thing I'm going to give up my city rooms and come out here to watch my p's and q's. Gosh darn her neck! I told her to quit cluttering up that side-yard turf with her gosh darn little flower-beds! Gosh darn her neck! There never was a servant worth her hide."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Jerry, why, they're beautiful! They just look beautiful, those pansies, and is that the little girl sitting up there on the porch steps? Is--is that Maisie?"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Aw, ain't she cute?"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "This has got your Twenty-third Street dump beat a mile, and then some, 'ain't it, Peachy?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Jerry, call her here, the little girl. You tell her who--who I am. Tell her gently, Jerry, and--and how good I'm going to be to her and--Aw, ain't I the silly, though, to feel so trembly?"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hello there! Moping again, eh? Get up! Didn't I tell you not to let me catch you not out playing or helping Cloonan around? Say howdy to this lady. She's coming out here to live. Come here and say howdy to her."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Cat got your tongue? Say howdy. Quit breathing through your mouth like a fish. Say howdy, that's a good girl."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't force her, Jerry. She's bashful. Ain't you, dearie? Ain't you, Maisie?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Moping, you mean. If it was her month in the dirty Harlem flat she'd be spry enough. She knows what I mean whan I say that, and she knows she better cut out this pouting. Quit breathing through your mouth or I'll stick a cork in it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Aw, Jerry, she can't help that!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Cat got your tongue? Where's Cloonan?"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Aw, Jerry--you--you scared her! Come here, darling; come here to me, Maisie; come, dearie."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Aw, Jerry, honest, you can be awful mean!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll get that out of her or know the reason why. They've poisoned her against me, that's about how it is in a nutshell. I'll get that pouting to be in that dirty Harlem hole with her mother and grandmother out of her or know the reason why."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Look, this is the front hall. Guess this 'ain't got that sty in Twenty-third Street beat some. Look! How do you like it? This way to the parlor and dining-room."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Jerry! Say, ain't this beau-tiful! A upright piano and gold, chairs and--Why, Jerry! why, Jerry!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And look in here, the dining-room. Her and her mother shopped three weeks to get this oak set, and see this fancy cabinet full of china. Slick, ain't it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Jerry, it--it's just grand."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Look, butler's pantry, exposed plumbing."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh! Oh!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Kitchen."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh! Oh!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Here, Cloonan. I told you I was going to bring somebody out to take hold and sit on you and your bills, didn't I? This lady's coming out here tomorrow, bag and baggage. Hand over your account-book to her and I bet she does better with it. See that you fix us up in honeymoon style, too. Bag and baggage we're coming. Savvy?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Howdy!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Cloonan's been running this shebang for two years now, Peachy, and there ain't nothing much she can't learn you about my ways. They ain't hard. Look! Porcelain-lined sink. It's got Twenty-third Street beat some, 'ain't it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, Jerry."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Fix us a beefsteak supper, Cloonan, and lemme weigh up them groceries I sent out and lemme see your books afterward. Come, Peachy, here, up these stairs. This is the second floor. Pretty neat, ain't it? Her and her mother shopped three more weeks on this oak bed-set. Some little move out here from Twenty-third Street for a little rooming-house queen like you, eh? Neat little bedroom, eh, Peachy? Eh?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And what's this next room here, Jerry? Ain't it sweet and quiet-looking! Spare room? Ain't it pretty with them little white curtains? Quit, quit, Jerry! You mustn't--you mustn't."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Is this the--the spare room?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It is, now. It used to be the old woman's till I laid down on the mother-in-law game and squealed. Yeh, I used to have a little mother-in-law in our house that was some mother-in-law. Believe me, she makes that old devil of yourn look like a prize angel."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I--This'll be just the room for Dee Dee, Jerry, where she can feel the morning sun and hear the street-cars over there when she gets lonesome. She ought to have the sunniest room, because it's something she can feel without seeing--poor thing. This will be a swell room for poor old blind Dee Dee, won't it, Jerry? Won't it, Jerry dear?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Cut the comedy, Peachy. There's a neat free ward waiting for her just the other direction from the city than Newton Heights. Cut the comedy, Peachy."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Jerry, I--I gotta have her with me. I--Now that she--she's in the dark. She couldn't stand an institution, Jerry, she--she just couldn't."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's what they all say, but they get over it. I know a--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She couldn't, Jerry. She 'ain't had much in her life, but she's always had a roof over her head that wasn't charity, and she always said, Jerry, that she couldn't never stand a--a institution. She can take any other room you say, Jerry. Maybe there's a little one up-stairs in the third story we could fix up comfy for her; but she's in the dark now, Jerry, and, my God! Jerry, she just couldn't stand an institution!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You lemme take care of that. She don't need to know nothing about it. We'll tell her we're sending her for a visit to the country for a while. After the second day she'll be as snug as a bug in a rug. They're good to 'em in those places; good as gold."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, no, Jerry! No, no! I gotta have her with me! She raised me from a kid and--and she couldn't stand it, Jerry! I gotta have her, I gotta! I want her!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Say, somebody must have given you a few lessons in nagging, yourself. Them's the lines she used to recite to me about her she-devil of a mother, too. Gad! she used to hang on her mother's apron-strings like she was tied."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Jerry, I--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Come, Peachy, don't get me sore. Come, let's talk about to-morrow. We gotta get the license first and--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Jerry, I--Promise me I can have her with me first. I--Just a little yes is all I want--Jerry dear--just a little yes."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now, kiddo, you got to cut that with me, and cut it quick. If there's two things I can't stand it's nagging and pouting. Cloonan can tell you what pouting can drive me to. I'll beat it out of that girl of mine before she's through with me, and I won't stand it from no one else. Now cut it, Peachy, that's a nice girl."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now cut it, Peachy, I said, and cut it quick."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "God! I--I wanna go."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Where?"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wanna go."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Aw, now, Peachy, a row just the day before we are married. You don't want to start out making me train you just like you was a little kid. If you was a little girl I could beat your little ways out of you, but I wanna be on the level with you and show you how nice I can be. All the things I'm going to give you, all--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Quit, you! I wanna go! I wanna go!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You can go to hell, for my part. I'm going to get a steak inside of me before we budge. Quit your fooling. See, you nearly got me sore there. Come, the car won't be back for us until six. Come, Peachy, come."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Little one, them remnants went like hot cakes, didn't they?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hot cakes! Well, I guess. You'd have thought there was a mill-end sale on postage stamps."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And if you don't look all tired out! If you just don't!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's--it's been awful--me away from her all day like this. But, anyways, I got news for her when I go home to-night about her five weeks' benefit money. Old Criggs was grand. He's going to send the committee to see her. Anyways, that's some good news for her."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I just can't get her out of my mind, neither. Seems like I--I just can see her poor blind face all the time."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "M-me, too."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "They say the girls up in the ribbons been crying all day. She was no love-bird, but they say she wasn't bad underneath."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "God knows she--she wasn't."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's the way with some folks; they're hard on top, but everybody knows hard-shell crabs have got sweeter meat than soft."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Nobody knows that she was a rough diamond better than me. I got sore at her sometimes, but I--I know she was always there when I--I needed her, alrighty."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now, now, little girl, don't cry! You're all worn out."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She--she was always there to stand by me in--in a pinch."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Honest, Miss Sadie, you look just like a pretty little ghost. What you need is some spring air, girlie, some spring air for a tonic. Wouldn't I just love to take you all by your little self down the river to-night on one of them new Coney boats, where we could be--right quiet. Say, wouldn't I?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No--no!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wanna talk to you, Miss Sadie. Can't you guess? I wanna get you all by yourself and talk to you right in your little ear."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Shh-h-h! You mustn't talk like that."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's the only way I have of trying to tell you how--how I feel, Miss Sadie--dearie."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Shh-h-h!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When I call you that it means--well, you know, dearie, you know. That's why I wanna take you to-night, dearie, all by your little self and--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, no, Mr. Meltzer! I can't leave her alone like that. I promised I would never leave her alone in the dark if--if I could help it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ain't I the dub? Sure you can't leave her. We gotta stick by her now, dearie. 'Ain't we? 'Ain't we?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We gotta stick by her, dearie."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh--Mr. Meltzer--Max!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What you and poor old Dee Dee need is some of this spring air. Gee! wouldn't I love to take you--and her down the river to-night on one of them new Coney boats? Gee! would I? Just you and--and her."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Max--oh, Max dearie!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "HEADS"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You ought to seen, Roody; she laughed! Puckered herself up into the cutest little grin when mamma left just now."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How is my little mammela?"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Just ought to seen, Roody--honest, she laughed and nearly jerked off mamma's _sheidel!_"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's redder than yours already, Roody."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She's sure a grand little thing cuddled up there, ain't it so, mammela?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There's some herring on the table mamma brought over, and some raw meat and onions. That's some _borshtsh_ on the stove Etta carried all the way over from Hester Street for your supper."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And what for the little mammela?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm fed up, Roody. Mamma closed the store at five to run over with some of that milk-shake like Doctor Aarons said. He sent his little son Isadore over with the prescription. Like I said to mamma, she should let the Canal Street Kosher Sausage Company do double the business from five until six while she closes shop to carry her daughter a milk-shake! Like I was used to it from home!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When my girl gets to be a little mammela, the best shouldn't be none too good."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You miss me in the shop, Roody?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You should just see once how that Ruby Grabenheiner sits at your machine! She does one-half your work not one-half so good."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll be back next week Monday."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No! No! A mammela's place is with her baby."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Roody, you make me laugh. I should sit at home now since we got a new mouth to feed? That would be a fine come-off!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Who do you think was just in, Rosie? Emil Hahn."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sol is going to make for me, Roody, one of those little packing-case cribs like he built for Etta up in the pants-factory, so when the machine works it rocks, too. Did--did the check from Solomon & Glauber come in on the last mail, Roody?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now, Rosie, you mustn't worry yourself about such--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What you looking so funny for, Roody?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I was starting to tell you, Rosie--Hahn was just in and--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Roody, don't change the subject on me always. You looked funny. Is it something wrong with Solomon & Glau--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If you don't take the cake, Rosie! Now, why should I look funny? 'Funny,' she says I look, I'm hungry. I smell Etta's _borshtsh_."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Rosie, you mustn't lift up that way!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Roody, I can read you like a book! Solomon & Glauber have countermanded, too."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now, Rosie, wouldn't that keep until--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "They have!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, if you got to know it, Rosie, they're shipping back the consignment."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Roody!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What you going to do about it? Give you my word never seen the like. It's like the rainy-day skirt had died overnight. All of a sudden from a novelty, I find myself with such a commodity that every manufacturer in the business is making them up for himself."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You seen it first, though, Roody. Nobody can take it away from you that you seen first how the rainy-day skirt and its shortness would be such a success with the women."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's a dirty shame! A big firm like Solomon & Glauber should not be allowed to--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, if it wouldn't be Solomon & Glauber, it would be Funk & Hausman or any other firm. The rainy-day skirt has slipped out of my hands, Rosie, to the big fellows. We must realize that for ourselves. That's the trouble when you don't deal in a patented product. What's the little fellows like myself to do against a firm like Solomon & Glauber? Start something?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Three countermands in a week, and no orders coming in!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, it don't tickle my ribs no more than yours."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Roody, maybe it's the worst thing ever happened to us you wouldn't listen to mamma and be satisfied with being chief cutter at Lipschuts'."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Shame on you, Rosie! You want your daughter to grow up with a pants-cutter all her life for a father? You want I should die in somebody else's harness. Maybe I didn't hit it right away, but I say yet, if a fellow's got the eyes and the nerve to see ahead a little with his imagination--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now--now, take Hahn, Rosie--there's a fellow's got imagination--but not enough. I know it makes you mad when I talk on his picture-machine, but you take it from me--there's a fellow with a good thing under his very nose, but he--he 'ain't quite got the eyes to see ahead."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, for such a good thing like Emil Hahn's picture-machine, where his wife had to work in my own mother's sausage-store, I can't make myself excited."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He 'ain't quite got the eyes to see, Rosie, the big idea in it. He's afraid of life, instead of making it so that life should be afraid of him. Ten dollars cheaper I can buy that machine to-day than last week. A song for it, I tell you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ninety dollars to me is no cheap song, Roody."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The people got to be amused the same as they got to be fed. A man will pay for his amusements quicker than he will pay his butcher's or his doctor's bill. It's a cash business, Rosie. All you do with such a machine like Hahn's is get it well placed, drop your penny in the slot, and see one picture after another as big as life. I remember back in the old country, the years before we came over, when I was yet a youngster--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You bet Hahn never put his good money in that machine. I got it from Birdie Hahn herself. For a bad debt he took it over along with two feather beds and--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "One after another pictures as big as life, Rosie, like real people moving. One of them, I give you my word, it's grand! A woman it shows all wrapped tight around in white, on a sofa covered over with such a spotted--what you call--leopard-skin."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "To me that has a sound, Roody, not to be proud of--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "A living picture, with such neck and arms and--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's enough, Roody! That's enough! I'm ashamed even for your daughter here!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Such a machine, maybe some day two or three, set up in a place like Coney Island or, for a beginning, in Pleasure Arcade, is an immense idea, Rosie. Until an invention like this, nine-tenths of the people couldn't afford the theyater. The drop-picture machine takes care of them nine-tenths."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Theyaters are no place for the poor."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's where you're wrong--they need it the most. I don't want to get you worked up, Rosie, while you ain't strong, but every day that we wait we're letting a great idea slip through our fingers. If I don't buy that machine off Emil Hahn, somebody else will see in it what I see. Then all our lives we will have something to reproach ourselves with."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ninety dollars! Twenty dollars less than every cent we got saved in the world. It ain't right we should gamble with it, Roody. Not now."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why not now, Rosie? It's all the more reason. Is it worth maybe a little gamble our Bleema should grow up like the best? I got bigger plans for her and her little mammela than such a back room all their lives. In a few years, maybe three rooms for ourselves in one of them newfangled apartment-houses up on Second Avenue with turn-on hot water--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's right--you'll have her riding in a horseless carriage next!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I tell you, it's a big idea!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wish we had ten cents for every big idea you've been struck with."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's just why, Rosie, I'm going to hit one right."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Nearly every--cent--in--the world, Roody, that we've got. Saved nearly penny by penny. Our Bleema--it's a sin--our--our--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sin nothing!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Our week-old little girl--it--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Nothing ventured in life, Rosie, nothing squeezed out of it. Don't put it back! Look, the baby herself wants it! Papa's little Bleema! Look! She's trying to lift herself. Ain't that remarkable, Rosie--look at that child lifting for that handkerchief!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Our little baby girl! If it was for ourselves alone, all right, maybe, take a chance--but for--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I got it! I got it! Well let the little Bleema decide it for us. How's that? She should decide it for us if we take a gamble on her daddy's big idea! Here--I put a five-cents piece in her little hand and see which way she drops it. The little mammela will say which way it is to be--heads or tails. How's that, Rosie--the baby should decide it for us?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Roody--we mustn't!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Heads or tails, Rosie?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I--I--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Quick!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "H-heads!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Quick now, papa's baby, open up little fist!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Roody, not so rough! She can't hold that big nickel."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's just what I want--she should let it fall."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Roody, Roody, I hope it's tails."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Roody--what?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Heads!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, Rosie, ain't that a view for you? That's how it is with life--a river that rises with getting born and flows into death, and the in-between is life and--and--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Roody, will you please hurry for sup--dinner? Do you want Feist to arrive with you not yet dressed?"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Just look! I'm all dressed already."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Rosie, you've got them all beat! Guess why I wish I was your diamond necklace."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Roody, it's nearly seven. Don't make me ashamed for Feist."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Guess!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "All right, then, I guess."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "So I could always be round your neck."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Roody, you hear me--hurry! Stop it, I tell you! You pinch."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Shall I call in Sato to help you dress, Roody?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Please--no! Just to have him in the room with his yellowness and tiptoes makes me nervous like a cat."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I got your shirt and studs laid out myself."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Rosie Posy!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You had a hard day, Roody? You look tired."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't like the battle of Waterloo in the 'Saint Elba' picture."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Roody, that scene it took such a fortune to build into the shape of the letter A?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It looks like what is it. Fake! The way it reads in that _French Revolution_ by that fellow Carlyle they gave me to read and the way it looks in the picture is the difference of black from white. For fifty thousand dollars more or less on a four-hundred-thousand-dollar picture I don't have a fake Waterloo."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I should say not, Roody, when you're famous for your water scenes in all your big pictures! In 'The Lure of Silk' it's the scenes on the water they went craziest over."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I've already got the passage engaged for next week to shoot the company over to France. That windmill scene on Long Island looks as much like the windmill north of Fleuris, where Napoleon could see the Blucher troops from, as I look like a windmill scene. 'Sol,' I says, 'it looks just like what it is--a piece of pasteboard out of the storehouse set up on a rock. Eat those feet of film, Sol,' I says to him, 'plant 'em, drown 'em--anything you like with 'em. That kind of fake stuff won't make 'Saint Elba' the greatest picture ever released, and every picture turned out from these studios has got to be just that.' I wish you could have heard, Rosie, in the projection-room, quiet like a pin after I came out with it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Fifty thousand dollars, Roody?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes. 'Fifty thousand dollars,' begins Sol with me, too. 'Fifty thousand--one hundred thousand--two!' I said. 'It would make no difference. If we can't fake the kind of battle-plain that wouldn't make Napoleon turn over in his grave, we cross the ocean for the real thing.' 'Fifty thousand dollars,' Sol keeps saying--you know how he cries with his voice. 'Fifty thousand dollars your grandmother!' I hollered. 'For a few dollars more or less I should make a Rudolph Pelz picture something I'm ashamed of.' Am I right, Rosie? Am I right?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I should say so, Roody, for a few dollars you should not belittle yourself."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not if your old man knows it, by golly! and I think he does."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hurry now, Roody; you know how Bleema likes it you should be dressed."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Believe me, if Feist had his choice he wouldn't be dressed, neither. Full dress for grandma and all of us to look at each other in! When there's company, it's bad enough, but for Feist and a few servants, hanged if I see it!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Does it hurt, Roody, to give the child a little pleasure? Anyway, she's right--people like us should get dressed up for sup--dinner. I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't bring Lester Spencer back for dinner from automobiling."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He leaves to-night at ten with the company for Pennsylvania and the Horseshoe Bend picture. Anyways, I don't see where it comes in that for a fellow who draws his salary off of me I have to dress. I got to say it for him, though, give the devil his due, he does a good piece of work where Sol succeeds in getting him off center-stage in his scene with Wellington."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lester is a good actor. Madame Coutilly, to-day, when I had my manicure, just raved over him and Norma Beautiful in 'The Lure of Silk.'"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He'll be a screen proposition some day if we can chain down some of his conceit. Only, where such friendships with him and Bleema comes in, I don't see. I don't like it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, the child likes to run around with celebrities. Why shouldn't it give her pleasure over the other girls from Miss Samuels's school to be seen out once in a while with Lester Spencer, their favorite, or Norma Beautiful? 'America's Darlings,' I see this week's _Screen Magazine_ calls 'em. It's natural the child should enjoy it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Let her enjoy; only, where it comes in I should have to sit across from him at supper three times this week, I don't see. Out of the studio, me and Spencer don't talk the same language. To-night, him and Feist would mix like oil and water."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Does Feist know yet, Roody, you closed the deal on the Grismer estate?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sure! I says to him to-day: 'Feist, with us for next-door neighbors of your country estate, together we own nearly half of Long Island.' Am I right?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Like I says last night in mamma's room to Etta and Sol, 'I was used to thirty-four rooms and nineteen baths from home yet!' Poor mamma--how she laughed! Just like before her stroke."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Nothing, Rosie, not one hundred rooms and fifty baths--nothing I can ever do for you is one-tenth that you deserve."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And nothing, Roody, that I can do for you is one-hundredth what you deserve."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I sometimes wonder, Rosie, if, with all we got, there isn't maybe some little happiness I've overlooked for you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Such a question!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "So many times it comes up in the scenarios and the picture-plots, Rosie, how money don't always bring happiness."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It wouldn't, Roody--not a penny's worth to me without you and Bleema. But with you, Roody, no matter how happy I feel, it seems to me I can't ever feel happy enough for what we have got. Why, a woman just couldn't--why, I--I always say about you, Roody, only yesterday to my own sister-in-law, 'Etta,' I says, 'it's hard for me to think of anything new to wish for.' Just take last week, for instance, I wished it that, right after the big check you gave for the Armenian sufferers, you should give that extra ten thousand in mamma's name to the Belgian sufferers. Done! Thursday, when I seen that gray roadster I liked so much for Bleema, this afternoon she's out riding in it. It is a wonder I got a wish for anything left in me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "To have you talk like this, Rosie, is the highest of all my successes."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If--if there's one real wish I got now, Roody, it is only for our Bleema. We got a young lady, honey; we got to put on our thinking-cap."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "A graduate this month from Miss Samuels's Central Park School he calls a baby!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Let me see--how old is--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He don't know his own child's age! Well, how many years back is it since we were in rainy-day skirts?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My God! Ten--fourteen--eighteen! Eighteen years! Our little Bleema! It seems yesterday, Rosie, I was learning her to walk along Grand Street."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You haven't noticed, Roody, David Feist?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, you may be a smart man, Rudolph Pelz--everybody tells me you are--but they should know once on the Picture Rialto how dumb as a father you are. 'Noticed?' he asks. All right then--if you need a brick house--noticed that David Feist hates your daughter and 'ain't got eyes for her and don't try every excuse to get invited here for sup--dinner."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You mean, Rosie--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course I mean! It's pitiful how he follows her everywhere with his eyes. In the box last night at the opera you was too asleep to see it, but all evening Etta was nudging me how he nearly ate up our Bleema just with looks."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You women with your nonsense!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I guess, Rudolph, it would be a bad thing. Our daughter and a young man smart enough to make himself from a celluloid collar-cutter to a millionaire five times over on a little thing like inventing a newfangled film-substance should tie up with the only child of Rudolph Pelz, the picture king."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I give you my word, Rosie, such talk makes me sick."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You'd hate it, wouldn't you? A prince like David Feist."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "People don't talk such things till they happen. If our daughter could have the King of England and didn't want him, I'd say she should not marry the King of England. I want my girl home by me yet, anyway, for many a long day. She should be playing with her dolls instead of her mother and aunt Etta filling her up with ideas. Don't think I'm so stuck, neither, on how she runs around with my film stars."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Honest, Roody, the way you're so strict with that child it's a shame! The girl has got to have her pleasure."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, if she's got to have her pleasure, she should have it with young men like Feist and not with--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There! Didn't I tell you so? Didn't I?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Say, I don't deny if I got some day to have a son-in-law, my first choice for him would be Feist."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Roody, the two estates together in one!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm surprised at you, Rosie--honest, I'm surprised. Such talk!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Go get dressed, she said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Rosie Posy,"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What'll you bet, Roody, that I get my biggest wish as soon as I got the gray roadster and the Belgian check?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Women's nonsense!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do Not Sit"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Good evening, Mr. Feist! It's a shame the way we kept you waiting."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not at all, Mrs. Pelz--a pleasure. Hello! how's my friend, the picture king?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Rotten,"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Roody, what a way to sit!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Roody!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, Feist agrees with me; only, he don't know you well enough yet to let on. I notice that with all his Louis-this and Louis-that rooms in his own house, up in his own room it is a good old Uncle Sam's cot and a patent rocker."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You've got a gorgeous room here just the same, Pelz."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Gorgeous for a funeral."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Every collector in the country knows that table. I had my eye on it for my music-room once myself when it was shown at Dunlap's."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dunlap's are a grand firm of decorators, Mr. Feist. I'm having them do Grismer, too."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, Feist, how does it feel to have us for neighbors?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Immense, Pelz!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Like I said to my husband, between us the way the estates adjoin, we got a monopoly on Long Island--ain't it so?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And believe me, Mrs. Pelz, you'll never regret the buy. The finest pleasure my money brought me yet is that view of my little bedroom I took you up to, Pelz."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Wonderful!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I've got an outlook there, Mrs. Pelz, is a paradise to see. You can have all my forty-two rooms and two garages if you'll leave me my little top room with its miles of beautiful greenness, and--and so--so much beauty that--that it gets you by the throat. I--don't express it the way I see it, but--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I should say so, Mr. Feist! Out of every one of our thirty-four rooms and eighteen baths you can see a regular oil-painting."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She said to me up-stairs just now, Feist, 'Like we was used to it from home?' Eh? C-c-c-cluck! Eighteen baths a day! I know the time when one every Saturday night was stuck up."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Roody, honest, you're awful!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, me and Feist speak the same language. We ain't entertaining a lot of motion-picture stars to-night."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I want Mr. Feist to come over some night to sup--dinner when we have a few of them over. We're great friends, Mr. Feist, with Norma Beautiful and Allan Hunt and Lester Spencer and all that crowd. We entertain them a good deal. My daughter is quite chums with them all. Elsie Love sleeps here some nights. Honest, Mr. Feist, you never saw a more unassuming girl for her salary."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, especially is she unassuming when she spoils ninety feet of film yesterday in a row with Spencer over who should have one-half inch nearer to the center of the picture."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My husband, Mr. Feist, has got no patience with temperament."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Honey, a little supper wouldn't hurt."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll send and see if Bleema is ready yet. She's been out, taking Lester Spencer in her new runabout her papa bought her. I wish you could see, Mr. Feist, the way the traffic policemen smile after that girl the way she handles a car. If I do say it, she's a picture."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If you ask me, Mrs. Pelz, the finest of the objects in this room of fine things, it won't take me long to tell you,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now you're shouting, Feist!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That picture don't half do her justice. If I do say it, Mr. Feist--if that child had to make her living, she'd be a fortune in pictures. 'No, mamma,' she always says; 'God forbid if I have to make my living some day, I want to be a famous writer.' I want you to read sometime, Mr. Feist, some of that girl's poetry. I cry like a baby over the sad ones. And stories! There's one about a poor little girl who could look out of her window into the house of a rich girl and--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Feist, her mother just hates that child!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, old man, I don't see any medals on you for hating her."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He's worse than I am, Mr. Feist; only, he hides it behind making fun of me. I always say if Bleema Pelz wanted the moon, her father would see to it that his property-man got the real one for her."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You--you've got a beautiful, sweet little girl there, Pelz. I don't blame you."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Feist, if I didn't know it, I'd be an ungrateful dog."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Her papa can't realize, Mr. Feist, we haven't got a baby any more."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I--realize it, Mrs. Pelz."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You--you see, Roody?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I--I--guess I'm the old-fashioned kind of a fellow, Pelz, when it comes to girls. I--I guess I do it the way they used to do it--the parents first--but--but--now that we--we're on the subject--I--I like your daughter, Pelz--my God! Pelz, but--but I like your little daughter!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I haven't got much besides a clean record and all that love or money can buy her, Pelz, but--well--you know me for what I am, and--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Indeed we do, Mr. Feist! I always say to my husband my favorite of all the young men who come here is--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You know what my standing--well, with men and in business is, Pelz, and as far as taking care of her goes, I can make her from a little princess into a little queen--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The young man that is lucky enough to get Bleema, Mr. Feist--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Not that the money part is everything, but if what I am suits you and Mrs. Pelz, I want to enter the ring for her. I might as well come out with it. I wouldn't for anything on earth have her know that I've spoken to you--yet--not till after I've spoken with her--but--well, there's my cards on the table, Pelz."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's the finest compliment I could pay to any man on God's earth to say it, Feist, but if it's got to be that my little baby girl has grown up to an age where she--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She's already a year older than me when I married you, Roody."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If it's got to be, then there's one man on earth I can give her up to with happiness. That man is you, Feist."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Bleema darling, you're just in time!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hello, moms! --in the little lifted voice trained to modulation, and kissing Mrs. Pelz in light consideration of powdered areas."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hello, dads! --tiptoeing and pursing her mouth into a bud."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Good evening, Mr. Feist."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Looks like I'm the left-over in this party,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Naughty-naughty! said Miss Pelz, with a flash of eyes to their corners, a flouncing of tulle, and then landing ever so lightly on her father's knee and at the immediate business of jerking open his tie."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Bad, bad dad! Didn't let Sato dress him to-night."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You little red head, you!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Stop it! Hold up your chin."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Honey, we're all starvationed."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lester'll be here any minute now."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Lester Spencer coming for dinner, Bleema?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Surely. I dropped him just now at the Lions' Club to change his clothes. Now, don't get excited, dads; he's leaving right after dinner to catch his train for Horseshoe Bend."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I must tell Williams to lay another--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I've already told him, mamma. Here he is now! Come on in, Lester; you're holding up the family. You've never met Mr. Feist, have you, the film king? You two ought to get acquainted--one makes the films and the other makes them famous."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How do you do, Mrs. Pelz? Boss! Mr. Feist, glad to know you!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I was telling my husband, Lester, my manicurist just raved to-day about you and Norma Beautiful in 'The Lure of Silk.'"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Isn't that just the sweetest picture, moms?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It certainly is! Mr. Pelz took me down to the projection-room to see its first showing, and I give you my word I said to him and Sol--didn't I, Roody?--'That picture is a fortune.' And never in my life did I fail to pick a winner--did I, Roody? I got a knack for it. Mr. Feist, have you seen 'The Lure of Silk'?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sorry to say I have not."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If you think that is a riot, Mrs. Pelz, you wait until you see the way they're going to eat me up in the court scene in 'Saint Elba.' I had the whole studio crying down there to-day--didn't I, Mr. Pelz? Crying like babies over the scene where I stand like this--so--overlooking--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Say, Rosie, that's twice already Williams announced dinner is served."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Overlooking the--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I hear Friedman & Kaplan made an assignment, Feist."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Come, Lester; you take me in to dinner. Rudolph, you go and get mamma. Bleema, you and Mr. Feist be escorts."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Roody, cut up mamma's chicken for her. She trembles so."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Moms, let Williams."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No; she likes it when your father does it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Grandmother, I hear you've been flirting with Doctor Isadore Aarons. Now, don't you let me hear any more such nonsense. The young girls in this house got to walk the straight line."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't tease her, Roody; she likes to be let alone in public."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, Mr. Feist, mamma's breaking. Every day since her stroke I can see it more. It nearly kills me, too. It's pretty lonesome for her, up here away from all her old friends. Outside of my husband and Bleema, not a soul in the house talks her language except Sol and Etta when they come over."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She's my nice darling grandma,"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Umh! said Mr. Spencer, draining his wine-glass to the depth of its stem."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Mr. Pelz, believe me if the Atlantic Ocean was made out of this stuff, you wouldn't have to engage passage for me; I'd swim across."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You better learn how first, said Mr. Pelz."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You've cost me a fortune already in dummies for the water scenes."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's a riot, Mr. Pelz, the way they go mad over me in that Pelham Bay scene in 'The Marines Are Coming.' I dropped into the Buckingham to see it last night, and before I knew it the house had it that I was present and was going wild over me. They had to throw the spotlight on the box."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I love that scene, too, Lester! Honest, I just squeeze up with excitement where you stand there at the edge of the deck and take the plunge into the water to rescue Norma Beautiful."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You mean a super for five a day takes the plunge."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Tell you another scene where I simply raise the roof off the house in--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Brussels sprouts, dad."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Saint Elba,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I was the one first suggested she wouldn't be the type to play Josephine, Mrs. Pelz. Too thin. I've got to be contrasted right or it kills me--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Williams, a little more of that chicken stuffing. It's almost good enough to remind me how you and grandma used to make it, Rosie."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Speaking of 'Saint Elba,' Mr. Pelz, somebody must speak to Mabel Lovely about the way she keeps hogging center-stage in that scene with me on--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There's no center-stage left to hog with you in the picture, Spencer."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She crowds me to profile. They want me full-face. If you'd put in a word to Sol to direct it that way! Other night, at the Buckingham, it was a riot every time I turned full-face. Just because a fellow happens to have a good profile is no reason why--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, Feist, how does the war look to-day?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ugly, Pelz, ugly. Every hour this country lets pass with Belgium unavenged she is going to pay up for later."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's not our fight, Mr. Feist."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Maybe it's not our fight, Mr. Spencer, but if ever there was a cause that is all humanity's fight, it is those bleeding and murdered women and children of Belgium. You're sailing over there yourself next week, Mr. Spencer, and I hope to God you will see for yourself how much of our fight it is."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ain't things just simply terrible? Honest, I said to Roody, when I picked up the paper this morning, it gives me the blues before I open it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Nobody can tell me that this country is going to sit back much longer and see autocracy grind its heel into the face of the world."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're right, Feist! I think if there is one thing worse than being too proud to fight, it is not being proud enough to fight."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lester Spencer, if you don't stop making eyes!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Mr. Pelz, every time I drink to your daughter only with my eyes she slaps me on the wrist. You put in a good word for me."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Little more of that ice-cream, Feist?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Thanks, Pelz; no."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You, Lester?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't care if I do, Miss Bleema Butterfly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't want to hurry you, Spencer, but if you have to catch that ten-o'clock train, by the time you get back and change clothes--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're right, Mr. Pelz; I'd better be getting on."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Mamma and papa will excuse us, Lester, if we leave before coffee. Come; I'll shoot you to the club."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why, Bleema! George will bring the limousine around and--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I promised! Didn't I promise you, Lester, that if you came up to dinner I'd drive you back to the club myself?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She sure did, Mrs. Pelz."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Bleema, you stay right here and finish your supper. There's two chauffeurs on the place to drive Spencer around to his club."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But, dad, I promised."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why, Bleema, ain't you ashamed? Mr. Feist here for dinner and you to run off like that. Shame on you!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, that's all right, Mrs. Pelz. I'll stay around and be entertained by you and Mr.--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll be back in twenty minutes, moms. Surely you'll excuse me that long! I want to drive him down in my new runabout. I promised. Please, moms! Dad?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ask your papa, Bleema; I--I don't know--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Dad?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You heard what I said, Bleema. No!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, well--if--if you're going to be that mean--oh, you make me so mad--. Come on, Lester--I--I guess I can take you as far as the front door without the whole world jumping on me. Oh--oh--you make me so mad!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Poor child! said Mrs. Pelz, stirring into her coffee."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She's so high strung."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She's got to quit wasting her time on that conceited jackass, said Mr. Pelz, swallowing off his demi-tasse at a gulp."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Won't have it!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It makes her papa mad the way the boys just kill themselves over that girl,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Me, too,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Jealous!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sit down, baby, and drink your coffee."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't want any."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Williams, bring Miss Bleema some hot coffee."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm finished, mother--please!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I was telling Mr. Feist a while ago, Bleema, about your ambition to be a writer, not for money, but just for the pleasure in it. What is it you call such writing in your French, honey? Dilytanty?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Please, mamma, Mr. Feist isn't interested."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Indeed I am, Miss Bleema! More interested than in anything I know of."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She's mad at her papa, Feist, and when my little girl gets mad at her papa there's nothing for him to do but apologize with a big kiss."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why, Bleema!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now, now, papa's girl--"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, grandma, make 'em let me alone!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why, Bleema darling, I'm surprised! Ain't you ashamed to act this way in front of Mr. Feist? What'll he think?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Please, Mrs. Pelz, don't mind me; she's a little upset--that's all."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You--you made me look like--like thirty cents before Lester Spencer--that--that's what you did."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why, Bleema, do you think that if papa thought that Lester Spencer was worth bothering that pretty red head of yours about that he would--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There you go again! Always picking on Lester. If you want to know it, next to Norma Beautiful and Allan Hunt he's the biggest money-maker your old corporation has got."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What's that got to do with you?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And he'll be passing them all in a year or two, you see if he don't--if--if--if only you'd stop picking on him and letting Uncle Sol crowd him out of the pictures and everybody in the company take advantage of him--he--he's grand--he--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He's a grand conceited fool. If not for the silly matinée women in the world he couldn't make salt."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That shows all you know about him, papa! He's got big ideals, Lester has. He got plans up his sleeve for making over the moving-picture business from the silly films they show nowadays to--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes--to something where no one gets a look-in except Lester Spencer. They're looking for his kind to run the picture business!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Roody--Bleema--please! Just look at poor grandma! Mr. Feist, I must apologize."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He's a nix, an empty-headed--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He is--is he? Well, then--well, then--since you force me to it--right here in front of Mr. Feist--Lester Spencer and I got engaged to-day! He's the only man in my life. We're going to be married right off, in time for me to sail for France with the company. He's going to talk to you when he gets back from Horseshoe Bend. We're engaged! That's how much I think of Lester Spencer. That's how much I know he's the finest man in the world. Now then! Now then!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Blee-Bleema!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Moms darling, aren't you happy? Isn't it wonderful--moms?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Roody! For God's sake, Bleema, you're choking your father to death! Roody, for God's sake, don't get so red! Williams--some water--quick! Roody!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm all right. All right, I tell you. She got me excited. Sit down, Bleema--sit down, I said."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Pelz, if you don't mind, I think maybe I'd better be going."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You stay right here, Feist. I want you to hear every word that I'm going to say. If my daughter has no shame, I haven't, either. Williams, call Mrs. Sopinsky's maid, and see that she gets to her room comfortable. Sit down, Bleema!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My God!--I can't believe my ears--Bleema and such a _goy_ play-actor--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Please, Rosie!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A _goy_ that--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Rosie, I said, 'Please!' Bleema, did you hear me? Sit down!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If I didn't think, Bleema, that you are crazy for the moment, infatuated with--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm not infatuated!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Bleema, Bleema, don't talk to your father so ugly!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, I guess I know my own mind. I guess I know when I'm in love with the finest, darlingest fellow that ever--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You hush that, Bleema! Hush that, while I can hold myself in. That I should live to hear my child make herself common over a loafer--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Papa, if you call him another name, I--I--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You'll sit right here and hear me out. If you think you're going to let this loafer ruin your own life and the lives of your parents and poor grandmother--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Papa, papa, you don't know him! The company are all down on him because they're jealous. Lester Spencer comes from one of the finest old Southern families--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Roody, Roody, a _goy_ play-actor--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Your mother's little nonsenses have got nothing to do with it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She reproaches me with having brought about this _goy_ mix-up! Me that has planned each hour of that girl's life like each one was a flower in a garden, A young man, a grand young man like Mr. Feist, crazy in lo--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Mrs. Pelz, for God's sake! Mrs. Pelz, please!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Rosie, we'll leave Feist out of this."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lester Spencer, papa, is one of the finest characters, if only you--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I ask you again, Bleema, to cut out such talk while I got the strength left to hold in. It's a nail in my coffin I should live to talk such talk to my little daughter, but it's got to where I've got to say it. Lester Spencer and the fine character you talk about--it's free gossip in all the studios--is one of the biggest low-lifes in the picture-world. He has a reputation with the women that I'm ashamed to mention even before your mother, much less her daughter--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, I know what you mean! Oh, you're like all the rest--down on him. You mean that silly talk about him and Norma Beautiful--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh my God, Roody, listen to her!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I can clear that up in a minute. He never cared a thing for her. It was just their always playing in the same pictures, and that silly matinée public, first thing he knew, got to linking their names together."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Bleema--for God's sake--baby--what do you know about such?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Bleema, you're killing your mother! Your mother that used to rock you in your cradle while she stitched on the machine to buy you more comforts--a mother that--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, if you're going to begin that!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Your poor old grandmother--don't she mean nothing? You saw how she looked just now when they took her out, even before she knows what it's all about--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I hope she never has a worse trouble than for me to marry the best--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "By God, I'll kill him first! The dirty hou--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Pelz, for God's sake, control yourself!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Roody!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You can't scare me that way, dad. I'm no baby to be hollered at like that. I love Lester Spencer, and I'm going to marry him!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll kill him; I'll--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Roody, Roody, for God's sake! 'Sh-h-h, the servants! Williams, close quick all the doors. Roody, for my sake, if not your child's! Mr. Feist, please--please make him, Mr. Feist!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Pelz, for God's sake, man, get yourself together! Excitement won't get you anywheres. Calm down. Be human."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She got me wild, Feist. You must excuse me. She got me wild --my little girl--my little flower--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Papa--dad darling! Don't you think it kills me, too, to see you like this? My own darling papa that's so terribly good. My own darling sweet mamma. Can't you see, darlings, a girl can't help it when--when--life just takes hold of her? I swear to you--I promise you that, when you come to know Lester as I know him you'll think him as fine and--and gorgeous as I do. Mamma, do you think your little Bleema would marry a man who doesn't just love you, and dad, too? It isn't like Lester is a nobody--a high-salaried fellow like him with a future. Why, the best will be none too good! He loves you both--told me so to-day. The one aim in his life is to do big things, to make you both proud, to make his name the biggest--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Feist--Feist--can't you talk to her? Tell her it's madness--tell her she's ruining herself."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why, Miss Bleema, there's nothing much a--a stranger like me can say at a time like this. It's only unfortunate that I happened to be here. If I were you, though, I think I'd take a little time to think this over. Sometimes a young girl--."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I have thought it over, Mr. Feist. For weeks and weeks I've thought of nothing else. That's how sure I am--so terribly sure."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I won't have it, I tell you! I'll wring his--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No! No! No!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Just a minute now. If you feel this way so strongly to-night, isn't it just possible that to-morrow, when you wake up, you may see things differently?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I tell you I'm going to France with him--on our honeymoon. It's all fixed if--moms--dad--won't you please--darlings--can't you see--my happiness--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O God, Roody, were ever parents in such a fix?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Listen to me, Miss Bleema, now: I'm an old friend of the family, and you don't need to take exception to what I'm going to suggest. If your heart is so set on this thing, all right then, make up your mind it's an engagement and--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "By God, Feist, no!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Wait, Pelz, I tell you you're making a mistake with your state of excitement."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Let Mr. Feist talk, Roody."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Make up your mind as I was saying, Miss Bleema, that this engagement exists between you and--and this young man. Then, instead of doing the hasty thing and marrying next week, you remain here a happy, engaged girl until the company returns in three weeks, and meanwhile you will have time to know your own mind and--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No! No! No! I do know it! It's all fixed we're--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's a fine idea of Mr. Feist's, Bleema darling. For mamma's sake, baby. For grandma's. If it's got to be an engagement, hold it until after he gets back. Don't go rushing in. Take time to think a little. France is no place for a honeymoon now--submarines and all."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, I know! You hope he'll get sunk with a submarine."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Shame, Miss Bleema; shame!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "All mamma means, darling, is take a little time and get a--a trousseau like a girl like you has to have. If your heart is so set on it, can't you do that much to please mamma? That much?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There's a trick. You want me to wait and then--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Miss Bleema, is my promise to you enough that there's no trick? On my respect for your parents and grandmother, there's no trick. If it is only to please them, wait those few weeks and do it more dignified. If it's got to be, then it's got to be. Am I right, Pelz?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "O my God, yes! Mr. Feist, you're right. Bleema, promise us! Promise!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Just a matter of a few weeks more or less, Miss Bleema. Just so your parents are satisfied you know your own mind."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I do!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Then, I say, if you still feel as you do, not even they have the right to interfere."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Promise us, Bleema; promise us that!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I--I'll be engaged on your word of honor--without any fussing about it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "An engaged girl, Miss Bleema, like any other engaged girl."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But dad--look at him--he won't--p-promise,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Of course he will--won't you, Pelz? And you know the reputation your father has for a man of his word."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Will--will he promise?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You do; don't you, Pelz?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now, Miss Bleema?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well then, I--I--p-promise."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "For a snap of my finger I'd spill the beans--that's how stuck on this situation I am!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Just you try it and see where it lands you!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I can't stand it! I b-bit off a b-bigger piece than I can swallow."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now, Darling Beautiful, I ask you would your own Lester do anything that wasn't just going to be the making of his girl as well as himself? Is it anything, Angel Beautiful, he is asking you to do except wait until--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I can't bear it, I tell you! A little red-haired kike like her! How do I know what I'm letting myself in for? There's only one ground for divorce in this state. What guarantee have I you'll get free on it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My guarantee, Pussy. You're letting yourself in for a pink limousine to match that pink sweetness of yours and a jumping-rope of pearls to match those sweet teeth of yours and--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I want black pearls, Lester, like Lucille Du Pont's."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Black, then. Why, Angel Beautiful, you just know that there's not a hair on any head in the world, much less a red one, I'd change for one of my girl's golden ones. You think I'd ever have known the little Reddie was on earth if she hadn't just flung herself at my head! She could have been six Rudolph Pelz's daughters, and I wouldn't have had eyes for her."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But, Lester--she--she's right cute. What guarantee have I got?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Cross my heart and swear to die, Angel! Haven't I already sworn it to you a thousand thousand times? You wouldn't want me to close my eyes to the chance of a lifetime--you know you wouldn't, Beautiful, when it's your chance as much as mine. Both ours!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I--if only it was--over, Lester--all--over!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What's three weeks, Angel Beautiful? The very day I'm back I'll pull the trick with the little red head, and then I'm for letting things happen quick."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And me, what'll I--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm going to move you into the solid-goldest hotel suite in this here town, Pussy. I'm going to form the Norma Beautiful Film Corporation in my own girl's name, the first pop out of the box. Why, there's just nowhere Rudolph Pelz's son-in-law can't get his girl in the little while I'm going to stick."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How do I know? How do I know they won't find a way to hold you?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why, Darling Beautiful, when they're through with me, they'll pay me off in my weight in gold. Haven't you said things often enough about your boy's temper when he lets it fly? You think they're going to let me cut up nonsense with that little Reddie of theirs? Why, that old man would pay with his right eye to protect her!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O God, it's rotten--a nice fellow like Pelz--a--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's done every day, Gorgeous Beautiful. Anyway, there's no way to really hurt the rich. Look at Warren Norton--the Talcott family paid Warren two hundred cool thousand to give her back quietly. It's done every day, Gorgeousness. Many a fellow like me has gotten himself roped into a thing he wanted to get out of quietly. That little girl lassoed me. I should have eyes for a little Reddie like her with the Deep-Sea Pearl of the world my very own. I'm going to marry you, too, Gorgeousness. I'm going to see you right through, this time. Jump right out of the frying-pan into the hottest, sweetest fire!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I tell you I can't stand it! Promising to marry me with another one to see through before you get to me. It--it's terrible! I--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There you go again! The Norma Beautiful Film Corporation doesn't tickle my pink rose on the eardrums! She doesn't want it! Wouldn't have it!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I do, Lester; I do--only--only--I--the little Reddie--it's not right. She's a sweet little thing. I'm afraid, Lester--I think I must be going crazy! I wish to God I could hate you the way you ought to be hated. I tell you I can't stand it. You sailing off like this. The coming back--her--I'll kill myself during the ceremony. I--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You create a scene down here and you'll be sorry!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lester--please!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They'll be here any minute now. They're late as it is. Look-- everybody's on board already! One more blast, and I'll have to go, too. You just kick up nasty at the last minute and watch me!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I won't, Lester; I won't! I swear to God! Only, be good to me; be sweet to me, darling! Say good-by before they--she comes. I'm all right, darling. Please--please--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Beautiful! Angel Beautiful!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Swear to me, Lester, you'll see me through."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I swear, Beautiful."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Swear to me, or hope to die and lose your luck!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hope to die and lose my luck."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My own preciousness!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There he is, dad! Over there with Norma and Uncle Sol!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't run so, Bleema; he'll come over to you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lester darling! There was a tie-up at Thirty-third Street. I thought I'd die! Here's a little package of letters, love, one for each day on the steamer. Lester, have you got everything--are you all ready to leave your girlie--Hello, Norma--Uncle Sol! Lester are you--you sorry to leave you--your--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now, now--no water-works!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My all! My own boy!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Lester darling--I--I didn't sleep a wink all night! I--I'm so nervous, dear. What if a submarine should catch you? What if you meet a French girl and fall in--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now, now, Reddie! Is that what you think of your boy?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't, dearest; I don't! I keep telling myself I'm a silly--What's three weeks? But when it means separation from the sweetest, dearest--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Promise me, Lester--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I do! I do promise! Anything! Look, girlie: Miss Beautiful will feel hurt the way we left her standing. It isn't nice--our hiding this way."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I can't bear, dearest, to see you go--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Look! See--there's David Feist come down, too. You don't want him to see my girl make a cry baby of herself over a three weeks' trip--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You'll write, Lester, and cable every day?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You just know I will!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You won't go near the war?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You just know I won't!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Your father, Bleema--let's not get him sore, hiding back here. Come; they'll draw up the plank on me."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll be waving out from the edge of the pier, darling. I've got a special permit to go out there. I just couldn't stand not seeing my boy up to the last second. It's terrible for you to sneak off on a boat like this, darling, without flags and music the way it was before the war. I want music and flags when my boy goes off. Oh, Lester, I'll be working so hard on the sweetest little trousseau and the sweetest little--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Bleema, please! There's Miss Beautiful overhearing every word. Please!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, good-by, Miss Beautiful; don't walk off with the studio while we're gone--take care of yourself--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Good-by--Mr. Spencer--_b-bon voyage_!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hi, Mr. Feist, mighty handsome of you to come down to see me off!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Safe journey, Spencer! Remember you've got a precious piece of anxiety waiting back here for you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, Mr. Feist--isn't--isn't--it awful--submarine-time and all? I--I just can't bear it!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now! Now! Is that the way for a brave little girl to talk?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Bleema, if you can't control yourself, you had better go sit in the car. I'm ashamed before the company."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Roody, the poor child!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He--that's the only way papa talks to me these days--fault-finding!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now, now, Miss Bleema! Here--take mine; yours is all wet."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "All aboard!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Good-by, Lester--good-by, darling--cable every day--by--good-by--boy!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Good-by, little Reddie! Thanks for the beautiful fruits and letters. Good-by, Mr. Pelz!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Play fair in the picture, Spencer. Don't hog the scenes. Help instead of hinder Sopinsky."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Indeed I will, sir! Good-by, Mrs. Pelz!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Good-by, Lester! God bless you, my boy! Take care of yourself, and remember my little girl is--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lester--Lester, a cable every day!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Bleema, will you please let the man catch his boat? It's an embarrassment to even watch you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lester--Lester--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, yes; good-by, everybody!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll be out at the pier-edge--wave back, darling!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, yes! Good-by, Miss Beautiful! By, all!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "They're moving! Come, Mr. Feist--please--with me--I've got the permit--don't let papa see us--come--the pier-edge!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sure! This way, Miss Bleema--here--under--quick!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Over this way, Miss Bleema; we can see her steaming out."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Lester--good-by--Lester--a cable every day! I'll be waiting. Good-by!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Good-by--darling--oh--oh--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh--oh--cable every day, darling--write--oh, Mr. Feist--he don't see us--he's out of sight--don't wipe 'em so hard, Mr. Feist--you--you h-hurt!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sammy! This upon opening his door, then crossing to close the conservative five inches of open window and over to the bedside for the kissing him awake."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sammy, get up!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sammy! _Thu, thu_! I can't get him up! Sammy, a quarter to seven! You want to be late? I can't get him up!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "M-m-m-m-m-m!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You want your own clerks to beat you to business so they can say they got a lazy boss?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm awake, ma."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't splash in the bath-room so this morning, Sammy; it's a shame for the wall-paper."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I won't"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hurry, Sammy! I'm up so long I'm ready for my second cup of coffee."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Two minutes."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What's the matter with the dining-room, ma? Since when have dining-rooms gone out of style?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "All I ask is my son should never have it worse than to eat all his lifetime in just such a kitchen like mine. Off my kitchen floor I would rather eat than off some people's fine polished mahogany."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're right, ma; there's not a kitchen in New York I'd trade it for. But what's the idea of paying rent on a dining-room?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sa-y, if not for when Clara comes and how in America all young people got extravagant ideas, we was just as well off without one in our three rooms in Simpson Street."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A little more of that mackerel, please."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A few more fried potatoes with it, Sammy?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Whoa! You want to feed me up for the fat boys' regiment!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't use that word, Sam--even in fun--it's a knife in me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What word?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My little sweetheart mamma,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're a good boy, Sammy."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sure!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I always say no matter what it is bad my life has had for me with my twenty-five years a widow, my only daughter to marry out six hundred miles away from me, my business troubles when I had to lose the little store what your papa left me, nothing ain't nothing, Sammy, when a mother can raise for herself a boy like mine."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You mean when a fellow can pick out for himself a little sweetheart mamma like mine."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sammy, stop it with your pinching-me nonsense like I was your best girl!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, ain't you?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, Sammy; your mother knows she ain't, and if she was anything but a selfish old woman, she would be glad that she ain't."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "said Mr. Lipkind, reaching this time half across the table for a still steaming muffin and opening it so that its hot fragrance came out. '"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sh! No April showers! Uh! Uh! Don't you dare!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I ain't, said Mrs. Lipkind, smiling through her tear and dashing at it with the back of her hand."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "For why should I when I got only everything to be thankful for?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now you're shouting!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How you think, Sammy, Clara likes a cheese pie for supper to-night? Last week I could see she didn't care much for the noodle pudding I baked her."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's--that's what I started to tell you last night, ma. Clara telephoned over to the store in the afternoon she--she thought she wouldn't come to supper this Wednesday night, ma."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sammy--you--you and Clara 'ain't got nothing wrong together, the way you don't see each other so much these two months?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course not, ma; it's just happened a few times that way. The trade's in town; that's all."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How is it all of a sudden a girl in the wholesale ribbon business should have the trade to entertain like she was in the cloak-and-suit chorus?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's not that Clara's busy to-night, ma. She--she only thought she--for a change--there's a little side table for two--for three--where she boards--she thought maybe if--if you didn't mind, I'd go over to her place for Wednesday-night supper for a change. You know how a girl like Clara gets to feeling obligated."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Obligated from eating once a week supper in her own future house!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She asked I should bring you, too, ma, but I know how bashful you are to go in places like that."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "In such a place where it's all style and no food--yes."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's it; so we--I thought, ma, that is, if you don't mind, instead of Clara here to-night for supper, I--I'd go over to her place. If you don't mind, ma."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why, of course, Sammy, you should go!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I--we thought for a change."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You should have told me yesterday, Sammy, before I marketed poultry."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I know, ma; I--just didn't. Clara only 'phoned at four."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A few more fried potatoes?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No more."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sit up straight, Sam, from out your round shoulders."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You ain't--mad, ma?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "For why, Sammy, should I be mad that you go to Clara for a change to supper. I'm glad if you get a change."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's not that, ma. It's just that she asked it. You know how a person feels, her taking her Wednesday-night suppers here for more than five years and never once have I--we--set foot in any of her boarding-houses. She imagines she's obligated. You know how Clara is, so independent."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You should go. I hear, too, how Mrs. Schulem sets a good table."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll be home by nine, ma--you sure you don't mind?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wouldn't mind, Sammy, if it was twelve. Since when is it that a grown-up son has to apologize to his mother if he takes a step without her?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You can believe me, ma, but I've got so it don't seem like theater or nothing seems like going out without my little sweetheart mamma on one arm and Clara on the other."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's not right, Sammy, you should spoil me so. Don't think that even if you don't let me talk about it, I don't know in my heart how I'm in yours and Clara's way."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ma, now just you start that talk and you know what I'll do--I'll get up and leave the table."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sammy, if only you would let me talk about it!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You heard what I said."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "To think my son should have to wait with his engagement for five years and never once let his mother ask him why it is he waits. It ain't because of to-night I want to talk about it, Sam, but if I thought it was me that had stood between you and Clara all these five years, if--if I thought it was because of me you don't see each other so much here lately, I--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ma!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I couldn't stand it, son. If ever a boy deserved happiness, that boy is you. A boy that scraped his fingers to the bone to marry his sister off well. A boy that took the few dollars left from my notion-store and made such a success in retail men's hats and has given it to his mother like a queen. If I thought I was standing in such a boy's way, who ain't only a grand business man and a grand son and brother, but would make any girl the grandest husband that only his father before him could equal, I couldn't live, Sammy, I couldn't live."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You should know how sick such talk makes me!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I haven't got hard feelings, Sammy, because Clara don't like it here."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She does."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "For why should an up-to-date American girl like Clara like such an old-fashioned place as I keep? Nowadays, girls got different ideas. They don't think nothing of seventy-five-dollar suits and twelve-dollar shoes. I can't help it that it goes against my grain no matter how fine a money-maker a girl is. In the old country my sister Carrie and me never even had shoes on our feet until we were twelve, much less--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But, ma--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, I don't blame her, Sam. I don't blame her that she don't like it the way I dish up everything on the table so we can serve ourselves. She likes it passed the way they did that night at Mrs. Goldfinger's new daughter-in-law's, where everything is carried from one to the next one, and you got to help yourself quick over your shoulders."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Clara's like me, ma; she wants you to keep a servant to do the waiting on you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It ain't in me, Sam, to be bossed to by a servant, just like I can't take down off the walls pictures of your papa _selig_ and your grandma, because it ain't stylish they should be there. It's a feeling in me for my own flesh and blood that nothing can change."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Clara don't want you to change that, ma."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She's a fine, up-to-date girl, Sam. A girl that can work herself up to head floor-lady in wholesale ribbons and forty dollars a week has got in her the kind of smartness my boy should have in his wife. I'm an old woman standing in the way of my boy. If I wasn't, I could go out to Marietta, Ohio, by Ruby, and I wouldn't keep having inside of me such terrible fears for my boy and--and how things are now on the other side and--and--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now, now, ma; no April showers!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An old woman that can't even be happy with a good daughter like Ruby, but hangs always on her son like a stone around his neck!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You mean like a diamond."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A stone, holding him down."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ma! Mr. Lipkind pushed back, napkin awry at his throat and his eyes snapping points of light."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now if you want to spoil my breakfast, just say so and I--I'll quit. Why should you be living with Ruby out in Marietta if you're happier here with me where you belong? If you knew how sore these here fits of yours make me, you'd cut them out--that's what you would. I'm not going over to Clara's at all now for supper, if that's how you feel about it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sammy, Sammy, I didn't mean it! I know I ain't in your way. How can I be when there ain't a day passes I don't invite you to get married and come here to live and fix the flat any way what Clara wants or even move down-town in a finer one where she likes it? I know I ain't in your way, son. I take it back."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, that's more like it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You mustn't be mad at mamma when she gets old-fashioned ideas in her head."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sit down and finish your breakfast, little sweetheart mamma."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Is it all right now, Sammy?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course it is!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Promise mamma you'll go over by Clara's to-night."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Promise me, Sammy; I can't stand it if you don't."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Alright, I'll go, ma."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Didn't mean to keep you waiting, Clara--a last-minute customer. _You_ know."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I've been counting red heads and wishing the Subway was pulled by white horses."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, Clara, but you look a picture! Believe me, Bettina, that is some lid!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Is it an elegant trifle, Sam? I ask you is it an elegant trifle?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Clara, it's--immense! The best yet! What did it set you back?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't ask me! I'm afraid just saying it would give your mother heart-failure by mental telepathy."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Whatever you paid, it's worth the money. It sets you off like a gipsy queen."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "None of that, Sam! Mush is fattening."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Mush nothing! It's the truth."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hurry. Schulem's got a new rule--no reserving the guest-table."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What's the idea, Clara? When you telephoned yesterday I was afraid maybe it was--Eddie Leonard cutting in on my night again."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Eddie nothing. Is it a law, Sam, that I have to eat off your mother every Wednesday night of my life?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No--only--you know how it is when you get used to things one way."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I told you I had something to talk over, didn't I?"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Is it anything you--you couldn't say in front of ma?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Anything wrong, Clara?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You mean is anything right."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You mustn't be so ready to be put out over every little thing I say, Clara. Is it anything wrong to want you up at the house just as often as we can get you?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, Sam; it ain't that."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well then, what is it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, what's the use beginning all that again? I want to begin to-night where we usually leave off."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Is it--is it something we've talked about before, Clara?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes--and no. We've talked so much and so long without ever getting anywheres--what's the difference whether we've ever talked it before or not?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You just wait, Clara; everything is going to come out fine for us."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, she said;"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I've heard that before."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We're going to be mighty happy some day, just the same, and don't you let yourself forget it. We've got good times ahead."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh dear!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Nothing."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You'll never know, Clara, the torture it's been for me even your going out those few times with Eddie Leonard has put me through. You're mine, Clara; a hundred Eddies couldn't change that."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Who said anybody wanted to change it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're a wonderful girl, Clara."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, said Mr. Lipkind, unflowering his napkin, spreading it across his knees, and exhaling,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Take care of us right to-night, Johnson, and I'll fix it up with you. See if you can't manage it in the kitchen to bring us a double portion of those banana fritters I see they're eating at the big table. Say they're for Miss Bloom. I'll fix it up with you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now, Clara, don't you go bothering with extras for me. This is certainly fine. Sorry you never asked me before."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You know why I never asked you before."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why, you never saw the like how pleased ma was. She was the first one to fall in with the idea of my coming to-night."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I know, she said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ma's a good sport about being left at home alone."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How do you know? You never tried it until to-night. I'll bet it's the first time since that night you first met me, five years ago, at Jerome Fertig's, and it wouldn't have been then if she hadn't had the neuralgia and it was your own clerk's wedding."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I thought we'd gone all over that, Clara."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes; but where did it get us? That's why we're here to-night, Sam--to get somewheres."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What do you mean, Clara?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I've made up my mind, Sam. Things can't go on this way no longer between us."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Just what do you mean by that?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I mean that we've either got to act or quit."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You know where I stand, Clara, on things between us."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, Sam, and now you know where I stand. The din of the dining-room surged over the pause between them. Still in the purple hat, and her wrap thrown back over her chair, she held that pause coolly, level of eye."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm thirty-one now, Sam, three weeks and two days older than you. I don't see the rest of my days with the Arnstein Ribbon Company. I'm not getting any younger. Five years is a long time out of a girl's life. Five of the best ones, too. She likes to begin to see her future when she reaches my age. A future with a good providing man. You and me are just where we started five years ago."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I know, Clara, and I'd give my right hand to change things."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If I'd been able to save a cent, it might be different. But I haven't--I'm that way. I make big and spend big. But you can't blame a girl for wanting to see her future. That's me, and I'm not ashamed to say it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If only, Clara, I could get you to see things my way. If you'd be willing to try it with ma. Why, with a little diplomacy from you, ma'd move heaven and earth to please you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There's no use beginning that, Sam; it's a waste of time. Why--why, just the difference in the way me and--and your mother feel on money matters is enough. There's no use to argue that with me; it's a waste of time."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What's the use, then? I'm sure I don't know what more to say to you, Clara. Oh, don't think my mother don't realize how things are between us--it's all I can do to keep denying and denying."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, you can't say she knows from my telling."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No; but there's not a day she don't say to me, particularly these last few times since you been breaking your dates with us pretty regular--I--well she sees how it worries me, and there's not a day she don't say to me, 'Sammy,' she said to me, only this morning, 'if I thought I was keeping you and Clara apart--'"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A blind man could see it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There's not a day passes over her head she don't offer to go to live with my sister in Ohio, when I know just how that one month of visiting her that time nearly killed her."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Funny visiting an own daughter could nearly kill anybody."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's my brother-in-law, Clara. My mother couldn't no more live with Isadore Katz than she could fly. He's a fine fellow and all that, but she's not used to a man in the house that potters around the kitchen and the children's food and things like Isadore loves to. She's used to her own little home and her own little way."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Exactly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If I want to kill my mother, Clara, all I got to do is put her away from me in her old age. Even my sister knows it. 'Sammy,' she wrote to me that time after ma's visit out there, 'I love our mother like you do, but I got a nervous husband who likes his own ways about the housekeeping and the children and the cooking, and nobody knows better than me that the place for ma to be happy is with you in her own home and her own ways of doing.'"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I call that a nerve for a sister to let herself out like that."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's not nerve, Clara; it's the truth. Ruby's a good girl in her way."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What about you--ain't your life to be thought of? Ain't it enough she was married off with enough money for her husband to buy a half-interest in a ladies' ready-to-wear store out there?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why, if I was to bring my little wife to that flat of ours, Clara, or any other kind further down-town that she'd want to pick out for herself, I think my mother would just walk on her hands and knees to make things pleasant for her. Maybe you don't know it, but on your Wednesday nights up at the house, she is up at five o'clock in the morning fixing around and cooking the things she thinks you'll like."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm not saying a word against your mother, Sam. I think she's a grand woman, and I admire a fellow that's good to his mother. I always say, 'Give me a fellow every time that is good to his mother and that fellow will be good to his wife.'"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm not pretending to say ma mayn't be a little peculiar in her ways, but you never saw an old person that wasn't, did you? Neither am I saying it's exactly any girl's idea to start out married life with a third person in--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I've always swore to myself, Sam, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, that if I can't marry to improve myself, I'm going to stay single till I can. I'm not a six-dollar-a-week stenog that has to marry for enough to eat. I can afford to buy a seventy-five dollar suit every winter of my life and twelve-dollar shoes every time I need them. The hat on my head cost me eighteen-fifty wholesale, without having to be beholding to nobody, and--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ma don't mean those things, Clara. It's just when she hears the price girls pay for things nowadays she can't help being surprised the way things have changed."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm not a small potato, Sam. I never could live like a small potato."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why, you know there's nothing I like better than to see you dressed in the best that money can buy. You heard what I said about that hat just now, didn't you? Whatever it cost, it's worth it. I can afford to dress my little wife in the best that comes. There's nothing too good for her."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes; but--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "All ma needs, Clara, is a little humoring. She's had to stint so all her life, it's a little hard to get her used to a little prosperity. Take me. Why, if I bring her home a little shawl or a pockabook that cost, say, ten dollars, you think I tell her? No. I say, 'Here's a bargain I picked up for three ninety-eight,' and right away she's happy with something reduced."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Your mother and me, Sam, and, mind you, I'm not saying she isn't a grand old lady, wasn't no more made to live together than we was made to fly. I couldn't no more live her way than she could live mine. I've got a practical head on my shoulders--I don't deny it--and I want to improve ourselves in this world when we marry, and have an up-to-date home like every young couple that starts out nowadays."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sure, we--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That flat of yours up there or any other one under the conditions would be run like the ark. I'm an up-to-date girl, I am. There's not a girl living would be willing to marry a well-off fellow like you and go huck herself in a place she couldn't even have the running of herself or have her own say-so about the purse-strings. It may sound unbecoming, but when I marry I'm going to better myself, I am."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I--why--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If she can't even stand for her own son-in-law walking into his own kitchen in his own house--Oh, you don't find me starting my married life that way at this late date. I haven't held off five years for that."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It--it just seems awful, Clara, this going around in a circle and not getting anywheres."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm at the end of my rope, I am."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I see your point in a way, Clara, but, my God! a man's mother is his mother! It's eating up my life just as it's eating yours, but what you going to do about it? It just seems the best years of our life are going, waiting for God knows what."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now you said something! That's why you and me are here alone together to-night. There's not going to be a sixth year of this kind of waiting between us. Things have got to come to a head. I've got a chance, Sam, to marry. Eddie Leonard has asked me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I--thought so."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Eddie Leonard ain't a Sam Lipkind, but after the war his five-thousand-dollar job is down at Arnstein's waiting for him, and he's got a good stiff bank-account saved as good as yours and--and no strings to it. I believe in a girl facing those facts the same as any other facts. Why, I--this war and all--why, if anything was to happen to you to-morrow--us unmarried this way--I'd be left high and dry without so much as a penny to show for the best five years of my life. We've got to do one thing or another, Sam. I believe in a girl being practical as well as romantic."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I--see your point, Clara."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm done with going around in this circle of ours."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You mean--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You know what I mean."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll see Eddie Leonard burning like brimstone before I let him have you!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "God! I don't know what to say--I don't know what to say!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's your trouble, Sam; you're so chicken-hearted you--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My father died when I was five, Clara, and no matter what my feelings are to you, there's no power on earth can make me quit having to be him as well as a son to my mother. Maybe it sounds softy to you--but if I got to pay with her happiness for--ours--then I never want happiness to the day I die."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "In other words, it's the mother first."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't put it that way--it's her--age--first. It ain't what she wants and don't want; it's what she's got to have. My mother couldn't live away from me."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She could if you were called to war."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But I haven't been--yet."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The next draft will get you."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Maybe."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, what'll you do then?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's something me and ma haven't ever discussed. The war hasn't been mentioned in our house for two years--except that the letters don't come from Germany, and that's a grief to her. There's enough time for her to cross that bridge when we come to it. She worries about it enough."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If I was a man I'd enlist, I would!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'd give my right hand to. Every other night I dream I'm a lieutenant."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why, there's not a fellow I know that hasn't beaten the draft to it and enlisted for the kind of service he wants. I know a half a dozen who have got in the home guard and things and have saved themselves by volunteering from being sent to France."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wouldn't dodge the front thataway. I'd like to enlist as a private and then work myself up to lieutenant and then on up to captain and get right into the fray on the front. I--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You bet, if I was a fellow, I'd enlist for the kind of home service I wanted--that's what Eddie and all the fellows are doing."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "So would I, Clara, if I was what you call a--free man. There's nobody given it more thought than me."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, then, why don't you? Talk's cheap."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You know why, Clara, to get back to going around in a circle again."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But you've got to go, sooner or later. You've got a comfortable married sister and independent circumstances of your own to keep your mother; you haven't got a chance for exemption."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't want exemption."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, then, beat the draft to it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I--Most girls ain't so anxious to--to get rid of their best fellows, Clara."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Silly! Can't you see the point? If--if you'd enlist and go off to camp, I--I could go and live near you there like Birdie Harberger does her husband. See?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You mean--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Then--God forbid anything should happen to you!--I'm your wife. You see, Sam?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why, Clara--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You see what I mean. But nothing can happen this way, because if you try to enlist in some mechanical department where they need you in this country--you see, Sam? See?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I--see."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Your mother would have to get used to things then, Sam--it would be the easiest for her. An old lady like her couldn't go trailing around the outskirts of a camp like your wife could. Think of the comfort it'll be to her to have me with you if she can't be. She'll get so used to--living alone--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I--You mustn't talk that way to me, Clara. When I'm called to serve my country, I'm the first one that will want to go. I've given more money already than I can afford to help the boys who are at the front. So far as I'm concerned, enlisting like this with--with you--around, would be the happiest thing ever happened to me, but--well, you see for yourself."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You mean, then, you won't?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I mean, Clara, I can't."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, then, Sam, I'm done."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yep. That lets me out. I've given you every chance to make this thing possible. Your mother is no better and no different than thousands and thousands of other mothers who are giving their sons, only, she is better off than most, because she's provided for. It's all right for a fellow's mother to come first, maybe, but if his wife isn't even to come second or third or tenth, then it's about time to call quits. I haven't made up my mind to this in a day. I'm done."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Clara--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ed has asked me. I don't pretend he's my ideal, but he's more concerned about my future than he is about anybody else's. If I'm ready to leave with him on that twelve-o'clock train for Boston to-morrow, where he's going to be put in the clerical corps at Camp Usonis, we'll be married there to-morrow night, and I'll settle down somewhere near camp as long as I can. He's got a good nest-egg if--God forbid!--anything should happen. That's the whole thing in a nutshell."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My God! Clara, this is awful! Eddie Leonard he's not your kind; he--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I've given you first chance, Sam. That proves how you stand with me. A one! Ace high! First! Nobody can ever take your place with me. Don't be a boob coming and going, Sam; you're one now not to see things and you'll be another one spelled backward if you don't help yourself to your chance when it comes. You've got your life in front of you, and your mother's got hers in back of her. Now choose."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My God! Clara, this is--terrible! Why--I'd rather be a thousand boobs than take my mother's heart and tear it to pieces."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You won't?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I can't."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't say that, Sam. Go home and--sleep on it. Think it over. Please! Come to your senses, honey. Telephone me at eleven to keep me from catching that twelve-o'clock train. Don't let me take it with Eddie. Think it over, Sam. Honey--our--future--don't throw it away! Don't let me take that twelve-o'clock train!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You can't blame a girl, Sam, for wanting to provide for her future. Can you, Sam? Think it over. Please! I'll be praying when eleven o'clock comes to-morrow morning for you to telephone me. Please, Sam--think!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll think it over, Clara--my girl--my own girl!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hello, ma! Think I got lost? Just got to talking and didn't realize. Haven't been worried, ma? Afraid?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I could just see you walking the floor and looking out of the window."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sa-y, I been so busy all evening I didn't have time to think. I'm not such a worrier no more like I used to be. Like the saying is--life is too short."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Little sweetheart mamma, why don't you sit on the big sofa in the front room where it's more comfortable?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You can't make, Sammy, out of a pig's ear a silk stocking."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You had a good time, Sammy?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You'd be surprised, ma, what a nice place Clara boards at."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What did they have to eat? Good cooking?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Not for a fellow that's used to my boarding-house."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I couldn't tell if it was soup or finger-bowls they served for the first course."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I know--stylish broth. Let me warm you up a little of my thick barley soup that's left over from--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Please, ma! I'm full up. I couldn't. They had pink ice-cream, too, with pink cake and--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Such mess-food what is bad for you. I'm surprised how Clara keeps her good complexion. Let me fix you some fried--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ma, I tell you I couldn't. It's ten o'clock. You mustn't try to fatten me up so. In war-time a man has got to be lean."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's--twice already to-day, Sam, you talk like that."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why not? Doesn't it ever strike you, mamma, that you and me are--are kidding ourselves along on this war business, pretending to each other there ain't no war?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What you mean, Sammy?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why, you know what I mean, ma. I notice you read the war news pretty closely, all right."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sammy, you mean something!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now, ma, there's no need to get excited right away. Think of the mothers who haven't even got bank-accounts whose sons have got to go."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sammy--you 'ain't been--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, no; I haven't."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You have! I can see it in your face! You've come home with some news to break. You been drafted!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I tell you I haven't! Can't you take my word for it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Swear to me, Sammy!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "All right; I swear."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Swear to me on your dead father who is an angel in heaven!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I swear--thataway."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're keeping something back. Sammy, is it that we got mail from Germany? From Aunt Carrie? Bad news--O my God!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No! No! Who could I get mail from there any more than you've been getting it for the last two years? Mamma, if you're going to be this excitable and get yourself sick, I won't talk over anything with you. I'll quit."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You got something, Sammy, to break to me. I can read you like a book."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm done. If I can't talk facts over with you without your going to pieces this way, I'm done. I quit."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sammy, what is it? If you don't tell me, I can't stand it. Sammy?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Will you sit quiet and not get excited?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Please, Sammy, I will."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's this: you see, ma, the way the draft goes. When a fellow's called to war, drafted, he's got to go, no questions asked. But when a fellow enlists for war, volunteers, you see, before the government calls him, then thataway he can pick out for himself the thing he wants to be in the army. Y'see? And then maybe the thing he picks out for himself can keep him right here at home. Y'see, ma--so he don't have to go away. See the point?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You mean when a boy enlists he offers himself instead of gets offered."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Exactly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You got something behind all this. You mean you--you want to enlist."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now, ma--you see, if I was to enlist--and stay right here in this country--with you near the camp or, as long as it's too rough life for you, with--with Clara there--a woman to look in on--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sammy--you mean it's enlistment!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's the best way, ma. The draft is sure to get me. Let me beat it and keep myself home--near you. We might as well face the music, ma. They'll get me one way or another. Let me enlist now, ma. Like a man. Right away. For my country!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Agony in a Garden"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, Sammy! No! No! No!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ma--please--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You wouldn't! You couldn't! No, Sammy--my son!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ma, for God's sake don't go on so!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Then tell me you wouldn't! Against your own flesh and blood! Tell me you wouldn't!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, no, ma! For God's sake, don't take a fit--a stroke--no, no; I wouldn't--I wouldn't!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Your own blood, Sammy! Your own baby cousins what I tucked you in bed with--mine own sister's children! Her babies what slept with you. Mine own sister who raised me and worked down her hands to the bone to make it so with my young husband and baby we could come to America--no--no!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Mamma, for God's sakes--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Three years like a snake here inside of it's eating me--all night--all day--I'm a good American, Sammy; I got so much I should be thankful for to America. Twenty-five years it's my home, the home where I had prosperity and good treatment, the home where I had happiness with your papa and where he lies buried, but I can't give you to fight against my own, Sammy--to be murdered by your own--my sister what never in her life harmed a bird--my child and her children--cousins--against each other. My beautiful country what I remember with cows and green fields and clover--always the smell of clover. It ain't human to murder against your own flesh and blood for God knows what reason!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Mamma, there is a reason it--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I tell you I'm a good American, Sammy. For America I give my last cent, but not to stick knives in my own--it ain't human--Why didn't I die before we got war? What good am I here? In my boy's way for his country--his marriage--his happiness--why don't I die?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ma, I tell you you mustn't! You're making yourself sick. Let me fan you. Here, ma, I didn't mean it. See--I'm holding you tight. I won't never let go. You're my little sweetheart mamma. You mustn't tremble like that. I'm holding you tight--tight--little mamma."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My boy! My little boy! My son! My all! All in their bed together. Three. Her two. Mine. The smell of clover--my boy--Sammy--Sam--"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You all right, ma? Sure? Sure you don't need the doctor?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The first time in my life, Sammy, such a thing ever happened to me."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It was me, ma. I'll never forgive myself. My little mamma, my little mamma sweetheart!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I feel fine, son; only, with you sitting here all night, you don't let me sleep for worry that you ain't in bed."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I love it. I love to sit here by you and watch you sleep. You're sure you've no fever? Sure?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm well, Sammy. It was nothing but what you call a fainting-fit. For some women it's nothing that they should faint every time they get a little bit excited. It's nothing. Feel my hands--how cool! That's always a sign--coolness."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There now--go to sleep."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Such a thing should happen to me at my age!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Try to sleep, ma."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Go in your room to bed, and then I get sleep. Do you want your own clerks should beat you to business to-morrow?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A little whisky?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Go away; you got me dosed up enough with such _Schnapps_."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The light lower?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No. If you don't go in your room, I lay here all night with my eyes open, so help me!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You'll sure ring the little bell if you want anything, ma?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sure."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You promise you won't get up to fix breakfast."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If I don't feel good, I let you fix mine."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Good night, little sweetheart mamma."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You ain't--mad at me, Sam?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Mad! Why, ma, you mustn't ask me a--a thing like that; it just kills me to hear you. Me that's not even fit to black your shoes! Mad at you? Why, I--I--Good night--good--night--ma."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sam! Sammy! Get up! _Thu, thu_! I can't get him up in the morning!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sam-my--quarter to seven!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ma, I must 'a' dropped off at the last minute. You all right? What are you doing up? Go right back! Didn't I tell you not to get up?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I been up an hour already; that's how fine I feel. Get up, Sammy; it's late."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I tell you I won't have it! You got to lay in bed this morning."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm all right, Sammy. Wouldn't I say so if I wasn't?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I--I shouldn't have beat that pillow is all. Let me get my breathing. I'm all right."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "This settles it, he said, quietly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm going to get a doctor."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If--if you want to get me excited for sure, just you call a doctor--now--before I talk with you a minute--I want to talk--I'm all right, Sammy, if you let me talk to you. One step to that telephone, and I get excited--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Please, ma--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sammy?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Will you listen to me and do like I want it?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I--been a bad old woman."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's right--break my heart."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I got a brave boy for a son, and I want to make from him a coward."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ma--please!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I laid saying to myself all night, a mother should have such a son like mine and make things hard for him yet!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Please, get it all out of your head--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "From America what has given to me everything I should hold back my son from fighting for. In war, it ain't your own flesh and blood what counts; it's the flesh and blood of your country--not, Sam? I been thinking only it's my family affair. If God lets be such a terrible thing like war, there is somewhere a good reason for it. I want you to enlist, Sammy, for your country. Not for in an office, but for where they need you. I want you to enlist to get some day to be such a lieutenant and a captain like you used to play it with tin soldiers. I want--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Mamma, mamma, you know you don't mean it!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I want it, I tell you. All night I worked on it how dumb I've been, not right away to see it--last night. With Clara near you in the camp--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ma, I didn't mean it that way; I--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Clara near you for a woman to look in on, I been so dumb not to right away see it. I'm glad you let it out, Sam. I wouldn't take five thousand dollars it didn't happen--I feel fine--I want it--I--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I didn't mean it, ma--I swear! Don't rub it in this way--please--please--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why, I never wanted anything in my life like I want this, Sammy--that you should enlist--a woman to look in on--I been a bad woman, Sammy, I--I--oh--"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Mamma! Darling! Doctor--please--for God's sakes--please--she wants something---she can't say it--give it to her! Try to make her tell me what she wants--she wants something--this is terrible--don't let her want something--mamma--just one word to me--try--try--O my God--Doctor--"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hawaii,"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Y-e-a-o-u! Y-e-a-o-u! The greatest show on the Island! Ten cents to see the greatest freak congress in the world. Shapiro's freaks are gathered from every corner of the universe. Enter and shake hands with Baron de Ross, the children's delight, the world's smallest human being; age, forty-two years, eight months; height, twenty-eight inches; weight, fourteen and one-half pounds, certified scales. Enter and see the original and only authentic Siamese Twins! The Ossified Man! You are cordially invited to stick pins into this mystery of the whole medical world. Jastrow, the world's most famous strong man end glass-eater, will perform his world-startling feats. Show about to begin! Our glass-eater eats glass, not rock candy--any one doubting same can sample it first. We have on view within, and all included in your ten-cents admission, the famous Teenie, absolutely the heaviest woman in captivity. We guarantee Teenie to tip the certified scales at five hundred and fifty-five, a weight unsurpassed by any of the heavyweights in the history of the show business. Come in and fox-trot with Teenie, the world wonder. Come in and fox-trot with her. Show begins immediately. Y-e-a-o-u! Y-e-a-o-u!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Easy money, friends, Miss Hoag would _ad lib_. to the line-up outside her railing;"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ain't it a fright?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sacred Mother of the Sacred Child!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hot, honey?"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Blow me to a ice-cream cone? Gowann, Teenie, have a heart!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Little devil! That's six you've sponged off me this week, you little whipper-snapper!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Nice Teenie--nice old Teenie!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Nice Teenie! Nice old Teenie!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Photographs! Photographs! Take the folks back home a signed photograph of Teenie--only ten cents, one dime. Give the kiddies a treat--signed photograph of little Teenie!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, skinnay, whatcha weigh?"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Wanna come up and dance with me and find out?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "O Lord! --receding from the crowd and its trail of laughter."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "O Lord! Excuse me. Good night!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Bless your heart, little pettie, they gimme a good measure, didn't they? Here's a chocolate drop for the little pettie."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Come away! Don't take nothing from her!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wouldn't hurt your little girl, lady. I wouldn't harm a pretty hair of her head; I love the kiddies."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Good-by, missus."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Good-by, little pettie."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Law, no, friend! I never seen the light of the show business up to eight year ago. There wasn't a member of my family, all dead and put away now, weighed more 'n one-fifty. They say it of my mother, she was married at ninety pounds and died at a hundred and six."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You don't say so."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I was born and raised on a farm out in Ohio. Bet not far from your part of the country, from the looks of you, friend. Buckeye?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not a bad guess at that--Indiana's mine."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Law! to my way of thinking, there's no part of the Union got anything on the Middle States. Knock me around all you want, I always say, but let me be buried in the Buckeye State. Photographs? Signed photographs at ten cents each. Take one home to the wife, friend, out in Indiana. Come, friends, what's a dime? Ten cents!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lord! she said, across the right railing,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ice-cream cone! he cried."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ice-cream cone, or I faint!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Poor Jastrow! Just listen to him! Honest, that grinding goes right through me. He hadn't ought to be showing to-day, after the way they had to have the doctor in on him last night. He hadn't ought to be eating that nasty glass."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ain't it awful, Mabel!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, it's awful, Mabel! A fellow snagging up his insides like Jastrow. I never knew a glass-eating artist in my life that lived to old age. I was showing once with a pair of glass-eating sisters, the Twins Delamar, as fine a pair of girls as ever--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sure, the Delamars--I know 'em."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Remember the specialty they carried, stepping on a piece of plate glass and feeding each other with the grounds--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sure."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, I sat up for three weeks running, with one of them girls--the red-haired one, till she died off of sorosis of the liver--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sure enough--Lizzie Delamar!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Lida, the other one, is still carrying the act on street-fair time, but it won't surprise me to hear of her next. That's what'll happen to Granite Jaw one of these days, too, if he--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Pretty soft on the Granite Jaw, ain't cha? M-m-n! Yum-yum! Pretty soft! When the Baron mouthed he became in expression Punchinello with his finger alongside his nose, his face tightening and knotting into cunning."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Pretty soft on the Granite Jaw! Yum--yum--yum!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Little devil! Little devil! I'll catch you and spank you to death."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yum! Yum!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's better to have loved a short man Than never to have loved atall."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Little peewee, you! Jastrow ain't short. Them thick, strong-necked kind never look their height. That boy is five feet two, if he's an inch. Them stocky ones is the build that make the strong kind. Looka him lift up that cannon-ball with just his left hand. B-r-r-r-r! Listen how it shakes the place when he lets its fall! Looka! Honest, it makes me sick! It's a wonder he don't kill himself."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Better to have loved a short man Than never to have loved atall."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Cheer up, Ossi! It might be worse,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sacred Mother of the Sacred Child!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Thank God, she said,"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "This Island is getting as hard-boiled as an egg,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It is that,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You! cried the Baron, the screw lines out again."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You money-bag tied in the middle! I know a tattooed girl worked with you once on the St. Louis World's Fair Pike says you slept on a pillow stuffed with greenbacks."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're crazy with the heat, said Miss Hoag."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What I've got out of this business, I've sweated for."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Worth your weight in gold! Worth your weight in gold!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If you don't behave yourself, you little peewee, I'll leave you to plow home through the sand alone. If it wasn't for me playing nurse-girl to you, you'd have to be hiring a keeper. You better behave."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Worth your weight in gold! Blow us to a ice-cream cone. Eh, Ossi?"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Worth her weight in gold! Blow us to a ice-cream cone. Eh, Jastrow? She's worth her weight in gold."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lay off that noise, said Jastrow the Granite Jaw, threatening to dangle him head downward."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Lay off, or I'll drown you like a kitten!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Leggo me! Leggo!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Gr-r-r-r! I'll step on you and squash you like a caterpillar."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't hurt him, Mr. Jastrow! Don't let him fall off backwards. He is so little. Teenie'll catch you if you fall, honey. Teenie's here in back of you."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yah, yah! he cried, dancing in the net of skirt and waggling his hands from his ears."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yah, yah!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Wow!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't hurt him, Jastrow. He's so awful little! Don't play rough."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He's always guying me for my saving ways, Jastrow. I tell him I 'ain't got no little twenty-eight-inch wife out in San Francisco sending me pin-money. Neither am I the prize little grafter of the world. I tell him he's the littlest man and the biggest grafter in this show. Come out of there, you little devil! He thinks because I got a few hundred dollars laid by I'm a bigger freak than the one I get paid for being."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You old mountain-top, he said, screwing at the up-curving mustache,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't look to see myself live and die in the show business, Mr. Jastrow."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now you said something, Big Tent."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There's a farm out near Xenia, Ohio, where I lay up in winter, that I'm going to own for myself one of these days. I've seen too many in this business die right in exhibition, and the show have to chip in to bury 'em, for me not to save up against a rainy day."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lay it on, Big Tent. I like your philosophy."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's me every time, Mr. Jastrow. I'm going to die in a little story-and-a-half frame house of my own with a cute little pointy roof, a potato-patch right up to my back steps, and my own white Leghorns crossin' my own country road to get to the other side. Why, I know a Fat in this business, Aggie Lament--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sure, me and the Baroness played Mexico City Carnival with Aggie Lament. Some heavy!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, that girl, in her day, was one of the biggest tips to the scale this business ever seen. What happens? All of a sudden, just like that--pneumonia! Gets up out of bed, eight weeks later, skin and bones --down to three hundred and sixty-five pounds and not a penny saved. I chipped in what I could to keep her going, but she just down and died one night. Job gone. No weight. In the exhibit business, just like any other line, you got to have a long head. A Fat's got to look ahead for a thin day. Strong for a weak day. That's why I wish, Mr. Jastrow, you'd cut out that glass-eating feature of yours."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How much you got, Airy-Fairy? Lemme double your money for you!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She's worth her weight in gold."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lemme double it!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Like fun I will. A spendthrift like you!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Which way you going?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We always go home by the beach. Shapiro made it a rule that the Bigs and Littles can't ever show themselves on Ocean Avenue."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Come on, you little flea; I'll ride you up the beach on my shoulder."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, Mr. Jastrow, you--you going to walk home with me--and--Baron?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Come on was what I said."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ain't this something grand?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Giddy-ap! cried the Baron, slappity-slappity at the great boulder of the Granite Jaw's head."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Giddy-ap!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How do you like it at Mrs. Bostum's boarding-house, Mr. Jastrow? I never stop anywheres else on the Island. Most of the Shapiro concession always stops there."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Good as the next,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I was sorry to hear you was ailing so last night, Mr. Jastrow, and I was sorry there was nothing you would let me do for you. They always call me 'the Doc' around exhibits. I say--but you just ought to heard yourself yell me out of the room when I come in to offer myself--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "They had me crazy with pain."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You wasn't so crazy with pain when the albino girl come down with the bottle of fire-water, was he, Baron? We seen him throwing goo-goos at Albino, didn't we, Baron?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He didn't yell the albino and her bottle out, did he, Baron?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's this darn business, said Mr. Jastrow, creating a storm of sand-spray with each stride."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm punctured up like a tire."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I been saying to the Baron, Mr. Jastrow, if you'd only cut out the glass-eating feature. You got as fine a appearance and as fine a strong act by itself as you could want. A short fellow like you with all your muscle-power is a novelty in himself. Honest, Mr. Jastrow, it--it's a sin to see a fine-set-up fellow like you killing yourself this way. You ought to cut out the granite-jaw feature."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yeh--and cut down my act to half-pay. I'd be full of them tricks--wouldn't I? Show me another jaw act measures up to mine. Show me the strong-arm number that ever pulled down the coin a jaw act did. I'd be a, sweet boob, wouldn't I, to cut my pocket-book in two? I need money, Airy-Fairy. My God! how I got the capacity for needing money!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What's money to health, Mr. Jastrow? It ain't human or freak nature to digest glass. Honest, every time I hear you crunching I get the chills!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Gr-r-r-r-r!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She's sweet on you, Jastrow, like all the rest of 'em."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Better to have loved a short man Than never to have loved atall."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Baron, I--I'll spank!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Worth her weight in gold!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Where you got all that money soaked, Big Tent?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Aw, Mr. Jastrow, the Baron's only tormenting me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She sleeps on a pillow stuffed with greenbacks."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sure I got a few dollars saved, and I ain't ashamed of it. I've had steady work in this business eight years, now, ever since the circus came to my town out in Ohio and made me the offer, but that's no sign I can be in it eight years longer. Sure I got a few dollars saved."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, whatta you know--a big tent like you?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ain't a big tent like me human, Mr. Jastrow? Ain't I--ain't I just like any other--girl--twenty years old--ain't I just like--other--girls--underneath all this?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sure, sure! said Mr. Jastrow."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How much you to the good, little one?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I've about eleven hundred dollars with my bank-books and pig."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Aw, you go on, Mr. Jastrow! Ain't you the torment, too?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Say, gal, next time I get the misery you can hold my hand as long as your little heart desires. 'Leven hundred to the good! Good night! Get down off my shoulder, you little flea, you. I got to turn in here and take a drink on the strength of that! 'Leven hundred to the good! Good night!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, Mr. Jastrow, in your state! In your state alcohol's poison. Mr. Jastrow--please--you mustn't!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Blow me, too, Jas! Aw, say--have a heart; blow me to a bracer, too!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, no, Mr. Jastrow, don't take the Baron. The little fellow can't stand alcohol. His baroness don't want it. Anyways, it's against the rules--please--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You stay and take the lady home, flea. See the lady home like a gentleman. 'Leven hundred to the good! Say, I'd see a lady as far as the devil on that. Good night!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Y'all right, honey? Can you reach what you want?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Aw! he said."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Good old tub, Teenie! Good old Big Tent!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm human, Baron. Maybe you don't know it, but I'm human."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now what did I do, Teenie?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It--it ain't you, Baron; it--it ain't anybody. It--it's--only I just wonder sometimes what God had in mind, anyways--making our kind. Where do we belong--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Aw, you're a great Heavy, Teenie--and it's the Bigs and the Littles got the cinch in this business. Looka the poor Siamese. How'd you like to be hitched up thataway all day. Looka Ossi. How'd you like to let 'em stick pins in you all for their ten cents' worth. Looka poor old Jas. Why, a girl's a fool to waste any heartache gettin' stuck on him. That old boy's going to wake up out of one of them spells dead some day. How'd you like to chew glass because it's big money and then drink it up so fast you'd got to borrow money off the albino girl for the doctor's prescription--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "O God! she said, her hand closing over the Baron's, pressing it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "With us freaks, even if we win, we lose. Take me. What's the good of ten million dollars to me--twenty millions? Last night when I went in to offer him help--him in the same business and that ought to be used to me--right in the middle of being crazy with pain, what did he yell every time he looked at me, 'Take her away! Take her away!'"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Aw now, Teenie, Jas had the D.T.'s last night; he--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Take her away!' he kept yelling. 'Take her away!' One of my own kind getting the horrors just to look at me!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're sweet on the Granite Jaw; you are, Teenie; that's what's eating you--you're sweet on the Granite Jaw--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What if I am? she said, standing out in the hall pocket of absolute blackness, her hand cupped against her mouth and the blinding tears staggering."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What if I am? What if I am?"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Teenie! Jastrow's dyin' in his room! He's yellin' for you! For God's sakes--quick--down in his room!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Teenie! For God's sakes--quick! He's yellin' for you--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Coming, Mrs. Bostrum--coming--coming--coming!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hell!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Great Scott! Move that lamp off the sill! You want to gimme the blind staggers?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I didn't know it was in your eyes, honey. There--that better?"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That better, Jas? Silence."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Better? That's good! Now for the boy's supper. Beautiful white egg laid by beautiful white hen and all beat up fluffy with sugar to make boy well, eh?"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Cut out that baby talk and get me a swig, Teenie. Get me a drink before I get ugly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, Jastrow honey, don't begin that. Please, Jastrow, don't begin that. You been so good all day, honey--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Get me a swig, he repeated through set teeth."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You and a boob country quack of a doctor ain't going to own my soul. I'll bust up the place again. I ain't all dead yet. Get me a swig--quick, too."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Jas, there ain't none."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There is!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's just for to whip up five drops at a time with your medicine. That's medicine, Jas; it ain't to be took like drink. You know what the doc said last time. He ain't responsible if you disobey. I ain't--neither. Please, Jas!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I know a thing or two about the deal I'm getting around here. No quack boob is going to own my soul."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ain't it enough the way you nearly died last time, Jas? Honest, didn't that teach you a lesson? Be good, Jas. Don't scare poor old Teenie all alone here with you. Looka out there through the door. Ain't it something grand? Honest, Jas, I just never get tired looking. See them low little hills out there. I always say they look like chiffon this time of evening. Don't they? Just looka the whole fields out there, so still--like--like a old horse standing up dozing. Smell! Listen to the little birds! Ain't we happy out here, me and my boy that's getting well so fine?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Put me out of my misery. Shoot!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Jas--Jas--ain't that just an awful way for you to talk? Ain't that just terrible to say to your poor old Big Tent?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "See, Jas--honest, can you ever get enough of how beautiful it is? When I was a kid on my pap's farm out there, eighty miles beyond the ridge, instead of playing with the kids that used to torment me because I was a heavy, I just used to lay out evenings like this on a hay-rack or something and look and look and look. There's something about this soft kind of scenery that a person that's born in it never gets tired of. Why, I've exhibited out in California right under the nose of the highest kind of mountains; but gimme the little scenery every time."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm a lump--that's what I am. Nine months of laying. I'm a lump--on a woman, too."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why, Jas, Teenie's proud to have you on--on her. 'Ain't we got plans for each other after--you get well? Why, half the time I'm just in heaven over that. That's why, honey, if only you won't let yourself get setbacks! That's all the doctor says is between you and getting well. That's all that keeps you down, Jas, you scaring me and making me go against the doctor's orders. Last week your eating that steak--that drink you stole--ain't you ashamed to have got out of bed that way and broke the lock? You--you mustn't ever again, Jas, make me go against the doctor."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I gets crazy. Crazy with laying."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Just think, Jas; here I've drew out my last six hundred, ready to make first payment down on the place and us all ready to begin to farm it. Ain't that worth holding yourself in for? It wouldn't be right, Jas; it would be something terrible if we had to break into that six hundred for medicine and doctors. I don't know what to make of you, honey, all those months so quiet and behaved on your back, and, now that you're getting well, the--the old liquor-thirst setting in. We never will get our start that way, Jas. We got plans, if you don't hinder your poor Teenie. The doctor told me, honey--honest, he did--one of them spells--from liquor could--could take you off just like that. Even getting well the way you are!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm a lump; that's what I am."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You ain't, Jas; you're just everything in the world."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sponging off a woman!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Gimme a swig, Teenie. For God's sake gimme a swig!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Jas--Jas, if you get to cutting up again, I'm going to get me a man-nurse out here--honest I am!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "A swig, Teenie."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Please, Jas--it's only for bad spells--five drops mixed up in your medicine. That's six dollars a bottle, Jas, and only for bad spells."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Stingy gut!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Looka down there, honey--there's old man Wyncoop's cow broke tether again. What you bet he's out looking for her. See her winding up the road."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Stingy gut!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You know I ain't stingy. If the doctor didn't forbid, I'd buy you ten bottles, I would, if it cost twenty a bottle. I'm trying to do what the doctor says is best, Jas."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sure you ain't! Haven't you got over ninety dollars under your pillow this minute? 'Ain't the boy got all the spending-money he wants and nowheres to spend it? Ain't that a good one, Jas? All the spending-money he wants and nowheres to spend it. Next thing the boy knows, he's going to be working the farm and sticky with money. Ain't it wonderful, Jas, never no showing for us again? God! ain't that just wonderful?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Nice old Big Tent!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's the way, honey! Honest, when you get one of your nice spells, your poor old Teenie would do just anything for you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I get crazy with pain. It makes me ugly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I know, Jas--I know--anyway, you fix it, honey. I 'ain't got a kick coming--a--tub like me to have--you."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If--if not for one thing, Jas, you know--you know what? I think if a person was any happier than me, she--she'd die."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Let's play I'm Rockefeller laying on his country estate, Teenie. Come on; let's kid ourselves along. Gimme the six hundred, Teenie--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why don't you ask me, Jas, except for what I'd be the happiest girl? Well, it's this. If only I could wear a cloak so when I got in it you couldn't see me! If only I never had to walk in front of you so--so you got to look at me!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You been a good gal to me, Big Tent. I never even look twice at you--that's how used a fellow can get to anything. I'm going to square it up with you, too."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You mean it's me will square it with you, Jas--you see if I don't. Why, there'll be nothing too much for me to do to make up for the happiness we're going to have, Jas. I'm going to make this the kinda little home you read about in the magazines. Tear out all this old rented junk furniture, paint it up white after we got the six hundred paid down and the money beginning to come in. I'm even going to fix up the little trap-door room in the attic, so that if the Baron or any of the old exhibit crowd happens to be showing in Xenia or around, they can visit us. Just think, Jas--a spare room for the old crowd. Honest, it's funny, but there's not one thing scares me about all these months on the place alone here, Jas, now that we bought the gun, except the nightmares sometimes that we--we're back exhibiting. That's why I want to keep open house for them that ain't as lucky as us. Honest, Jas--I--I just can't think it's real, not, anyways, till we've paid down six hundred and--the fellow you keep joking about that wears his collar wrong side 'fore comes out from Xenia to read the ceremony. Oh, Jas, I--I'll make it square with you. You'll never have a sorry day for it!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're all right, Big Tent,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ain't you feeling well, honey? Let me fix you an egg?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "A little swig, Teenie--a little one, is all I ask."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, no--please, Jastrow; don't begin--just as I had you forgetting."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It does me good, I tell you. I know my constitution better than a quack country boob does. I'm a freak, I am--a prize concession that has to be treated special. Since that last swig, I tell you, I been a different man. I need the strength. I got to have a little in my system. I'm a freak, I tell you. Everybody knows there's nothing like a swig for strength."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Not for you! It's poison, Jas, so much poison! Don't you remember what they said to you after the operation? All your life you got to watch out--just the little prescribed for you is all your system has got to have. Wouldn't I give it to you otherwise--wouldn't I?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Swig, Teenie! Honest to God, just a swig!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, no, Jas! No, no, no!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Gimme! he said."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I've done it before and I'll do it now--smash up the place! Gimme! You're getting me crazy! This time you got me crazy. Gimme--you hear--gimme!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Jas--for God's sakes--no--no!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Gimme! By God! you hear--gimme!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Now, he said, head jutting forward, and through shut teeth--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Jas--Jas--for God's sake have you gone crazy? Where'd you get that gun? Is that where I heard you sneaking this morning--over to my trunk for my watch-dog? Gimme that gun--Jas! You--you're crazy--Jas!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You gimme, was what I said, and gimme quick! You see this thing pointing? Well, gimme quick."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Jas--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't 'Jas' me. I'm ugly this time, and when I'm ugly _I'm ugly!_"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "All right! All right! Only, for God's sakes, Jas, don't get out of bed, don't get crazy enough to shoot that thing. I'll get it. Wait, Jastrow; it's all right, you're all right. I'll get it. See, Teenie's going. Wait--wait--Teenie's going--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Jas honey, won't you please--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Gimme, was what I said--gimme and quick!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "More like it, he said, running his tongue around his mouth;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Jas--Jas, what have you done?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Great stuff! Great stuff!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If--if you wasn't so sick, honey--I don't know what I'd do after such a terrible thing like this--you acting like this--so terrible--God! I--I'm all trembling."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Great stuff! he said, and reaching out and eyes still closed, patting her."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Great stuff, nice old Big Tent!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Try to sleep now, Jas. You musta had a spell of craziness! This is awful! Try to sleep. If only you don't get a spell--Sleep--please!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You wait! Guy with the collar on wrong side round--he's the one; he's the one!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes--yes, honey. Try to sleep!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wanna dream I'm Rockefeller. If there's one thing I want to dream, it's Rockefeller."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Not now--not now--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Lemme go to sleep like a king."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, honey."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Like a king,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There, honey. Go to sleep now--like a king."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Six hundred bucks! Six hundred! Wow--oh, wow! If Sid could only see me now!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He can, honey--he can. Go to sleep. 'Sh-h-h-h!'"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Slide 'em under--slide 'em under--Rockefeller."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Jas!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Huh?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ain't you all right? You're breathing so hard. Quit breathing so hard. It scares me. Quit making those funny noises. Honey--for God's sake--quit!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Doctor, that you? O my God! Doctor, it's too late! It's all over, Doctor--Doctor--it's all over!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're the Fat, ain't you? The one that's keeping him?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What--what--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "So you're the meal-ticket! Say, leave it to Will, Leave it to that boy not to get lost in this world. Ain't it like him to the T to pick a good-natured Fat?"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If it ain't Will to the T! Pickin' hisself a Fat to sponge on. Can you beat it? M-m! Was you the Fat in the Coney concession?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Who--Whatta you--want?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We was playin' the Zadalia County Fair. I heard he was on his back. The Little in our show, Baroness de Ross, has a husband played Coney with youse. Where is he? Tell him his little Sid is here. Was his little Sid fool enough to beat it all the way over here in a flivver for eight bucks the round trip? She was! Where is he?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He--Who--You--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're one of them good-natured simps, ain't you? So was I, dearie. It don't pay! I always said of Will he could bleed a sour pickle. Where is he? Tell him his little Sid is here with thirty minutes before she meets up with the show on the ten-forty, when it shoots through Xenia. Tell him she was fool enough to come because he's flat on his back."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I--That's him--Jastrow--there--O my God--that's him laying there, miss! Who are you? Sid--I thought--I never knew--Who are you? I thought it was Doc. He went off in a flash. I was standing right here-- I--O God!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My God! she said."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Will dead! Will dead! I musta had a hunch. God! I musta! All of a sudden I makes up my mind. I jumps ahead of the show. God! I musta had one of my hunches. That lookin'-glass I broke in Dayton. I--I musta!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It come so sudden, miss. It's a wonder I didn't die, too, right on the spot. I was standing here and--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He spun me dirt, Will did. If ever a girl was spun dirt, that girl was me, but just the same it--it's my husband laying there--it's my husband, no matter what dirt he spun me. O God--O--O--"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I left you the collar-and-cuff box with his initials on, dearie, for a remembrance. I give it to him the first Christmas after we was married, before he got to developing rough. I been through his things now entire. I got 'em all with me. If there's such a thing as a recordin' angel, you'll go down on the book. Will was a bad lot, but he's done with it now, dearie. I never seen the roughness crop up in a man so sudden the way it did in Will. You can imagine, dearie, when the men in the troupe horsewhipped him one night for the way he lit in on me one night in drink. That was the night he quit. O Gawd! maybe I don't look it, dearie, but I been through the mill in my day. But that's all over now, him layin' there--my husband. Will was a good Strong in his day--nobody can't ever take that away from him. I'm leavin' you the funeral money out of what he had under his pillow. It's a godsend to me my husband layin' up that few hundred when things ain't so good with me. You was a good influence, dearie. I never knew him to save a cent. I'd never have thought it. Not a cent from him all these months. My legs for the air-work ain't what they used to be. Inflammatory rheumatism, y'know. I've got a mind to buy me a farm, too, dearie. Settle down. Say, I got to hand it to you, dearie--you're one fine Fat. Baby Ella herself had nothin' on you, and I've worked with as fine Fats as there is in the business. You're sure one fine Fat, and if there's such a thing as a recordin' angel--I got to catch that train, dearie--the chauff's honkin'--no grandmother stories goes with my concession. God, to think of Will layin' on a cool six hundred! Here's twenty-five for the funeral. If it's more, lemme know. Sidonia Sabrina, care Flying-Fish Troupe, State Fair, Butler County, Ohio. Good-by, dearie, and God bless you!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Good seats, Herman?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I ask you, Sam, is it an outrage? Twenty bucks for a table on the side!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Is that highway robbery or not, I ask you!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wouldn't live in this town, not if you gave it to me!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's not the money, Sam. What's twenty dollars more or less on a business trip, and New-Year's Eve at that? But it's the principle of the thing. I hate to be made a good thing of!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Twenty bucks!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, and like he was doing me a favor, that Louis Slups kyin the box-office who used to take tickets in our Olympic at home. Somebody at the last minute let go of his reservation or we couldn't have got a table."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Twenty bucks, and we got to feel honored yet that they let us sit at a table to buy a dinner! But say, Herm, it's a great sight, ain't it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There's only one little old New York! Got to hand it to this town--they're a gang of cut-throats, but they do things up brown. A little of it goes a long ways, but I always say a trip to New York isn't complete without a night at the Moncrieff Roof. You sit here, Sam, facing the stage."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, you! An old bachelor has got the right to sit closer to a girl-show than a married man."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "A-ha!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A-ha!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What'll you have, Sam?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, what's the difference? I'll take a cheese sandwich and a glass of beer."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now cut that! Maybe I squealed about the twenty bucks, but that don't make me out a short skate. This isn't Cherokee Garden at home, man. I'm going to blow my brother-in-law to New-Year's Eve in my own way, or know the reason why not. Here, waiter, a pint of extra dry and a layout of sandwiches."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If you can stand it, I guess I can!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's not on the firm, either, Sam; it's on me!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "For the price of to-night ma and Etta would hang themselves, ain't it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Say, we only live once. I always tell ma she can't take it with her when she goes. Anyways, for the discount we got on those Adler sport skirts, we can afford to celebrate."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, Herman, I wish I had a dime for every dollar that is spent up here to-night. Look at the women! I guess American men don't make queens out of their wives!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "For every wife who's up here to-night I wouldn't take the trouble to collect the dimes,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I guess that ain't all wrong, neither. It isn't such a pleasure to be away from your family New-Year's Eve, but I can assure you I'd rather have Etta having her celebration with ma and grandma, and maybe the Bambergers over at the house, than up here where even a married woman can blush to be."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Take it from me, old man, a flannel petticoat in the family is worth all the ballet skirts on this roof put together."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I bought ma and Etta each one of them handbags to-day at Lauer's for nine dollars. What they don't know about the price won't hurt them. Two for nine I'll tell them."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "To this day ma believes that five-hundred-dollar bar pin I brought her two years ago from Pittsburgh cost fifty at auction."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There's Moe Marx from Kansas City just coming in! Spy the blonde he's with, will you? I guess Moe is used to that from home, nix! There's a firm, Marx-Jastrow, made a mint last year."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Look!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, Hermie, here's a happy New Year to you!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And to you, Sam, and many of 'em!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "To ma and Etta and grandma!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "To Kahn, Loeb & Schulien!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "To Kahn, Loeb & Schulien and that to this time next year we got the Men's Clothing Annex."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, look at the third one from this end with the black curls all bobbing. I'm for her!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Where?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Gone now!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Old man, you can pull that woman-hater stuff on the home folks, but it takes your brother-in-law to lead you to the live ones. Eh?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You dry up,"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Gad, Herman! What'll they think up next? Whatta you know about that--all those little devils dancing right over our heads!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There she is!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Who?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The little one in the boy's black-satin suit, with the black curls bobbing!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Watch out, Herm! You'll die of crick in the neck."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't see any blinkers on you!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hey, old man! Your mouth's open."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I know. I opened it,"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Jump!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Gad!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That little one with the black curls? Say! You can put her on your watch-fob and take her home."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Wouldn't mind!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You and Moe Marx are like all the women-haters. You don't know it, but you're walking in your sleep and the tenth-story window's open."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We oughtn't to come up here in business clothes,"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She's not in that crowd."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "W-ell, a little of this goes a long way. If we want to pull out of this town day after to-morrow we've got to get down to Cedar Street early in the morning on that sweater job lot. It's about time for us to be getting across to the hotel."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Wait!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, this town'll fall for anything! That act's got barnacles. But the little devils look cute, though. Say--say, old man, cut that out! This is no place for your mother's son. Say!"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, Herman, enough is enough! You'll have her here at the table next. It's like Al Suss always says, the reason he woke up one morning and found himself married to the first pony in the sextet was because he stuck a stamp upside down on a letter to her and found he could be held for a proposal in stamp language."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, little Jingle Bells, you and your friend!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Cut it out, Herm! If we want to be down on Cedar Street by--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What's your hurry, little one?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It ain't mine; it belongs to the management."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Won't you join us?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Herm, that job-lot of sweaters--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, come on, little Jingle Bells!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My friend, too?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sure your friend."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Here, you little Black Curls, sit next to me, and you, Blondey, over there by my brother-in-law."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What'll you have, girls?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Anchovies and fine-chopped onions for mine. Tell 'em in the kitchen, waiter, I said _fine_, and if the gentlemen are going to order wine, bring me a plate of oyster crackers first to take off the edge of my emptiness."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sure, another bottle of wine, waiter."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hermie, we--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And you, little Jingle Bells, same as Blondey's order?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yeh."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, you know what?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No. What?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I fell for those bouncing black curls of yours before I was in the place five minutes."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Gemmemen ike ikkie gurl wiz naughty-naughty black curl-curlies?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You bet your life I do,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Say, don't you know, you girls oughtn't to keep us boys up so late. Ain't there no wear out to you?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He asks if there's a wear out to us, Cleone? I wish it to you this minute, Baldy, that you had the muscles in the back of my legs. I guess you think it's choice for us girls to come out on the floor after the show!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sylvette!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yah, it's my New-Year's resolution to tell the truth for thirty minutes if I'm bounced for it. If you got to know it, it's a ten-per-cent. rake-off for us girls on every bottle of golden vichy you boys blow us to."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Honest, Sylvette, you're wearing scrambled eggs instead of brains to-night. Why don't you cry a few brinies for the gemmemen while you're at it!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're a scream, kiddo! Gee! I like you!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Bubbles! Bubbles! God bless all my troubles!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, I'll be darned!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The gemmemen from out of town?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "St. Louis."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I had a friend out there--Joe Kelsannie, of Albuquerque. Remember him, Sylvette?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do I!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm going out there myself some day if the going's good, and get me a cowboy west of Newark."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll take you!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Stick her on your watch-fob, Herman."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, sirree, I'll take her life size."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Watch out, Hermie; remember the upside-down postage stamp!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Want to go, Jingle Bells?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sure."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But I'm on the level, little one. No kidding. Day after to-morrow. St. Louis--with me!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Say, bo, you got me wrong. I'm one of the nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand chorus girls you could introduce your sister to. Aren't I, Syl?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You let that kid alone, said Miss Sylvette de Long, in a tone not part of her rôle."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "When the traffic policeman sticks up his mitt it's time to halt, see?"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Come on, Herm. It's getting late, and if we want to be down on Cedar--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You think I'm kidding this little black-eyed chum of yours, don't you, Blondey?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sure not! You want 'er to grace the head of your table and wear the family heirlooms!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, Sam, you're my brother-in-law--married to my own sister and living under the same roof with me--am I a habitual lady-fusser, or do they call me Hermie the Hermit at home?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Never knew him to talk ten straight words to a skirt before, girls, said Mr. Kahn through a yawn;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Say, you, said Miss De Long, edging slightly,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wish to Heaven I was, said Mr. Kahn, suddenly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Take it from me, girl, it was nothing but a business hang-over kept me. Come, Herm, if we--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You think I'm kidding little Jingle Bells, don't you?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If you ain't kidding you must be crazy with the heat or dr--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Look at my glass. Have I touched it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The man's raving, Syl! Wants to marry me and take me back to St. Louis, Thursday."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Cut the comedy and come! Herm, it's getting on to three in the morning."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "This little girl keeps thinking I'm kidding, Blondey. I always knew if I ever fell for matrimony it would be just like this. Right off the reel. No funny business. Just bing! Bang! Done!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Catch me while I swoon--but he sounds on the level, Cleone."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, what if he is? Of all the nerve! Whatta you know about me? How do you know I haven't got three kids and a crippled husband at home? How do you know--?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I know, little Jingle Bells! Why, I was as sure of you, the minute I clapped eyes on you, as if we'd been raised next door to each other. I can see right down in your little life like it was this glass of wine."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, boys, this is a nice little party, but I got to get up at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon, and I need the sleep. Oh, how I love my morning sleep! She drew back, her bare outflung arm pushing her from the table."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If you'll call me and my room-mate a taxi--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, you don't, Jingle Bells!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Are you bats?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm going to marry you and take you home with me, if I have to carry you off like a partridge."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Cleone, I tell you the man means it!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're right, Blondey. I never meant anything more in my life."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Man, you're drunk!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "See my glass!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Then you're crazy!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sit down, old Baldy. Why's he crazy? That little room-mate of mine is as straight a little girl as--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why, I tell you he's crazy! That man's the head of a big business. He can't kick up any nonsense like this. Come on, Herm, cut the comedy. It's time we were getting across to our hotel. Look at the crowd thinning, and what's left is getting rough. Come!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If you don't know how to behave yourself, Sam, in the presence of these ladies, maybe you better go back to the hotel alone. I'm going to see these young ladies to their door, and before we go me and this little girl are going to understand each other."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, of all the nerve! Who are you? Whatta you think I am? Syl, what's his game?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Cleone, he wants to marry you. A decent man with a decent face from a decent town has taken a shine to you and wants to marry you. M-a-r-r-y! Do you get it, girl?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How do you know he's decent? I don't know no more about him than he knows about me. I--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You got me right, Blondey. Kahn, Loeb & Schulien, Ladies' Wear, St. Louis. Here's my card. You give me an hour to-morrow, Jingle Bells, and I'll do all the credential stuff your little heart desires. Louis Slupsky knows me and my whole family. His mother used to stuff feather pillows for mine. Kahn here is my brother-in-law and partner in business. He's a slow cuss and 'ain't grasped the situation yet. But are you on, little one? Is it St. Louis Thursday morning, as Mrs.--?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Herm! You're cr--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Syl--what'll I--do?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An on-the-level guy, Cleone. Marry! Do you hear? M-a-r-r-y! Say, and it couldn't happen to me!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Herman, man, I tell you you're off your head. Think once of your home--ma, Etta, grandma--with a _goy_ girl that--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Easy there, Baldy, you're adding up wrong. You and her both celebrates the same Sundays. If anybody should ask you for Sylvette de Long's birth certificate, look it up under the P's. Birdie Pozner. It's the same with my friend. Cleone, tell the gemmemen your real name! Well, I'll tell it for you. Sadie Mosher, sister to the great Felix Mosher who played heavy down at Shefsky's theater for twenty years. _Goy!_ Say, Sammie, it's too bad a nut from the bug-house bought the Brooklyn Bridge to-day or I'd try to sell it to you."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Little Jingle Bells, if I put you in a taxi now and shoot up those credentials, will you marry me to-morrow at noon?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I--oh, I dunno."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Marry, he says to you, girl. Think of the minus number of times girls like us get that little word whispered to 'em. Think of the short season. Moncrieff's grouch. The back muscles of your legs! Marry, he says to you, girl! Marry!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "To-morrow at noon, little one?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I--I sleep till three."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And it couldn't 'a' been me!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Little Jingle Bells?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why, y-yes, I--I'm on."
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Maternal Love"
}
] |
9864
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You, Sadie?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Herman home yet?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Smell? I fixed him red cabbage to-night."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, I smell."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How she sits here in the dark. Thank goodness, Sadie, electricity we don't have to economize on."
}
] |
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