Contraband

Excerpt: "Tubal gave the key another quarter turn in the quoins and tested the security of the type in the form with the heel of his grimy hand. After which he shut his eyes very tight and ran his tongue carefully over his upper teeth and clucked. Then, in the voice of one who pronounces a new and wonderful thought he spoke: "Simmy," he said, "I dunno. Mebby so—mebby not. There's p'ints in favor and p'ints against." "I," said Simmy with the cocksureness of his seventeen years, "am goin' to git through. Don't ketch me workin' for no woman." "She's one of them college wimmin we've been readin' about." "Makes it wuss. Wimmin," said Simmy, who had given deep thought to such matters and reached profound conclusions, "hain't got no business gittin' all eddicated up. What they ought to study is cook books. That's what I say." "Calc'late she'll be gifted with big words." "She'll wear them kind of glasses," said Simmy, "that'll make you think you're lookin' into the show[2] winders of the Busy Big Store if you come onto her face to face." "Simmy, I'll tell you suthin'.... I'll be fifty year old, come September, and I hain't never married one of 'em yit." "I hain't never goin' to marry, neither." "Shake," said Tubal."