“Listen to me, you crazy bastard,” he said fiercely. “Don’t you even take a look at that bitch. I don’t care what she says and what she does. I seen ’em poison before, but I never seen no piece of jail bait worse than her. You leave her be.”

Well—she got the eye.

Well, he seen this girl in a red dress. Dumb bastard like he is, he wants to touch ever'thing he likes. Just wants to feel it. So he reaches out to feel this red dress an' the girl lets out a squawk, and that gets Lennie all mixed up, and he holds on 'cause that's the only thing he can think to do.

She's a jail bait all set on the trigger. That Curley got his work cut out for him. Ranch with a bunch of guys on it ain't no place for a girl, specially like her.

"Funny thing," she said. "If I catch any one man, and he’s alone, I get along fine with him. But just let two of the guys get together an’ you won’t talk. Jus’ nothing but mad."

Sat’iday night. Ever’body out doin’ som’pin’. Ever’body! An’ what am I doin’? Standin’ here talkin’ to a bunch of bindle stiffs—a nigger an’ a dum–dum and a lousy ol’ sheep—an’ likin’ it because they ain’t nobody else.

"I get lonely," she said. "You can talk to people, but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad. How’d you like not to talk to anybody?"

"... I coulda made somethin' of myself." She said darkly, "Maybe I will yet."

She had full, rouged lips and wide–spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages.

“Well, that glove’s fulla vaseline.” “Vaseline? What the hell for?” “Well, I tell ya what—Curley says he’s keepin’ that hand soft for his wife.”