human
What about Mrs. Fike? Is she as bad as she seems?
gpt
Why, that's the best little skeleton of contention around here. There's three factions. Some girls say she's just plain devil--mean as a floor-walker. That's what I think--she's a rotter and a four-flusher. You notice the way she crawls when I stand up to her. Why, they won't have Catholics here, and I'm one of those wicked people, and she knows it! When she asked my religion I told her I was a 'Romanist Episcopalian,' and she sniffed and put me down as an Episcopalian--I saw her!... Then some of the girls think she's really good-hearted--just gruff--bark worse than her bite. But you ought to see how she barks at some of the younger girls--scares 'em stiff--and keeps picking on them about regulations--makes their lives miserable. Then there's a third section that thinks she's merely institutionalized--training makes her as hard as any other kind of a machine. You'll find lots like her in this town--in all the charities.
human
But the girls--they do have a good time here?
gpt
Yes, they do. It's sort of fun to fight Ma Fike and all the fool rules. I enjoy smoking here twice as much as I would anywhere else. And Fike isn't half as bad as the board of visitors--bunch of fat, rich, old Upper-West-Siders with passementeried bosoms, doing tea-table charity, and asking us impertinent questions, and telling a bunch of hard-worked slaves to be virtuous and wash behind their ears--the soft, ignorant, conceited, impractical parasites! But still, it's all sort of like a cranky boarding-school for girls--and you know what fun the girls have there, with midnight fudge parties and a teacher pussy-footing down the hall trying to catch them.
human
I don't know. I've never been to one.
gpt
Well--doesn't matter.... Another thing--some day, when you come to know more men-- Know many?
human
Very few.
gpt
Well, you'll find this town is full of bright young men seeking an economical solution of the sex problem--to speak politely--and you'll find it a relief not to have them on your door-step. 'S safe here.... Come in with me, kid. Give me an audience to talk to.
human
Yes,