Jimmy's mother lived with her unwashed brood, you will remember, above
old Heinze's grocery store, and on the following afternoon I ran Susan
over there for a tactful reconnaissance. At Susan's request we went
slowly along Birch Street from its extreme right end to its ultimate
wrong, crossing the waste land and general dump at the base of East
Rock--historic ground!--mounting the long incline beyond, and so passing
the four-room house, which now seemed to be occupied by at least three
families of that hardy, prolific race discourteously known to young
America as "wops." Throughout this little tour Susan withdrew, and I
respected her silence. She had not yet spoken when we stopped at
Heinze's corner and descended.

Here first it was that forebodings of chance and change met us upon the
pavement, in the person of old Heinze himself, standing melancholy and
pensive before the screened doorway of his domain. Him Susan accosted.
He did not at first recognize her, but recollection returned to him as
she spoke.

"_Ach_, so!" he exclaimed, peering with mildest surprise above
steel-rimmed spectacles. "Id iss you--nod? Leedle Susanna!"

My formal introduction followed; nor was it without a glow of
satisfaction that I heard old Heinze assure me that he had read certain
of my occasional essays with attention and respect. "Ard for ard--yah!
Dot iss your credo," he informed me, with tranquil noddings of his
bumpy, oddly shaped skull. "Dot iss der credo of all arisdograds. Id iss
nod mine."

But Susan was in no mood for general ideas; she descended at once to
particulars, and announced that we were going up to see Mrs. Kane. Then
old Heinze snaggily, and I thought rather wearily, smiled.

"_Aber_," he objected, lifting twisted, rheumatic hands, "dere iss no
more such a vooman! Alretty, leedle Susanna, I haf peen an oldt fool
like oders. I haf made her my vife." And though he continued to smile,
he also sighed.

Our ensuing interview with Frau Heinze, formerly the Widow Kane, fully
interpreted this sigh. Prosperity, Susan later assured me, had not
improved her. She greeted us, above the shop, in her small, shiny,
colored lithograph of a parlor, with unveiled suspicion. Her eyes were
hostile. She seemed to take it for granted, did Mrs. Heinze, that we
could have no kindly purpose in intruding upon her. A dumpy, grumpy
little woman, with the parboiled hands and complexion of long years at
the wash-tubs, her present state of comp