say your papa is out until six. If it's a
customer, remember the first asking-price is the two middle figures on
the tag, and the last asking-price is the two outside figures. See once,
with your papa out to buy your little brother his birthday present, and
your mother in a cake, if you can't make a sale for first price."

Isadore Kantor, aged eleven and hunched with a younger Kantor over an
oilcloth-covered table, hunched himself still deeper in barter for a
large crystal marble with a candy stripe down its center.

"Izzie, did you hear me?"

"Yes'm."

"Go down this minute--do you hear? Rudolph, stop always letting your big
brother get the best of you in marbles. Iz-zy!"

"In--a--minute."

"Don't let me have to ask you again, Isadore Kantor!"

"Aw, ma; I got some 'rithmetic to do. Let Esther go."

"Always Esther! Your sister stays right in the front room with her
spelling."

"Aw, ma; I got spelling, too."

"Every time I ask that boy he should do me one thing, right away he gets
lessons! With me, that lessons-talk don't go no more. Every time you get
put down in school, I'm surprised there's a place left lower where they
can put you. Working-papers for such a boy like you!"

"I'll woik--"

"How I worried myself! Violin lessons yet--thirty cents lesson out of
your papa's pants while he slept! That's how I wanted to have in the
family a profession--maybe a musician on the violin. Lessons for you out
of money I had to lie to your papa about! Honest, when I think of it--my
own husband--it's a wonder I don't potch you just for remembering it.
Rudolph, will you stop licking that cake-pan? It's saved for your little
brother Leon. Ain't you ashamed even on your little brother's birthday
to steal from him?"

"Ma, gimme the spoon?"

"I'll give you the spoon, Isadore Kantor, where you don't want it. If
you don't hurry down the way that bell is ringing, not one bite out of
your little brother's birthday-cake to-night!"

"I'm goin', ain't I?"

"Always on my children's birthdays a meanness sets into this house!
Ru-dolph, will you put down that bowl? Iz-zy--for the last time I ask
you--for the last time--"

Erect now, Mrs. Kantor lifted a portentous hand, letting it hover.

"I'm goin', ma; for golly sakes, I'm goin'!" said her recalcitrant one,
shuffling off toward the staircase, shuffling, shuffling.

Then Mrs. Kantor resumed her plumbing, and through the little apartment,
its middle and only bedroom of thre