y the window of the front bedroom was flung up, and
Mrs. Jacobs leant out of it waving what looked like an immense streamer.

"Aha," she observed, dangling it tantalizingly up and down. "Morry
antique!"

The dress fluttered in the breeze. Mrs. Jacobs caressed the stuff
between her thumb and forefinger.

"Aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-awl silk," she announced with a long ecstatic quaver.

Mrs. Isaacs stood paralyzed by the brilliancy of the repartee.

Mrs. Jacobs withdrew the moire antique and exhibited a mauve gown.

"Aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-awl silk."

The mauve fluttered for a triumphant instant, the next a puce and amber
dress floated on the breeze.

"Aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-awl silk." Mrs. Jacobs's fingers smoothed it lovingly,
then it was drawn within to be instantly replaced by a green dress.
Mrs. Jacobs passed the skirt slowly through her fingers.
"Aw-aw-aw-aw-aw-awl silk!" she quavered mockingly.

By this time Mrs. Isaacs's face was the color of the latest flag of
victory.

"The tallyman!" she tried to retort, but the words stuck in her throat.
Fortunately just then she caught sight of her poor lamb playing with the
other poor lamb. She dashed at her offspring, boxed its ears and crying,
"You little blackguard, if I ever catch you playing with blackguards
again, I'll wring your neck for you," she hustled the infant into the
house and slammed the door viciously behind her.

Moses had welcomed this every-day scene, for it put off a few moments
his encounter with the formidable Malka. As she had not appeared at door
or window, he concluded she was in a bad temper or out of London;
neither alternative was pleasant.

He knocked at the door of Milly's house where her mother was generally
to be found, and an elderly char-woman opened it. There were some
bottles of spirit, standing on a wooden side-table covered with a
colored cloth, and some unopened biscuit bags. At these familiar
premonitory signs of a festival, Moses felt tempted to beat a retreat.
He could not think for the moment what was up, but whatever it was he
had no doubt the well-to-do persons would supply him with ice. The
char-woman, with brow darkened by soot and gloom, told him that Milly
was upstairs, but that her mother had gone across to her own house with
the clothes-brush.

Moses's face fell. When his wife was alive, she had been a link of
connection between "The Family" and himself, her cousin having
generously employed her as a char-woman. So Moses knew the impor