the window-box the cabbage
he had cooked for dinner.

With a slow luxurious joy in every movement he put on the overcoat. Even
in the pocket in which he stuck the seven Christmas dollars he had a
distinct pleasure, for his undercoat pockets were too torn, too holey,
to carry anything in them. They went prancing to the Hungarian
restaurant. They laughed so much that Father forgot to probe her about
the overcoat, and did not learn that she had bought it second-hand, for
three dollars, and had saved the three dollars by omitting lunch for
nearly four weeks.

They had a table at the front of the restaurant, near the violin. They
glowed over soup and real meat and coffee. There were funny people at
the next table--a man who made jokes. Something about the "Yiddisher
gavotte," and saying, "We been going to dances a lot, but last night the
wife and I wanted to be quiet, so I bought me two front seats for
Grant's Tomb!" It was tremendous. Father and Mother couldn't make many
jokes, these days, but they listened and laughed. The waiter remembered
them; they had always tipped him ten cents; he kept coming back to see
if there was anything they wanted, as though they were important people.
Father thanked her for the overcoat in what he blithely declared to be
Cape Cod dialect, and toasted her in coffee. They were crammed with good
cheer when Mother paid the check from a dollar she had left over, and
they rose from the table.

Father stood perplexedly gazing at the hat-rack behind them. He gasped,
"Why, where--Why, I hung it----"

He took down his old hat with a pathetic, bewildered hesitancy, and he
whispered to Mother, "My overcoat is gone--it's been stolen--my new
overcoat. Now I can't go out and get a job--"

They cried out, and demanded restitution of the waiter, the head-waiter,
the manager. None of these officials could do more than listen and ask
heavy questions in bad English and ejaculate, "Somebody stole it from
right behind you there when you weren't looking."

One of the guests dramatically said that he had seen a man who looked
suspicious, and for a moment every one paid attention to him, but that
was all the information he had. The other guests gazed with apathetic
interest, stirring their coffee and grunting one to another, "He ought
to watched it."

The manager pointed at one of the signs, "This restaurant is not
responsible for the loss of hats, coats, or packages," and he shouted,
"I am very sorry, but