ack rims on his glasses, ain't the Rosenthal
Vetsburg Hosiery Company, not by a long shot! There ain't a store in this
town you ask for the No Hole Guaranteed Stocking, right away they don't
show it to you. Just for fun always I ask."

"Cornstarch pudding! Irving, stop making that noise at Mrs. Kaufman! Little
boys should be seen and not heard even at cornstarch pudding."

"_Gott_! Wouldn't you think, Mrs. Katz, how Mrs. Kaufman knows how I hate
desserts that wabble, a little something extra she could give me."

"How she plays favorite, it's a shame. I wish you'd look, too, Mrs.
Finshriber, how Flora Proskauer carries away from the table her glass of
milk with slice bread on top. I tell you it don't give tune to a house the
boarders should carry away from the table like that. Irving, come and
take with you that extra piece cake. Just so much board we pay as Flora
Proskauer."

The line about the table broke suddenly, attended with a scraping of chairs
and after-dinner chirrupings attended with toothpicks. A blowsy maid
strained herself immediately across the strewn table and cloying lamb
platter, and turned off two of the three gas jets.

In the yellow gloom, the odors of food permeating it, they filed out and up
the dim lit stairs into dim-lit halls, the line of conversation and short
laughter drifting after.

A door slammed. Then another. Irving Katz leaped from his third floor
threshold to the front hearth, quaking three layers of chandeliers. From
Morris Krakower's fourth floor back the tune of a flute began to wind down
the stairs. Out of her just-closed door Mrs. Finshriber poked a frizzled
gray head.

"Ice-water, ple-ase, Mrs. Kauf-man."

At the door of the first floor back Mrs. Kaufman paused with her hand on
the knob.

"Mama, let me run and do it."

"Don't you move, Ruby. When Annie goes up to bed it's time enough. Won't
you come in for a while, Mr. Vetsburg?"

"Don't care if I do".

She opened the door, entering cautiously. "Let me light up, Mrs. Kaufman."
He struck a phosphorescent line on the sole of his shoe, turning up three
jets.

"You must excuse, Mr. Vetsburg, how this room looks. All day we've been
sewing Ruby her new dress."

She caught up a litter of dainty pink frills in the making, clearing a
chair for him.

"Sit down, Mr. Vetsburg."

They adjusted themselves around the shower of gaslight. Miss Kaufman
fumbling in her flowered work-bag, finally curling her foot up under her,
he