g?"

"My dear, he was doing it just for the time it took me to snatch the
hammer away! I was so sorry!"

"Oh, that's all right." He would yawn. "Lord, I feel rotten!"

"Isn't it perhaps--drinking and smoking so much, Wallace?" Martie might
venture timidly.

"That has nothing to do with it!"

"But, Wallie, how do you know it hasn't?"

"Because I do know it!"

He would return to his paper, and Martie to her own thoughts. She would
yawn stupidly, when he yawned, in the warm, close air. Sometimes she
went into the tumbled bedrooms and put them in order, gathering up
towels and scattered garments. But usually Wallace did not bathe until
after his breakfast, and nothing could be done until that was over.
Equally, Martie's affairs kitchenward were delayed; sometimes Wallace's
rolls were still warming in the oven when she put in Teddy's luncheon
potato to bake. The groceries ordered by telephone would arrive, and be
piled over the unwashed dishes on the table, the frying pan burned dry
over and over again.

After Teddy and his mother had lunched, if Wallace was free, they all
went out together. He was devoted to the boy, and broke ruthlessly into
his little schedule of hours and meals for his own amusement. Or he and
Martie went alone to a matinee. But when he was playing in vaudeville,
even if he lived at home, he must be at the theatre at four and at
nine. Often on Sunday afternoons he went out to meet his friends, to
drift about the theatrical clubs and hotels, and dine away from home.

Then Martie would take Teddy out, happy times for both. They went to
the library, to the museums, to the aquarium and the Zoo. Martie came
to love the second-hand book-stores, where she could get George Eliot's
novels for ten cents each, a complete Shakespeare for twenty-five. She
drank in the passing panorama of the streets: the dripping "L"
stations, the light of the chestnut dealer, a blowing flame in the cold
and dark, the dirty powder of snow blowing along icy sidewalks, and the
newspapers weighted down at corner stands with pennies lying here and
there in informal exchange. Cold, rosy faces poured into the subway
hoods, warm, pale faces poured out, wet feet slipped on the frozen
rubbish of the sidewalks, little salesgirls gossiped cheerfully as they
dangled on straps in the packed cars.

Often Martie and Teddy had their supper at Childs', in the clean warm
brightness of marble and nickel-plate. Teddy knew their waitress and