ent building where we used to live,"
explains Vee.

"Stribble?" says I. "Oh, yes, the poddy old party who did all the hard
sitting around while his wife did the work. What reminded you of them?"

"I'm sure I don't know," says Vee. "But a month or so ago I saw the name
printed in an army list of returned casualty cases--there was a boy, you
know, and a girl--and I thought then that we ought to look them up and
find out. Then I forgot all about it until just a few moments ago. Let's
go there, Torchy, before we go out home tonight?"

I must say I couldn't get very much excited over the Stribbles, but on
the chance that Vee would forget again I promised, and let her tow me
into one of those cute little tea rooms where we had a perfectly punk
lunch at a dollar ten per each. But even after a three hour session
among the white goods sales Vee still remembered the Stribbles, so about
five o'clock we finds ourselves divin' into a basement that's none too
clean and are being received by a tall, skinny female with a tously mop
of sandy hair bobbed up on her head.

It seems Ma Stribble was still shovelin' most of the ashes and
scrubbin' the halls as well; while Pa Stribble, fatter than ever and in
the same greasy old togs, continues to camp in a rickety arm chair by
the front window, with a pail of suds at his right elbow. Yes, the one
mentioned in the casualty list was their Jimmy. Only he hadn't come back
a trench hero, exactly. He'd collected his blighty ticket without being
at the front at all--by gettin' mixed up with a steel girder in some
construction work. A mashed foot was the total damage, and he was having
a real good time at the base hospital; would be as good as new in a week
or so.

"Isn't that fortunate?" says Vee. "And your daughter, where is she?"

"Mame?" says Ma Stribble, scowlin' up quick. "Gawd knows where she is. I
don't."

"Why, what do you mean?" asks Vee. "She--she hasn't left home, has she?"

"Oh, she sleeps here," goes on Ma Stribble, "and comes home for some of
her meals, but the rest of the time----" Here she hunches her shoulders.

"Huh!" grunts Pa Stribble. "If you could see the way she togs herself
out--like some chorus girl. I don't know where she gets all them flossy
things and she won't tell. Paint on her face, too. It's bringin' shame
on us, I tell her."

Mrs. Stribble sighs heavy. "And we was tryin' to bring her up decent,"
says she. "I got her a job, waitin' in a lunch room up on' th