ess," he added, "you are going to give me a
show and extend the mortgage."

Belz met this appeal with stolid indifference.

"Of course, Rudnik," he said, "I'm sorry you got run over with a train;
but if we would extend your mortgage on account you got run over with a
train and our other mortgagees hears of it, understand me, the way
money is so tight nowadays, every time a mortgage comes due them
suckers would ring in trollyer-car accidents on us and fall down
coal-holes so as we would give 'em an extension already."

"And wouldn't it make no difference that I just got married?" Rudnik
asked.

"If an old feller like you gets married, Rudnik," Belz replied, "he
must got to take the consequences."

"An idee!" Lesengeld exclaimed. "Do you think that we are making
wedding presents to our mortgagees yet, Rudnik?"

"It serves you right, Rudnik," Schindelberger said. "If you would
consent to the Home getting your property I wouldn't said nothing about
Miss Duckman's disappearing and Belz would of extended the mortgage on
you."

"I was willing to do it," Rudnik said, "_aber_ my wife wouldn't let me.
She says rather than see the house go that way she would let you
gentlemen foreclose it on us, even if she would got to starve."

"I don't know who your wife is," Schindelberger rejoined angrily, "but
she talks like a big fool."

"No, she don't," Rudnik retorted; "she talks like a sensible woman,
because, in the first place, she wouldn't got to starve. I got enough
strength left that I could always make for her and me anyhow a living,
and, in the second place, the Home really ain't a home. It's a
business."

"A business!" Schindelberger cried. "What d'ye mean, a business?"

"I mean a business," Rudnik replied, "an underwear business. Them poor
women up there makes underwear from morning till night already, and
Schindelberger here got a brother-in-law which he buys it from the Home
for pretty near half as much as it would cost him to make it."

"_Rosher!_" Max Schindelberger shrieked. "Who tells you such stories?"

"My wife tells me," Rudnik replied.

"And how does your wife know it?" Belz demanded.

"Because," Rudnik answered, "she once used to live in the Home."

"Then that only goes to show what a liar you are," Schindelberger said.
"Your wife couldn't of been in the Home on account it only gets started
last year, and everybody which went in there ain't never come out yet."

"Everybody but one," Rudnik said as