usiness when I was always getting
fired from every place I worked."

"Children!"

"Well, he always starts with me, mamma."

"Izzy, ain't you got no respect for your sister? For Gawd's sakes take
that bill of fare away from your papa, Izzy. He'll burn a hole in it.
Always the prices he reads out loud till so embarrassed I get. No ears
and eyes he has for anything else. He reads and reads, but enough he
don't eat to keep alive a bird."

Mr. Binswanger drew his spectacles off his nose, snapped them into a
worn-leather case and into his vest pocket; a wan smile lay on his
lips.

"I got only eyes for you, Becky, eh? All dressed up, ain't you?--black
lace yet! What you think of your mamma, children? Young she gets, not?"

"_Ach_, Julius!"

The little bout of tenderness sent a smile around the table, and behind
the veil of her lashes Miss Binswanger sent the arrow of a glance across
the room.

"Honest, mamma, I wonder if Max sees anything green on me."

"He sees something sweet on you, maybe, Poil. Izzy, pass your papa some
radishes. Not a thing does that man eat, and such an appetite he used to
have."

"Radishes better as these we get in our yard at home. Ten cents for six
radishes! Against my appetite it goes to eat 'em, when in my yard at
home--"

"Home, always home!"

"Papa, please don't put your napkin in your collar like a bib. Mamma,
make him take it out. Honest, even for the waiter I'm ashamed. How he
watches us, too, and laffs behind the tray."

"Leave me alone, Pearlie. My shirt-front I don't use for no bib! Laundry
rates in this hold-up place ain't so cheap."

"Mamma, please make him take it out."

"Julius!"

"Look, papa, at the Teitlebaums and Schoenfeldts, laughing at us, papa.
Look now at him, mamma; just for to spite me he bends over and drinks
his soup out loud out of the tip of his spoon--please, papa."

Mr. Binswanger jerked his napkin from its mooring beneath each ear and
peered across at his daughter with his face as deeply creased as a
raisin.

"I wish," he said, low in his throat, and with angry emphasis quivering
his lips behind the gray and black bristles of his mustache--"ten times
a day I wish I was back in my little house in Newton, where I got my
comfort and my peace--you children I got to thank for this, you
children."

Mr. Isadore Binswanger replaced his spoon in his soup-plate and leaned
back against his chair.

"Aw now, papa, for God's sakes don't begin!"

"You goo