ng to
spend on improvements."

"Papa always said you had a good business head on you, Abie; but I ain't
one, neither, for funny businesses like a clerk. And what you needed
them new glass shoe-stands for when the old ones--"

"Now, mamma, don't begin on that again."

"When I was down in the store papa used to say to me: 'Wait till Abie's
grown up, mamma! By how his ears stand out from his head I can tell he's
got good business sense.' And to think that so little of you he had in
the store--such a man that deserved the best of everything! He had to
die just when things might have got easy for him."

"Don't cry, mamma; everything is for the best."

"You're a good boy, Abie. Sometimes I think I stand in your way enough."

"Such talk!"

"Any girl would do well enough for herself to get you. Believe me,
Beulah Washeim don't need a new pair of shoes every two weeks for
nothing! Her mother thinks I don't notice it--she's always braggin' to
me how hard her Beulah is on shoes and what a good customer she makes."

"Beulah Washeim! I don't even know what last she wears--that's how much
I think of Beulah Washeim."

"Don't let me stand in your way, Abie. Ain't I often told you, now since
you do a grand business and we're all paid up, don't let your old mother
stand in your way?"

"Like you could be in my way!"

"Once I said to poor papa, the night we paid the mortgage off and had
wine for supper: 'Papa,' I said, 'we're out of debt now--_Gott sei
Dank!_--except one debt we owe to some girl when Abie grows up; and
that debt we got to pay with money that won't come from work and
struggle and saving; we got to pay that debt with our boy--with
_blood-money_.' Poor papa! Already he was asleep when I said it--half a
glass of wine, and he was mussy-headed."

"Yes, yes, mamma."

"A girl like Beulah Washeim I ain't got so much use for neither--with
her silk petticoats and silk stockings; but Sol Washeim's got a grand
business there, Abie. They don't move in a nine-room house from a
four-room apartment for nothing."

"For Beulah's weight in gold I don't want her--the way she looks at me
with her eyes and shoots 'em round like I was a three-ringed circus."

"You're right--for money you shouldn't marry neither; only I always say
it's just as easy to fall in love with a rich one as a poor one. But I'm
the last one to force you. There's Hannah Rosenblatt--a grand,
economical girl!"

"Hannah Rosenblatt--a girl that teaches scho