standing--or the trilogy of
them all.

"Come along, Ruby-la!"

Through the rear of the store and up a winding back stairway they
marched like glorified children; and at the first landing he must pause
and kiss away the words of fear and nervousness from her lips and look
into her diffident eyes with the same rapture that was Jupiter's when he
gazed on Antiope.

"Such a little scarey she is--like mamma was going to bite!"

At the top of the flight the door of the apartment stood open; a blob of
gas lighted a yellowish way to the kitchen, and through the yellow Mrs.
Ginsburg's voice drifted out to them:

"Once more I call you, Abie, and then I dish up supper and eat alone--no
consideration that boy has got for his mother! He should know what it is
not to have a mother who fixes him _Pfannkuechen_ in this heat! Don't
complain to me if everything is not fit to eat! In the heat I stand and
cook, and that boy closes so late--Abie! Once more I call you and then I
dish up. Ab-ie!" Mrs. Ginsburg's voice rose to an acidulated high C.

"Mamma! Mamma, don't get so excited--it ain't late. The days get
shorter, that's all. Look! I brought company for supper. We don't stand
on no ceremony. Come right in the kitchen, Ruby."

Mr. Ginsburg pushed Miss Cohn into the room before him, and Mrs.
Ginsburg raised her face from over the steaming stove-top--the pink of
heat and exertion high in her cheek. Reflexly her hand clutched at the
collar of her black wrapper, where it fell away to reveal the line where
the double scallop of her chin met the high swell of her bosom.

"Miss Cohn! Miss Cohn!"

"How do you do, Mrs. Ginsburg? I--"

"Sit right down, Miss Cohn--or you and Abie go in the front room till I
dish up. You must excuse me the way I holler, but so mad that boy makes
me. Just like his poor papa, he makes a long face if his supper is cold,
but not once does he come up on time."

"All men are alike, Mrs. Ginsburg--that's what they say about 'em
anyway."

"Such a supper we got you'll have to excuse, Miss Cohn. Abie, take them
German papers off the chair. Miss Cohn can sit out here a minute if she
don't mind such heat. If Abie had taken the trouble to tell me you was
coming I'd have fixed--"

"I am glad you don't fix no extras for me, Mrs. Ginsburg. I like to take
just pot-luck."

"Abie likes _Pfannkuechen_ and pot-roast better than the finest I can fix
him, and this morning at Fulton Market I seen such grand green beans;