t nice, Izzy, you should use such talk to your mother. I tell
you it ain't so nice a son should tell his mother she should loosen up."

"I only meant, ma--"

"That's just how I feel, Simon, with the summer coming on I can't stand
no more long faces. Last year it was Arverne till a cottage we had to
take. Always in April already my troubles for the summer begin. One year
Miriam wants Arverne and Ray wants we should go to the mountains where
the Schimm girls go. This year, since she got in with them Lillianthal
girls, Miriam has to have Europe, and Ray wants to stay home so with
snips like Louie Ruah she can run with. I tell you when you got
daughters you don't know where--"

"Give 'em both a brain test, ma."

"Stop teasing your sister, Izzy. I always say with girls you got trouble
from the start and with boys it ain't no better. Between Arverne and--"

"Arverne! None of the swell crowd goes there any more, mamma."

"Swell! Let me tell you, Miriam, your papa and me never had time to be
swell when we was young. I remember the time when we couldn't afford
a trip to Coney Island, much less four weeks a cottage at
Arverne-next-to-the-sea. Ain't it, papa? I wish the word 'swell' I had
never heard. My son Isadore kicks to-night at supper because at hotels
on the road he gets fresh napkins with every meal. Now all of a sudden
my daughter gets such big notions in her head that nothing won't do for
her but Europe for a summer trip. I tell you, Simon, I don't wish a dog
to go through what I got to."

Mr. Binswanger let fall his newspaper to his knee.

"Na, na, mamma, for what you get excited? Ain't talk cheap enough for
you yet? Why shouldn't you let the children talk?"

Miss Binswanger inclined to her father's knee, her throat arched and
flexed. "Papa dear, it's a cheap trip. For what four weeks in a cottage
at Arverne-by-the-sea would cost the four of us could take one of those
tourists' trips through Europe. The Lillianthals, papa, for four hundred
and fifty dollars apiece landed in Italy and went straight through to--"

"The Lillianthals, Lillianthals," mimicked Mrs. Binswanger, sliding her
darning-egg down the length of a silken stocking. "I wish that name we
had never heard. All of a sudden now education like those girls you
think you got to have, music and--"

"Oh, mamma, honest, you just don't care how dumb us girls are. Look at
Ray and me, we haven't even got a common education like--"

"You can't say, Miriam