't hurt us. I
tell you we don't get younger each day."

He regarded his wife with eyes rolled backward. "That's what I need yet,
Carrie, all of a sudden you take sides away from me. Always round your
little finger your children could always wind themselves."

"Na, Simon, when I see a thing I see it. With Izzy out on his trip these
next two months it won't hurt us. So crazy for Europe you know I ain't,
but when you got children you got to make sacrifice for them."

"I--"

"For ten weeks, Simon, you can stand it, and me too."

"I--"

"For ten weeks, Simon, if we go on that boat she wants that sails away
on June twentieth--it's a fine boat, she says."

"June twentieth I don't go. July twentieth I got to be back when my men
go out on the road--"

"Then shoot 'em over this month, pa. Max can--"

"There's a boat two weeks from to-day, pa, see here in the booklet, the
same boat, the _Roumania,_ only on this month's sailing. We can get
ready easy, papa, we--oh, we can get ready easy."

"Ach, Miriam, in two weeks how can we get together our things for a trip
like that?"

"Easy, mamma, I tell you I--I'll do all the shopping and packing and
everything."

"'Sh-h-h-h, I 'ain't promised yet. I tell you if anybody would tell me
two days ago to Europe I got to go this month, right away I wouldn't
have believed 'em!"

"Ach, Simon, you think yet it's a pleasure for me? You think for me it's
a pleasure to shut up my flat and leave it for two months? You think
it's easy to leave Izzy, even when he's 'way out West on his trip? You
think it's easy to leave that boy with the whole ocean between?"

"Aw, ma, cut the comedy!"

"Ten times, Simon, I rather stay right here in my flat, but--"

"Then right away on the whole thing I put down my foot."

"Papa!"

"No, no, Simon, I want we should go. Girls nowadays, Simon, got to be
smart--not in the kitchen, but in the head."

"Be a sport, pa."

"It's enough I got a son what's a sport."

"Only a little over two months, papa. Two weeks from to-day we can get a
booking. To-morrow I'll go down to the steamship offices and fix it all
up; I know all about it, papa; there isn't a booklet I haven't read."

"Na, na, I--"

"Simon, in all your life not one thing have you refused me. In all my
life, Simon, have I made on you one demand? Answer me, Simon, eh? Answer
your wife." She placed her thimbled hand across his knee, peering
through dim eyes up into his face. "Eh, Simon, in thir