lf ever since I was cash-girl down at Tracy's, and I ain't going
to begin being bossed now. If you don't like my keeping steady with
Charley Chubb--if you don't like his sheet-music playing--you gotta
lump it! I'm a good girl, I am; and if you got anything to in-sinuate;
if--"

"Sara Juke, ain't you ashamed!"

"I'm a good girl, I am; and there ain't nobody can cast a reflection
on--on--"

Tears trembled in her voice and she coughed from the deep recesses of
her chest, and turned her head away, so that her profile was quivering
and her throat swelling with sobs.

"I--I'm a good girl, I am."

"Aw, Sara, don't I know it? Ain't that just where the rub comes? Don't I
know it? If you wasn't a good girl would I be caring?"

"I'm a good girl, I am!"

"It's your health, Sara, I'm kicking about. You're getting as pale and
skinny as a goop; and for a month already you've been coughing, and
never a single evening home to stick your feet in hot water and a
mustard plaster on your chest."

"Didn't I take the iron tonic and spoil my teeth?"

"My sister Lizzie--that's the way she started, Sara; right down here
in this basement. There never was a prettier little queen down here.
Ask any of the old girls. Like you in looks and all; full of vim too.
That's the way she started, Sara. She wouldn't get out in the country
on Sundays or get any air in her lungs walking with me evenings. She
was all for dance halls, too, Sara. She--she--Ain't I told you about
her over and over again? Ain't I?"

"Sh-h-h! Don't cry, Hat. Yes, yes; I know. She was a swell little kid;
all the old girls say so. Sh-h-h!"

"The--the night she died I--I died too; I--"

"Sh-h-h, dearie!"

"I ain't crying, only--only I can't help remembering."

"Listen! That's the new hit Charley's playin'--Up to Snuff! Say, ain't
that got some little swing to it? Dum-dum-tum-tee-tum-m-m! Some little
quick-step, ain't it? How that boy reads off by sight! Looka, will you?
They got them left-over ribbed undervests we sold last season for
forty-nine cents out on the grab table for seventy-four. Looka the
mob fighting for 'em! Dum-dum-tum-tee-tum-m-m!"

The day's tide came in. Slowly at first, but toward noon surging
through aisles and round bins, upstairs and downstairs--in, round
and out. Voices straining to be heard; feet shuffling in an
agglomeration of discords--the indescribable roar of humanity, which
is like an army that approaches but never arrives. And above it