A one-inch square of newspaper clipping, apparently gouged from the
sheet with a hairpin, caught her eye from the top of one of the
gold-backed hairbrushes. Dawningly, Alma read.

It described in brief detail the innovation of a newly equipped
narcotic clinic on the Bowery below Canal Street, provided to medically
administer to the pathological cravings of addicts.

Fifteen minutes later Alma emerged from the Subway at Canal Street, and,
with three blocks toward her destination ahead, started to run.

At the end of the first block she saw her mother, in the sable coat and
the black-lace hat, coming toward her.

Her first impulse was to run faster and yoo-hoo, but she thought better
of it and, by biting her lips and digging her finger nails, was able to
slow down to a casual walk.

Carrie's fur coat was flaring open and, because of the quality of her
attire down there where the bilge waters of the city tide flow and eddy,
stares followed her.

Once, to the stoppage of Alma's heart, she saw Carrie halt and say a
brief word to a truckman as he crossed the sidewalk with a bill of
lading. He hesitated, laughed, and went on.

Then she quickened her pace and went on, but as if with a sense of being
followed, because constantly as she walked she jerked a step, to look
back, and then again, over her shoulder.

A second time she stopped, this time to address a little nub of a
woman without a hat and lugging one-sidedly a stack of men's basted
waistcoats, evidently for home work in some tenement. She looked and
muttered her un-understanding at whatever Carrie had to say, and
shambled on.

Then Mrs. Latz spied her daughter, greeting her without surprise or any
particular recognition.

"Thought you could fool me! Heh, Louis? I mean Alma."

"Mamma, it's Alma. It's all right. Don't you remember, we had this
appointment? Come, dear."

"No, you don't! That's a man following. Shh-h-h-h, Louis! I was fooling.
I went up to him in the clinic" (snicker) "and I said to him, 'Give you
five dollars for a doctor's certificate.' That's all I said to him,
or any of them. He's in a white carnation, Louis. You can find him by
the--it on his coat lapel. He's coming! Quick--"

"Mamma, there's no one following. Wait, I'll call a taxi!"

"No, you don't! He tried to put me in a taxi, too. No, you don't!"

"Then the Subway, dearest. You'll sit quietly beside Alma in the Subway,
won't you, Carrie? Alma's so tired."

Suddenly Carrie beg