that they
can't 'ave none of it. I felt that myself before I worked up to where
I am now. 'Ere in New York a poor boy or a poor girl can't go out into
the street without seein' the things they're cryvin' for in their
insides flaunted at 'em like--shook in their fyces--while the law and
the police and the church and everythink what mykes our life says to
'em, 'There's none o' this for you.'"

"Well, money would buy it, wouldn't it?"

"Money'd buy it if money knew what to buy. But it don't. Mr. Rash must
'ave noticed that there's nothink 'elplesser than the people with
money what don't know 'ow to spend it. I used to be that wye myself
when I'd 'ave a little cash. I wouldn't know what to blow myself to
what wouldn't be like them vulgar new-rich. But the new-rich is vulgar
only because our life 'as put the 'orse before the cart with 'em, as
you might sye, in givin' them the money before showin' 'em what to do
with it."

Having straightened the lines of magazines to the last fraction of an
inch he found a further excuse for lingering by moving back into their
accustomed places the chairs which had been disarranged.

"You 'ave to get the syme kind of 'ang of things as you and me've got,
Mr. Rash, to know what it is you want, and 'ow to spend your money
wise like. Pleasure isn't just in 'avin' things; it's in knowin'
what's good to 'ave and what ain't. Now this young lydy'd be like a
child with a dime sent into a ten-cent store to buy whatever 'e'd
like. There's so many things, and all the syme price, that 'e's kind
of confused like. First 'e thinks it'll be one thing, and then 'e
thinks it'll be another, and 'e ends by tykin' the wrong thing,
because 'e didn't 'ave nothink to tell 'im 'ow to choose. Mr. Rash
wouldn't want a young lydy to whom 'e's indebted, as you might sye, to
be like that, now would 'e?"

"It doesn't seem to me that I've got anything to do with it. If I
offer her the money, and can get her to take it----"

"That's where she strikes me as wiser than Mr. Rash, for all she don't
know but so little. That much she knows by hinstinck."

"Then what am I going to do?"

"That'd be for Mr. Rash to sye. If it was me----"

The necessity for getting an armchair exactly beneath a portrait
seemed to cut this sentence short.

"Well, if it was you--what then?"

"Before I'd give 'er money I'd teach 'er the 'ang of our kind o' life,
like. That's what she's aichin' and cryvin' for. A born lydy she is,
and 'ank