"Where you been at?" asked Uncle Jed, who was cutting himself a slice of bread from the loaf.
"I been down helpin' the new tenant move in on the first floor."
"Any childern?" asked Nance and Lobelia in one breath.
"No; just a foreign-lookin' old gentleman, puttin' on as much airs as if he was movin' into the Walderastoria. Nobody knows his name or where he comes from. Ike Lavinski says he plays the fiddle at the theayter. Talk about your helpless people! I had to take a hand in gettin' his things unloaded. He liked to never got done thankin' me."
Mr. Snawdor, who had been sitting in dejected silence before his untouched food, pushed his plate back and sighed deeply.
"Now, fer heaven sake, Snawdor," began his wife in tones of exasperation, "can't I do a kind act to a neighbor without a-rufflin' yer feathers the wrong way?"
"I cleaned up yer room while you was gone," said Nance, eager to divert the conversation from Mr. Snawdor. "Uncle Jed an' me carried the trash down an' it filled the ash barrel clean up to the top."
"Well, I hope an' pray you didn't throw away my insurance book. I was aimin' to clean up, myself, to-morrow. What on earth's the matter with Rosy Velt?"
Rosy, who had been banished to the kitchen for misbehavior, had been conducting a series of delicate experiments, with disastrous results. She had been warned since infancy never to put a button up her nose, but Providence having suddenly placed one in her way, and at the same time engaged her mother's attention elsewhere, the opportunity was too propitious to be lost.
Nance took advantage of her stepmother's sudden departure to cheer up
Mr. Snawdor.