Joe nodded a dripping head.
"Well, I'll jes' git yer money out of yer coat while I think about it," she went on as she rummaged in his pocket and brought out nine dollars.
"Leave me a quarter," demanded Joe, gasping beneath his soap-suds.
"All right," said Mrs. Ridder accommodatingly; "now that Bob and Ike are gitting fifty cents a day, it ain't so hard to make out. I'll be gittin' a new dress first thing, you know."
"I seen one up at the corner!" said Joe.
"A new dress?"
"Naw, a dressmaker. She's got out her sign."
"What's her name?" asked Mrs. Ridder, keen with interest.
"Mrs. R. Beaver, Modiste," repeated Joe from the sign that floated in letters of gold in his memory.
"I knowed a Mrs. Beaver wunst, up on Eleventh Street—a big, fat woman that got in a fuss with the preacher and smacked his jaws."