"Ha! Ha!" Peter, the pale, seized the excuse to drop back upon the cool grass. "How can you sit and lie?"
"Smarty, you're too fresh!" charged Ikey. "How can you sit und be lazy? Look vat stands on dis sun-dial!—Tempus Fugits. Dat means, 'De morning iss going.' So you pick up fast all de grass bits by de benches.—Und if somebody asks, 'Vere iss Mr. Farvel,' I says, 'I don't know,' und dat iss de truth. Because he iss gone oudt all night, und dat iss not nice for ministers." He shook his head at the lawn mower.
"Say, a woman wants to talk with Mrs. Milo," reminded the boy who was hanging out of the window.
"She can vant so much as she likes," returned Ikey, mowing calmly.
"Oo! You oughta heard her!—Shall I say she's gone?"
"Say she's gone, t'ank gootness," instructed Ikey. And as the boy precipitated himself backward out of sight, "Ach, dat's vat's wrong mit dis world!—de mutter business. Mrs. Milo, Mrs. Bunkum, und your mutter, und your mutter——"
"Aw, my mother's as good as your mother!" boasted Henry, chivalrously.
"Dat can't be. Because you nefer hat a mutter—you vas left in dat basket." He pointed. "Vasn't you? Und my mutter"—proudly—"she iss dead."
Peter lifted longing eyes. "Gee, I wish I had a mother."
"A-a-a-ah!" Ikey waggled a wise head. "You kids, you vould like goot mutters—und you git left in baskets. Und Momsey says dat lots of times mutters dat iss goot mutters, dey don't haf no children." Then to Henry, who, like Peter, had seized upon an excuse for pausing in his work, "Here! Git busy mit de shears! Ofer by de vall iss plenty schnippin'."