“And I! How about me being shut up in a shop all week with a bunch of silly girls, working like a dog—and when I do pull off a deal to have Mamma fall down on her part? I can’t get over it—losing the things.”
“Now, now, boy!” and the goodnatured growl bordered on anger. “Let Mamma be! It was unavoidable. Has she not already wept oceans of tears? What are a few yards of wretched lace and a bit bauble of a gold bag to poor Mamma’s feelings? Let be, mon fils, and try again. A few more hauls and we will have enough to set up a small shop in the great metropolis.”
“Not for me! I’m through I tell you—through for good and all. I’m sick of the whole wretched business. You and Mamma can keep on being foreigners all you want but I’m an American boy—almost a man—and I want to pull loose. I could make as much money walking straight as I do crooked.” His voice rose angrily and Josie felt that the boy was on the verge of tears in spite of his assertion that he was almost a man.
“Shut the window!” roared the father. “Such foolish babble is enough to start the whole neighborhood talking!”
“Now, now!” soothed the woman’s voice. “Don’t you and Papa quarrel. I know my little Roy will not what you call pull out yet and leave poor Mamma before she gets enough pretty things to start a little boutique. Shut the window like a gentle boy because the air may make Papa sick.”
“How can air make one sick who sits all day on a sidewalk?”
“And now you reproach poor Papa and Mamma because they sit all day and sell the pencils and shoe strings and paperrs,” whined the woman, though it was easy to grasp that the whine in her voice was pure burlesque. “Was I made for such a life? No, I tell you, nevaire!”
At this juncture the window was closed with a vigorous slam and the eavesdropper heard no more. She had heard quite enough however to set her steady little heart a thumping.
“I am almost as big an idiot as my worthy brother in arms, Major Simpson,” Josie took herself to task. “Anybody with a grain of sense would have known all along what I had to open a window to find out. Thank goodness for the over zealous janitor. I’ll give him a generous tip to-morrow. But mercy on us, how carefully I must go now. I can hardly trust myself not to burst in on the Leslies and tell them the whole thing. One thing I know, I must call in help from the police department, as much as I hate to get any clumsy folks mixed up in this. I know what I’ll do—” She made a feverish dive for her hat and jacket, and grabbing up her gloves rushed through the living room, saying in passing:
“Expect me back when you see me but know that I am not running off for more than an hour or so.”