"Paula Krausnick only got C in de-portment. When the monitor passed the basin, she dipped her sponge soppin'-wet."
"Anything new, ma?"
Mrs. Hassiebrock, now at the sink, swabbed a dish with gray water.
"My feet's killin' me," she said.
Miss Ida Bell, who wore her hair in a coronet wound twice round her small head, crossed her knife and fork on her plate, folded her napkin, and tied it with a bit of blue ribbon.
"I think it's a shame, ma, the way you keep thumping around in your stocking feet like this was backwoods."
"I can't get my feet in shoes—the joints—"
"You thump around as much as you darn please, ma. If Ida Bell don't like the looks of you, let her go home with some of her swell stenog friends. You let your feet hurt you any old way you want 'em to. I'm going to buy you some arnica. Pass the kohlrabi."
"Well, my swell 'stenog friends,' as you call them, keep themselves self-respecting girls without getting themselves talked about, and that's more than I can say of my sister. If ma had the right kind of gumption with you, she'd put a stop to it, all right."
Mrs. Hassiebrock leaned her tired head sidewise into the moist palm of her hand.