"How she plays favorite, it's a shame. I wish you'd look, too, Mrs. Finshriber, how Flora Proskauer carries away from the table her glass of milk with slice bread on top. I tell you it don't give tune to a house the boarders should carry away from the table like that. Irving, come and take with you that extra piece cake. Just so much board we pay as Flora Proskauer."
The line about the table broke suddenly, attended with a scraping of chairs and after-dinner chirrupings attended with toothpicks. A blowsy maid strained herself immediately across the strewn table and cloying lamb platter, and turned off two of the three gas jets.
In the yellow gloom, the odors of food permeating it, they filed out and up the dim lit stairs into dim-lit halls, the line of conversation and short laughter drifting after.
A door slammed. Then another. Irving Katz leaped from his third floor threshold to the front hearth, quaking three layers of chandeliers. From Morris Krakower's fourth floor back the tune of a flute began to wind down the stairs. Out of her just-closed door Mrs. Finshriber poked a frizzled gray head.
"Ice-water, ple-ase, Mrs. Kauf-man."
At the door of the first floor back Mrs. Kaufman paused with her hand on the knob.
"Mama, let me run and do it."
"Don't you move, Ruby. When Annie goes up to bed it's time enough. Won't you come in for a while, Mr. Vetsburg?"
"Don't care if I do".
She opened the door, entering cautiously. "Let me light up, Mrs. Kaufman." He struck a phosphorescent line on the sole of his shoe, turning up three jets.