"Mush nothing! It's the truth."
"Hurry. Schulem's got a new rule—no reserving the guest-table."
They let themselves be swept into the great surge of the underground river with all of the rather thick-skinned unsensitiveness to shoulder-to-shoulder contact which the Subway engenders. Swaying from straps in a locked train, which tore like a shriek through a tube whose sides sweated dampness, they talked in voices trained to compete with the roar.
"What's the idea, Clara? When you telephoned yesterday I was afraid maybe it was—Eddie Leonard cutting in on my night again."
"Eddie nothing. Is it a law, Sam, that I have to eat off your mother every Wednesday night of my life?"
"No—only—you know how it is when you get used to things one way."
"I told you I had something to talk over, didn't I?"
They were rounding a curve now, so that they swayed face to face, nose to nose.
A few crinkles, frequent with him of late, came out in rays from his eyes.
"Is it anything you—you couldn't say in front of ma?"