"Good-by, Mrs. Ginsburg. Ach, that's right—I forgot; Birdie, write down Maggie's address for Mrs. Ginsburg. You try her once. She brings home the clothes so white it's a pleasure to put them away. Tell her I recommended her. I wish you could see Birdie's shirt-waists come home from the wash—just like new!"
"I'll try her next week," said Mrs. Ginsburg, buckling her fur neckpiece.
"Give Adolph my love, Batta. Birdie, help Aunt Batta with her coat. Come over some evening soon. Good-by, ladies! Come again. Good-by! Be careful of that step there, Mrs. Gump. Good-by!"
Mrs. Katzenstein clicked the door softly shut and turned to her daughter. There were high red spots on her cheeks.
"Well," she sighed, "I'm glad that's over."
"Me, too; and I'm sorry enough that Mrs. Gump didn't win those salt-cellars."
"Such a grand woman as she is—plain and unassuming! He left her real comfortable, too—not much, but enough for herself. But, to look at her in that plain black dress, you wouldn't think that she had a son that might be made manager of the Loeb factory, would you?"
"It is so," agreed Birdie, nibbling from a half-emptied candy-dish on one of the tables; "and that's just the way with Marcus last night—it was only accident that he let out that him and Louis Epstein might have an automobile."
"Plain and unassuming people!" Mrs. Katzenstein exclaimed.
"I says to him when we were in the taxi, I says: 'Automobile-riding sure is grand!' Then he says: 'If something I'm hoping for happens in a couple of days, me and Louis Epstein are going to buy one of those five-hundred-dollar roadsters together. Then we can have a swell time together, Birdie!' Just like that he said it."