Isadore relaxed to the couch once more, pillowed his head on interlaced hands, yawned to the ceiling, blew two columns of cigarette-smoke through his nostrils, and watched them curl upward.
"This ain't so worse, pa."
"I go me to bed."
"For a little while, Julius, can't you stay up? At nine o'clock comes Max to see Poil. I always say a young man thinks more of a young girl when her parents stay in the room a minute."
Isadore fitted his thumbs in his waistcoat armholes and flung one reclining limb over the other.
"What Max Teitlebaum thinks of Pearlie I already know. To-day he invited me to lunch with him."
"Izzy!"
"Izzy! Why you been so close-mouthed?"
Mrs. Binswanger threw her short, heavy arm full length across the table-top and leaned toward her son, so that the table-lamp lighted her face with its generous scallop of chin and exacerbated the concern in her eyes.
"You had lunch to-day with Max Teitlebaum, and about Poil you talked!"