"Ain't I told you I ain't hungry, mamma?"
"When that boy don't eat he's sick. I should worry yet! Poor papa! If he'd listened to me he'd be living to-day. I'm your worst enemy—I am! I work against my own child—that's the thanks what I get."
Sappho, who never wore a gingham wrapper and whose throat was unwrinkled and full of music, never sang more surely than did Mrs. Ginsburg into the heart-cells of her son. He reached out for her wrapper and drew her to him.
"Aw, mamma, you know I don't mean nothing; just when you get all worried over nothing it makes me mad. Come, sit down by me."
"To-night we don't go up to Washeims'. I care a lot for Yetta's talk—her Beulah this and her Beulah that! It makes me sick!"
"I'll take you up, mamma, if you want to go."
"Indeed, you stay where you are! For their front steps and refreshments I don't need to ride in the Subway to Harlem anyway."
"What's the difference? A little evening's pleasure won't hurt you, mamma."
"Such a lunch as she served last time! I got better right now in my ice-box, and I ain't expecting company. They can buy and sell us, too, I guess. Sol Washeim don't take a nine-room house when boys' pants ain't booming—but such a lunch as she served! You can believe me, I wouldn't have the nerve to. Abie, I see Herschey's got fall cloth-tops in their windows already."
"Yes?"