"Yes?"
"Oh, it ain't nothing at all, Abie—never mind."
"I'm right here, mamma. Anything you want me to do?"
"Nothing. Good night, Abie."
"Good night, mamma."
At eight-fifteen Monday morning Miss Ruby Cohn blew into the Ginsburg & Son's shoe store like a breath of thirty-nine-cents-an-ounce perfume shot from a strong-spray atomizer. The street hung with the strong breath of Mayflower a full second after her small, tall-heeled feet had crossed its soft asphalt.
At the first whiff Mr. Ginsburg drew the upper half of his body out from a case of misses' ten-button welt soles he was unpacking and smiled as if Aurora and spring, and all the heyday misses that Guido Reni and Botticelli loved to paint, had suddenly danced into his shop.
"Well, well, Miss Ruby, are you back?"
Miss Cohn titillated toward the rear of the store, the tail of a cockatoo titillated at a sharp angle from her hat, a patent-leather handbag titillated from a long cord at her wrist, and a smile iridescent as sunlight on spray played about her lips. She placed her hand blinker-fashion against her mouth as if she would curb the smile.