"Well, Tecla," I asked for something to say, "how are you getting on?"
"Ach!" she answered disgusted, and pounded over the creaky floor to a cupboard out of which she took some dishes. "Me? I get out. What for do I stay? No luck here, no money. Who comes—nobody. Everything goes on the blink."
She put the things on the table and then stood looking at me, squinting up her little eyes and with her big body, in a dirty white blouse and a skirt that didn't meet it at the waist, slouched up against the table.
"I heard business was bad," I said, and thought that in spite of her being such a coarse, fat animal, she was rosy and healthy looking, which was more than you could say for the other two.
"What do I get?" she said, spreading out her great red hands, "not a thing. Maybe five, ten cents. Every long time maybe a quarter. Since that lady gets killed all goes bad. The dagoes say 'evil eye.' They walk round the house that way," she made a half-circle in the air with her arm, "looking at it afraid. Me, too, I don't like it."
"It sure is awful dismal," I agreed.
"No good," she said. "Last year this time all the room full—to-night—one man"—she held up a finger in the air—"one only man, and he have lost what makes us to laugh. When I see him, I say, 'Hein, Tito, good luck now you come. Make the bear to dance.' And he says this way"—she hunched up her shoulders and pushed out her hands the way the Guineas do—"'Oh, Gawda, there is no more bear; he makes dead long time.'"
"Bear?" I said, and then I remembered. "You mean the one that went round with the acrobats. It's dead, is it?"
Tecla nodded.
"Gone dead in the country. And he says he starve now with no bear to get pennies. The boss says we all starve, and gave him a drink and cheese and bread. Ach!"—she shook her head, as if the loss of the bear was the last straw—"I no can stand it—nothing doing, no money, no more laughs—I quit."