"I'll give up the whole, but I won't give in on the clean. I can easily see how a woman could be too tired, too ill, or too busy to mend a garment; I can fancy her not knowing how to sew, or not having thread, needles, and patches; but, surely, surely, Mr. Martin, no one living is too poor to keep clean. Water is free, and it doesn't take long to take a bath. Besides—"
Gertrude looked at her mother with a smile. Then she said with her sarcastic little drawl again:—
"Russian, or Turkish?"
"Well, but fun' and nonsense aside, Gertrude," said her mother, "a plain hot bath at home would make a new creature out of half the wretches one sees or reads of, and—"
"Porcelain lined bath-tub, hot and cold water furnished at all hours. Bath-room adjoining each sleeping apartment," laughed Mr. Martin. "What a delightful idea you have of abject poverty, Mrs. Foster. I do wish Fred could have heard that last remark of yours. I went with his clerk one day to collect rents down in Mulberry Street. He had the collection of the rents for the Feedour estate on his hands—"
"What's that about the rents of the Feedour estate?" inquired the head of the house, extending his hand to their guest as he entered. Mrs. Foster put out her hand and her husband touched the tips of her fingers to his lips, while Gertrude slipped her arm through her father's and drew him to a seat beside her. Her eyes were dancing, and she showed a double row of the whitest of teeth.
"Oh, Mr. Martin was just explaining to mamma how your clerk collects rent for the porcelain bath-tubs in the Feedour property down in Mulberry Street. Mamma thinks that bath-rooms should be free—hot and cold water, and all convenient appointments."
Fred Foster looked at their guest for a moment, and then both men burst into a hearty laugh.
"I don't see anything to laugh at," protested Mrs. Foster. "Unless you are guying me for thinking Mr. Martin in earnest about the tubs being rented. I suppose, of course, the bath-rooms go with the apartments, and one rent covers the whole of it. In which case, I still insist that there is no reason why the poor can't be clean, and if they have only one suit of clothes, they can wash them out at night and have them dry next morning."
The men laughed again.