“Tell him,” says the mother in Hungarian, “that the name is Strakow.”
“Strakow,” repeats the daughter.
“Strakow, eh?” says the inspector. “Well, I’ll see Mr. Strakow. You must not work on these any more. Do you hear? Listen, you,” and he turns the little girl’s face up to him, “you tell your father that he can’t do any more of this work until he gets a license. He must go up to No. 1 Madison Avenue and get a paper. I don’t know whether they’ll give it to him or not, but he can go and ask. Then he must clean this floor. The ceiling must be whitewashed—see?”
The little girl nods her head.
“You can’t keep this bed in here, either,” he adds. “You must move the bed out into the other room if you can. You mustn’t work here. Only one can work here. Two of you must go out into the shop.”
All the time the careworn parents are leaning forward eagerly, trying to catch the drift of what they cannot possibly understand. Both interrupt now and then with a “What is it?” in Hungarian, which the daughter has no time to heed. She is so busy trying to understand half of it herself that there is no time for explanation. Finally she says to her parents:
“He says we cannot all work here.”
“Vot?” says the father. “No vork?”
“No,” replies the daughter. “Three of us can’t work in one room. It’s against the law. Only one. He says that only one can work in this room.”
“How!” he exclaims, as the little girl goes on making vaguely apparent what these orders are. As she proceeds the old fellow’s face changes. His wife leans forward, her whole attitude expressive of keen, sympathetic anxiety.