e harum-scarum like--like she is."

He took up her hat, a small turban of breast feathers, laid out on the
table beside him, and advanced with it clumsily enough. "Come," he said,
"please now, Mrs. Kaufman. Please."

"I--"

"I--I got plans made for us to-morrow down by the shore that's--that's just
fine! Come now, Mrs. Kaufman."

"Please, Mr. Vetsburg, don't force. I--I can't! I always say nobody can
ever count on such a little harum-scarum as--"

"You mean to tell me, Mrs. Kaufman, that just because a little shyster
doctor--"

Her hand closed over the long envelope again, crunching it. "No, no,
that--that ain't all, Mr. Vetsburg. Only I don't want you should tell Ruby.
You promise me? How that child worries over little things. Shulif from the
agency called up just now. He don't give me one more minute as two this
afternoon I--I should sign. How I been putting them off so many weeks with
this lease it's a shame. Always you know how in the back of my head I've
had it to take maybe a smaller place when this lease was done, but, like I
say, talk is cheap and moving ain't so easy done--ain't it? If he puts in
new plumbing in the pantry and new hinges on the doors and papers my second
floor and Mrs. Suss's alcove, like I said last night, after all I could do
worse as stay here another five year--ain't it, Mr. Vetsburg?"

"I--"

"A house what keeps filled so easy, and such a location, with the Subway
less as two blocks. I--So you see, Mr. Vetsburg, if I don't want I come
back and find my house on the market, maybe rented over my head, I got to
stay home for Shulif when he comes to-day."

A rush of dark blood had surged up into Mr. Vetsburg's face, and he
twiddled his hat, his dry fingers moving around inside the brim.

"Mrs. Kaufman," he cried--"Mrs. Kaufman, sometimes when for years a man
don't speak out his mind, sometimes he busts all of a sudden right out.
I--Oh--e-e-e!" and, immediately and thickly inarticulate, made a tremendous
feint at clearing his throat, tossed up his hat and caught it; rolled his
eyes.

"Mr. Vetsburg?"

"A man, Mrs. Kaufman, can bust!"

"Bust?"

He was still violently dark, but swallowing with less labor. "Yes, from
holding in. Mrs. Kaufman, should a woman like you--the finest woman in the
world, and I can prove it--a woman, Mrs. Kaufman, who in her heart and
my heart and--Should such a woman not come to Atlantic City when I got
everything fixed like a stage set!"

She threw out