aid he wanted to get in a business he could build up, right
away I seen what he meant."

"What?"

"Sure I seen it. I guess his father gives him six or seven thousand
dollars to get his start, and just so much he wants from the girl's
side. He can get it easy, too. If--if you'd fork over, pa, I--him and I
could start maybe together and--"

"You--you--"

"Your papa, Izzy, can do for his girl just like the best can do for
theirs Julius, can't you?"

"_Gott in Himmel!_ I--I--you--you pack of wolfs, you!"

"Such names you can't call your wife, Julius! Just let me tell you that!
Such names you can't call me!"

Anger trembled in Mrs. Binswanger's vocal cords like current running
over a wire. But Mr. Binswanger sprang suddenly to his feet and crashed
the white knuckles of his clenched fist down on the table with a force
that broke the flesh. The red lights of anger lay mirrored in the pool
of his eyes like danger lanterns on a dark bridge are reflected in black
water.

"Wolfs--wolfs, all of you! You--you--to-night you got me where I am at
an end! To-night you got to _know_--I--I can't keep it in no more--you
got--to _know_ to-night--to-night!"

His voice caught in a tight knot of strangulation; he was dithering and
palsied.

"To-night--you--you got to know!"

A sudden trembling took Mrs. Binswanger.

"For God's sakes, know what, Julius--know what?"

"I'm done for! I'm gone under! Till it happened you wouldn't believe me.
Two years I seen it coming, two years I been fightin' and
fightin'--fightin' it by myself! And now for yourselves you look in the
papers two weeks from to-morrow, the first of March, and see--I'm done
for--I'm gone under, I--"

"Julius--my God, you--you ain't, Julius, you ain't!"

His voice rose like a gale.

"I'm gone under--I ain't got twenty cents on the dollar. I'm gone,
Becky. Beat up! To-morrow two weeks the creditors, they're on me! My
last extension expires, and they're on me. I been fightin' and fightin'.
Twenty cents on the dollar I can't meet, Becky--I can't, Becky, I can't!
I been fightin' and fightin', but I can't, Becky--I--can't! I'm gone!"

"Pa."

"Julius, Julius, for God's sakes, you--you don't mean it,
Julius--you--don't--mean it--you're fooling us--Julius!"

Small, cold tears welled to the corners of his eyes.

"I'm gone, Becky--and now he--he wants the shirt off my back--he can
have it, God knows. But--but--_ach_, Becky--I--I wish I could have saved
_you_--but tha