rd to adjust the knifelike trouser
creases, swept backward a black, pomaded forelock and straightened an
accurate and vivid cravat.

"She's getting too fresh, I tell you, ma. If I catch her up round the
White Front drug-store with that fresh crowd of kids I'll slap her face
right there before them."

"Ach, at her age, Izzy, Miriam was just the same way, and now look how
fine a boy has got to be before that girl will look at him. Too fine, I
say!"

"Where's my hat, ma? I laid it here on the sewing-machine. Gee! the only
way for a fellow to keep his hat round this joint is to sit on it!"

A quick frown sprang between Mrs. Binswanger's eyes and she glanced at
her husband, hidden behind his barricade of newspaper. Her brow knotted
and her wide, uncorseted figure half rose toward him.

"Izzy, one night can't you stay at home and--"

"I ain't gone yet, am I, ma? Don't holler before you're hurt. There's a
fellow going to call for me at eight and we're going to a show--a good
fellow for me to know, Irving Shapiro, city salesman for the Empire
Waist Company. I ain't still in bibs, ma, that I got to be bossed where
I go nights."

"Ach, Izzy, for why can't you stay home this evening? Stay home and you
and Miriam and your friend sing songs together, and later I fix for you
some sandwiches--not, Izzy? A young man like Irving Shapiro I bet likes
it if you stay home with him once. Nice it will be for your sister,
too--eh, Izzy?"

Mrs. Binswanger's face, slightly sagging at the mouth from the ravages
of two recently extracted molars, broke into an invitational smile.

"Eh, Izzy?"

He found and withdrew his hat from behind a newspaper-rack and cast a
quick glance toward the form of his father, whose nether half, ending
in a pair of carpet slippers dangling free from his balbriggan heels,
protruded from the barricade of newspaper.

"That's right, just get the old man started on me, ma, too. When a
fellow travels six months out of the year in every two-by-four burg in
the Middle West, nagging like this is just what he needs when he gets
home."

"You know, Izzy, I'm the last one to start something."

"Then don't always ask a fellow where he's going, ma, and get pa started
too."

"You know that not one thing that goes on does papa hear when he reads
his paper, Izzy. Never one word do I say to him how I feel when you go,
only I--I don't like you should run out nights so late, Izzy. Next week
again already you go out on you