“Mr. Vetsburg, you—­you mustn’t listen to her.”

“Can’t take a day off for a rest at Atlantic City, because their old Easter dinner might go down the wrong side.  Honest, mama, to—­to think how you’re letting a crowd of old, flabby women that aren’t fit even to wipe your shoes make a regular servant out of you!  Mommy!”

There were tears in Miss Kaufman’s voice, actual tears, big and bright, in her eyes, and two spots of color had popped out in her cheeks.

“Ruby, when—­when a woman like me makes her living off her boarders, she can’t afford to be so particular.  You think it’s a pleasure I can’t slam the door right in Mrs. Katz’s face when six times a day she orders towels and ice-water?  You think it’s a pleasure I got to take sass from such a bad boy like Irving?  I tell you, Ruby, it’s easy talk from a girl that doesn’t understand. Ach, you—­you make me ashamed before Mr. Vetsburg you should run down to the people we make our living off of.”

Miss Kaufman flashed her vivid face toward Mr. Vetsburg, still low there in his chair.  She was trembling.  “Vetsy knows!  He’s the only one in this house does know!  He ’ain’t been here with us ten years, ever since we started in this big house, not—­not to know he’s the only one thinks you’re here for anything except impudence and running stairs and standing sass from the bad boys of lazy mothers.  You know, don’t you, Vetsy?”

“Ruby!  Mr. Vetsburg, you—­you must excuse—­”

From the depths of his chair Mr. Vetsburg’s voice came slow and carefully weighed.  “My only complaint, Mrs. Kaufman, with what Ruby has got to say is it ain’t strong enough.  It maybe ain’t none of my business, but always I have told you that for your own good you’re too gemuetlich.  No wonder every boarder what you got stays year in and year out till even the biggest kickers pay more board sooner as go.  In my business, Mrs. Kaufman, it’s the same, right away if I get too easy with—­”

“But, Mr. Vetsburg, a poor woman can’t afford to be so independent.  I got big expenses and big rent; I got a daughter to raise—­”

“Mama, haven’t I begged you a hundred times to let me take up stenography and get out and hustle so you can take it easy—­haven’t I?”

A thick coating of tears sprang to Mrs. Kaufman’s eyes and muddled the gaze she turned toward Mr. Vetsburg.  “Is it natural, Mr. Vetsburg, a mother should want her only child should have always the best and do always the things she never herself could afford to do?  All my life, Mr. Vetsburg, I had always to work.  Even when I was five months married to a man what it looked like would some day do big things in the wool business, I was left all of a sudden with nothing but debts and my baby.”

“But, mama—­”

“Is it natural, Mr. Vetsburg, I should want to work off my hands my daughter should escape that?  Nothing, Mr. Vetsburg, gives me so much pleasure she should go with all those rich girls who like her well enough poor to be friends with her.  Always when you take her down to Atlantic City on holidays, where she can meet ’em, it—­it—­”