“I show you who is it should be foolish in the head!” she told him triumphantly.

“You got me, Minna—­I admit it.”

The victim pretended to be downcast, and ate his bread and cheese dejectedly.  Minna went to another table to tell over the choice bit.

The Wilbur twin ate bread and cheese and looked with interest about the room.  The tables and woodwork were dark, the walls and ceiling also low in tone.  But there were some fine decorative notes that stood brightly out.  On one wall was a lovely gold-framed picture in which a young woman of great beauty held back a sumptuous curtain revealing a castle on the Rhine set above a sunny terrace of grapevines.  On the opposite wall was a richly coloured picture of a superb brewery.  It was many stories in height; smoke issued from its chimneys, and before it stood a large truck to which were hitched two splendid horses.  The truck was being loaded with the brewery’s enlivening product.  The brewery was red, the truck yellow, the horses gray, and the workmen were clad in blue, and above all was a flawless sky of blue.  It was a spirited picture, and the Wilbur twin was instantly enamoured of it.  He wished he might have seen this yesterday, when he was rich.  Maybe Mr. Vielhaber would have sold it.  He thought regretfully of Winona’s delight at receiving the beautiful thing to hang on the wall of the parlour, a fit companion piece to the lion picture.  But he had spent his money, and this lovely thing could never be Winona’s.

Discussion of world affairs still went forward between Rapp, Senior, and the Advance editor.  Even in that day the cost of living was said to be excessive, and Rapp, Senior, though accounting for its rise by the iniquity of the interests, submitted that the cost of women’s finery was what kept the world poor.

“It’s women’s tomfool dressing keeps us all down.  Look what they pay for their silks and satins and kickshaws and silly furbelows!  That’s where the bulk of our money goes:  bonnets and high-heeled slippers and fancy cloaks.  Take the money spent for women’s foolish truck and see what you’d have!” Rapp, Senior, gazed about him, looking for contradiction.

“He’s right,” said Dave Cowan.  “He’s got the truth of it.  But, my Lord!  Did you ever think what women would be without all that stuff?  Look what it does for ’em!  Would you have ’em look like us?  Would you have a beautiful woman wear a cheap suit of clothes like Rapp’s got on, and a hat bought two years ago?  Not in a thousand years!  We dress ’em up that way because we like ’em that way.”

Rapp, Senior, dusted the lapel of his coat, tugged at his waistcoat to straighten it, and closely regarded a hat that he had supposed beyond criticism.

“That’s all right,” he said, “but look where it gets us!”

Presently the discussion ended—­Rapp, Senior, still on the note of pessimism and in the fell clutch of the interests—­for the debaters must go blamelessly home to their suppers.  Only the mayor remained at his game with Herman, his gray, shaven old face bent above his cards while he muttered at them resentfully.  Dave Cowan ate his bread and cheese with relish and invoked another stein of beer from Minna, who vindictively flung her jest at him again as she brought it.