“’Sh-h-h-h, Miriam, don’t you cry.”

“Ach, now, Carrie—­”

“I tell you, Simon, I ’ain’t been a wife that has made such demands on you, but I guess you think it’s a comfort that a mother should hear that in society her daughter has to take a back seat.”

“When she ’ain’t got a front seat she should take a second seat.  I don’t need no seat.  I know worse young men as Sollie Spitz and Eddie Greenbaum what comes here to see her.”

“Just the same you—­you said to me the other night, papa, that I never seem to meet young men like Adolph Gans, fellows who are in business for themselves.”

“Ja, but I—­”

“Well, where do you think Elsa Bergenthal met Adolph, but on the ship?”

“You hear, Simon:  Moe Bergenthal, who sells shirtwaists for you right this minute, can afford to send his daughter to Europe.”

“Ja, I guess that’s why he sells shirtwaists for me instead of for himself.”

“See, papa, she—­”

“That’s right, get him cornered, ma!  Go to it, Miriam!”

“Du, du good-for-nothings dude, du!”

“Be a sport, pa!”

“Ach, Simon—­”

“Ach, you women make me sick!  In the old country, I tell you, I got no business.  All the Eyetalians what I want to see I can see down on Cherry Street—­for less as two thousand dollar too.”

“Why—­why, that’s no way to learn about ’em, papa.  You just ought to see me take a back seat when Lilly Lillianthal gets out her post-cards and begins telling about the real ones.”

Mrs. Binswanger took on a private tone, peering close into her husband’s face.  “You hear that, Simon?  Mark Lillianthal, what failed regular like clockwork before he moved up-town, his daughter can make our Miriam feel small.  You hear that, Simon?”

His daughter’s arms were soft about his neck, tight, tighter.  “Papa, please!  For a couple of thousand we can take that beau-tiful trip I showed you in the booklet.  Card-rooms on the steamer, papa.  Hannah told me all summer her father played pinochle in Germany, father, right outdoors where they drink beer and eat rye-bread sandwiches all day.  In Germany we can even stop at Dusseldorf where you were born, papa—­just think, papa, where you were born!  In Italy we can make Ray look at the pictures and statues, and all day you can sit outdoors and—­and play cards, papa.  Just think, papa, by the time you have to buy us swell clothes for Arverne I tell you it will cost you more.  All Lilly Lillianthal needed for Europe, mamma, was a new blue suit.”

“Go way—­go way with such nonsense, I tell you!” “And how you and papa can rest up, mamma.”  “She’s right, Simon; such a trip won’t hurt us.  I tell you we don’t get younger each day.”

He regarded his wife with eyes rolled backward.  “That’s what I need yet, Carrie, all of a sudden you take sides away from me.  Always round your little finger your children could always wind themselves.”