“What good it does me to be mad?  I might just so well be glad as mad.  My little Miriam-sha, my little Miriam-sha!” And he fell to blinking as if with gritty eyelids.

“Simon—­ach, Simon—­you—­ach, my husband, you—­you ain’t crying, you—­”

“Go ’way, Carrie, with such nonsense!  You women don’t know yet the difference between a laff and a cry.  Well, Shapiro, you play me a fine trick, eh?”

“It wasn’t a trick, Mr. Binswanger—­pa, it was—­”

“All off!  All off!” And a third great blast sounded that set the tumblers rattling in their stands.

“I guess me—­me and Irving’s got to get off now, mamma—­”

Mrs. Binswanger grasped her husband’s arm in sudden panic.  “Simon, I—­I think as we should get off and go home with them.  I—­”

“Now, now, mamma, don’t get excited!  No, no, you mustn’t!  We will keep house fine for you until you come back.  See, mamma!  I have the key, and everything’s fixed.  See, mamma!  You got to go, mamma.  Ray should see Europe before she finds out there—­there’s just one thing that’s better than going to Europe.  Please, mamma, don’t get excited.  I tell you we’ll have things fine when you come back.  Won’t we, Irving, won’t we?”

“Ach, nothing in the house, Miriam.”

“We got to get off now, Miriam dear, we got to.  You can write us about those things, Mrs. Binswanger—­mamma.  Come, Miriam!”

“Yes, yes, Irving.  Now don’t cry, mamma, please!  When everybody is so happy it’s a sin to cry.”

“Not a stitch on her wedding-day!  All her clothes locked up here on the boat!  Let me open the top tray of the trunk, Miriam, and give you your toothbrush and a few waists—­Ach, nearly crazy I am!  How I built for that girl’s wedding when it—­”

“Come, mamma, come—­”

They were jamming up the crowded stairway and out to the sun-washed deck.  Women in gay corsages and bright-colored veils strolled with an air of immediate adjustment.  Men already in steamer caps and tweeds leaned against the railings.  Travelers were rapidly separating themselves from stay-at-homes.  Already the near-side decks were lined with faces, some wet-eyed and some smiling, and all with kerchiefs or small flags ready for adieus.

“All off!  All off!”

“Good-by, mamma darling.  Don’t worry!”

“Irving, you be good to my Miriam.  It’s just like you got from me a piece of my heart.  Be good to my baby, Irving.  Be good!”

Ray tugged at her mother’s skirts. “’Sh-h-h-h, mamma, the whole boat don’t need to know.”

“Be good to her, Irving!”

“Like I—­just like I could be anything else to her, mamma!”

“Good-by, mamma darling.  Don’t cry so, I tell you!  Let me go, please, mamma, please!  Good-by, papa darling, take good care of yourself and—­I—­just love you, papa!  Ray, have a grand time and don’t miss none of it.  That’s right, kiss Irving; he’s your brother-in-law now.  Don’t cry, mamma darling!  Good-by!  Good-by!”