“Yes; sell me off—­sell me off—­like cattle!”

Tears, blinding, scalding, searing, rushed down her cheeks, and her smooth bosom, where the wrapper fell away to reveal it, heaved with the storm beneath.

“But you can’t sell me—­you can’t!  You can’t keep nagging to get me married off.  I can get out, but I won’t be married out!  If I wasn’t afraid of papa, with his heart, I’d tell him so, too.  I’d tell him so now.  I won’t be married out—­I won’t be married out!  I won’t!  I won’t!”

Mrs. Shongut clasped her cheeks in the vise of her two hands.  “Married out!  She reproaches me yet—­a mother that would go through fire for her children’s happiness!”

“Always you’re making me uncomfortable that I’m not married yet—­not papa or Izzy, but you—­you!  Never does one of the girls get engaged that you don’t look at me like I was wearing the welcome off the door-mat.”

“Listen to my own child talk to me!  No wonder you cry so hard, Renie Shongut, to talk to your mother like that—­a girl that I’ve indulged like you.  To sass her mother like that!  A man like Max Hochenheimer comes along, a man where the goodness looks out of his face, a man what can give her every comfort; and, because he ain’t a fine talker like that long-haired Sollie Spitz, she—­”

“You leave him out!  Anyways, he’s got fine feeling for something besides—­sausages.”

“Is it a crime, Renie, that I should want so much your happiness?  Your papa’s getting a old man now, Renie; I won’t always be here, neither.”

“For the love of Mike, what’s the row?  Can’t a fellow get any beauty sleep round this here shebang?  What are you two cutting up about?”

The portieres parted to reveal Mr. Isadore Shongut, pressed, manicured, groomed, shaved—­something young about him; something conceited; his magenta bow tied to a nicety, his plushlike hair brushed up and backward after the manner of fashion’s latest caprice, and smoothing a smooth hand along his smooth jowl.

“Morning, ma.  What’s the row, Renie?  Gee! it’s a swell joint round here for a fellow with nerves!  What’s the row, kid?”

Mr. Isadore Shongut made a cigarette and puffed it, curled himself in a deep-seated chair, with his head low and his legs flung high.  His sister lay on the divan, with her tearful profile buried, basso-rilievo, against a green velours cushion, her arms limp and dangling in exhaustion.

“What’s the row, Renie?”

“N-nothing.”

“Aw, come out with it—­what’s the row?  What you sitting there for, ma, like your luck had turned on you?”

“Ask—­ask your sister, Izzy; she can tell you.”

“’Smater, sis?”

“N-nothing—­only—­only—­old—­old Hochenheimer’s coming to—­to supper to-night, Izzy; and—­”

“Old Squash!  Oh, Whillikens!”

“Take me out, Izzy!  Take me out anywhere—­to a show or supper, or—­or anywhere; but take me out, Izzy.  Take me out before he comes.”