“Swell!  Let me tell you, Miriam, your papa and me never had time to be swell when we was young.  I remember the time when we couldn’t afford a trip to Coney Island, much less four weeks a cottage at Arverne-next-to-the-sea.  Ain’t it, papa?  I wish the word ‘swell’ I had never heard.  My son Isadore kicks to-night at supper because at hotels on the road he gets fresh napkins with every meal.  Now all of a sudden my daughter gets such big notions in her head that nothing won’t do for her but Europe for a summer trip.  I tell you, Simon, I don’t wish a dog to go through what I got to.”

Mr. Binswanger let fall his newspaper to his knee.

“Na, na, mamma, for what you get excited?  Ain’t talk cheap enough for you yet?  Why shouldn’t you let the children talk?”

Miss Binswanger inclined to her father’s knee, her throat arched and flexed.  “Papa dear, it’s a cheap trip.  For what four weeks in a cottage at Arverne-by-the-sea would cost the four of us could take one of those tourists’ trips through Europe.  The Lillianthals, papa, for four hundred and fifty dollars apiece landed in Italy and went straight through to—­”

“The Lillianthals, Lillianthals,” mimicked Mrs. Binswanger, sliding her darning-egg down the length of a silken stocking.  “I wish that name we had never heard.  All of a sudden now education like those girls you think you got to have, music and—­”

“Oh, mamma, honest, you just don’t care how dumb us girls are.  Look at Ray and me, we haven’t even got a common education like—­”

“You can’t say, Miriam Binswanger, that me or your papa ever held one of our children back out of school.  If they didn’t want to go we couldn’t—­”

“Oh, mamma, I—­I don’t mean just school.  How do you think I feel when all the girls begin to talk about Europe and all, and I got to sit back at sewing-club like a stick?”

“Ain’t it awful, Mabel!”

“Izzy!”

“Why do you think a fellow like Sol Blumenthal is all the time after Lilly Lillianthal and Sophie Litz and those girls?  He has been over seventeen times, buying silks, and those girls don’t have to sit back like sticks when he talks about the shows in Paris and all.”

“I know girls, Miriam, what got as fine husbands as Sol Blumenthal and didn’t need to run to Europe for them.”

“I never said that, did I, mamma?  Only it’s a help to girls nowadays if—­if they’ve been to places and know a thing or two.”

“If a girl can cook a little and—­”

“Look there at Ray, nothing in her head but that novel she’s reading, and little snips that’ll treat her to a soda-water if she hangs round the White Front long enough, and ride her down to Brighton on one of those dirty excursion boats if she—­”

“You shut up, Miriam Binswanger, and mind your own business!”

“You let her talk to me that way, mamma?”

“Go to it, sis.”

“You let her talk that way to me and Izzy eggs her on!  No wonder she’s fresh, the way everybody round here lets her do what she wants, papa worst of all!”