“Say—­mother!” said Sammy.

“Well?”

“Say, mother, may I have a slice of bread?  I’m awfully hungry.”

“Shoor you may!  This here’s just fresh from the oven, an’ it has currants in it.”

“Say, mother, a feller I play with, Joe Eagan, his mother’s hands ain’t clean.  Would you think he’d like to eat the bread she makes?”

“Can she make good bread?”

“I dunno.  She give me a piece oncet, but I couldn’t eat it, ‘count o’ seein’ her fingers.  I’m glad your hands are so clean, mother.  Say, this bread tastes awful good!”

Martha chuckled.  “Well, I’m glad you like it.  It might be worse, if I do say it!  Only,” she added to herself, “it’d have a tough time managin’ it.”

“Say, mother, may I have another slice with butter on, an’ sugar sprinkled on top, like this is, to give it to Joe Eagan?  He’s downstairs.  I want to show him how my mother can make the boss bread!”

“Certainly,” said Martha heartily.  “By all means, give Joe Eagan a slice.  I like to see you thoughtful an’ generous, my son.  Willin’ to share your good things with your friends,” and as Sammy bounded out, clutching his treasures, she winked solemnly across at her husband, who had just re-entered.

“Now do you know what’ll happen?” she inquired.  “Sammy’ll always have the notion I make the best bread ever.  An’ when he grows up an’ marries, if his wife is a chef-cook straight out of the toniest kitchen in town, at fifty dollars a month, he’ll tell her she ain’t a patch on me.  An’ he’ll say to her:  ’Susan, or whatever-her-name-is, them biscuits is all right in their way, but I wisht I had a mouthful o’ bread like mother used to make.’  An’ the poor creature’ll wear the life out o’ her, tryin’ to please’m, an’ reach my top-notch, an’ never succeed, an’ all the time—­Say, Sammy, gather up the rest o’ the stuff, like a good fella, an’ shove it onto the dumb-waiter, so’s it can go down with the sw—­There’s the whistle now!  That’s him callin’ for the garbage.”

CHAPTER XIII

“Hullo, Martha!” said Radcliffe.

Mrs. Slawson bowed profoundly.  “Hullo yourself!  I ain’t had the pleasure of meetin’ you for quite some time past, an’ yet I notice my absents ain’t made no serious alteration for the worst in your appearance.  You ain’t fell away none, on account of my not bein’ here.”

“Fell away from what?” asked Radcliffe.

“Fell away from nothin’.  That’s what they call a figger o’ speech.  Means you ain’t got thin.”

“Well, you’ve got thin, haven’t you, Martha?  I don’t ’member your cheeks had those two long lines in ’em before.”

“Lines?” repeated Martha, regarding herself in the mirror of an etagere she was polishing.  “Them ain’t lines.  Them’s dimples.”

Radcliffe scrutinized her critically for a moment.  “They’re not like Miss Lang’s dimples,” he observed at last.  “Miss Lang’s dimples look like when you blow in your milk to cool it—­they’re there, an’ then they ain’t there.  She vanishes ’em in, an’ she vanishes ’em out, but those lines in your face, they just stay.  Only they weren’t there before, when you were here.”