"He should pay your bills awhile, and then he won't feel so glad--ain't it, Birdie?" He pinched his daughter's cheek.
"Marcus took me to lunch at the Kaiserbraeu to-day, papa. He's starting in to pay my bills already."
"Have a cigar, Marcus!"
"Thanks, I don't smoke."
"Well, Marcus, you got a fine girl; and you're a good boy, making good money."
"I told your mamma to-day, Marcus; she got the best of it, and I got the best of it," chuckled Mrs. Katzenstein.
Marcus regarded Birdie in some uneasiness, the color drained out of his face.
"Go on, Marcus," she said, with a note of reassurance in her voice.
"Everything as you say is grand and fine, Mr. Katzenstein, except--except--well, to-day at lunch I told Birdie some news I just heard, which--which maybe won't make you feel so good; I told her it wasn't too late if she wanted to change her mind about me."
"_Ach!_" exclaimed Mrs. Katzenstein, clasping her hands quickly. "Ain't everything all right?"
"What you mean, Marcus?" inquired Mr. Katzenstein, glancing up quickly.
"What's wrong? Ain't everything all right, children?"
"Aw, mamma, it ain't nothing wrong! Don't get so excited over everything."
"Birdie's right, mamma--what you so excited about? What is it you got to say, Marcus?"
"I ain't frightened; but what's the matter, children? This is what we need yet something to happen when it's all fixed!"
"Well, I told Birdie about it at lunch to-day, and--"
There was a pause. Birdie linked her arm within the young man's and regarded her parents like a Nemesis at the bar.
"It isn't so bad as Marcus makes out, papa."
"Well, young man?" questioned Mr. Katzenstein, sharply.
"Well, you don't need to holler at him, papa."
"I got some bad news to-day, Mr. Katzenstein. The raise I was expecting I don't get--instead of twenty-eight hundred dollars I go only to fifteen. Loeb is going to put his son-in-law, Steinfeld, from Cleveland, in the new factory. I still just got the city trade."
"I says to Marcus, papa, it's enough; you and mamma had less than half that much."
"_Ach_, my poor baby! My poor baby!"
"I ain't your poor baby, mamma. It could be worse--believe me--"
"Oh! And I thought he was going to have that grand position and give it to her so fine--how I told everybody; how I--"
"Don't get excited, Salcha! Let's sit quiet and talk it over."
"Such plans as I had for that girl, papa! I had it all fixed that she should have one of those five rooms and a sleeping-out porch over Batta! Already I talked to Tillie that she should go to her."
Mrs. Katzenstein sniffled and wiped each eye with the back of her hand.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Katzenstein."
"That don't get you nowhere, Mr. Gump. If you had only known this last night! Now what will people say?"
"Mamma!"
"Nowadays in New York it ain't like it used to be, Mr. Gump; people can't start in on so little--half of what you make costs Birdie's clothes. _Ach_, when I think what that girl is used to! Every comfort she has--you can't give her like she's used to, Mr. Gump."
"I told all that to Birdie, Mrs. Katzenstein--I can't give her what she's got at home, and she should take her time to decide."
"That's easy enough to say now after it's in everybody's mouth."
"That Loeb Brothers should play you such a trick," said Mr. Katzenstein--"a boy that's built up a trade like you!"
"_Ach_, my baby!" sobbed Mrs. Katzenstein. "And now the whole town already knows it! If only he had known this last night, before it was too late!"
"Salcha, how you talk!"
"My own husband turns against me!"
"That they should start little, mamma, is just so good as they should start big. My boy, you got a good head; and with a good head and a good heart you got just so good a start as you need. Go 'way, you foolisher children! You make me sick with your crying and _gedinks_!"
"Such a father I got, Marcus! What did I tell you, how he would act--what did I tell you?"
She kissed her father lightly on the cheek.
"Go 'way, you children!" he repeated. "You got it too good as it is--ain't it, mamma?"
"I guess you're right, Rudolph; but how I had plans for that girl, papa can tell you, Marcus! You're a good boy, Marcus, and she's got her heart set on you; but I--I hate it how everybody can talk now--something to talk about for them all!"
"They should talk!" said Mr. Katzenstein, lighting a cigar. "And talk and talk!"
"What I ordered embroidered linens enough for five rooms now I don't know, Birdie! If you want him I say you should have him--but how I had plans for that girl!"
"I'll work for her, all right, Mrs. Katzenstein. It will be five rooms before you know it--this don't mean, Mrs. Katzenstein--maw!--that I won't ever get up."
"Kiss me, Marcus," said Mrs. Katzenstein. "That she should be happy is all I care."
"Now, Marcus, we'll go up and see Mamma Gump."
"Get ready, little Birdie," he said.
"Good night, Marcus! You're a good boy, and you'll be good to our baby. Even if she ain't got it so grand, she's got a good husband--that's more than Meena Ginsburg's got."
"Run along, you children," said Mr. Katzenstein. "Here, Marcus, put a cigar in your pocket--one of Goldstein's ten-cent specials."
"I don't smoke, paw," said Marcus.
He went out, his arm linked in Birdie's. Their laughter drifted backward.
Mrs. Katzenstein resumed her chair in the warm glow of the logs--her full face, with the scallop of double chin, was suddenly old and lined; her husband drew up his curved-back rocker beside her.
"Mamma, you shouldn't take on so. Everything comes for the best."
"You can talk, papa! Now I had even told Mrs. Ginsburg for sure she should have one of those Ninety-sixth Street apartments."
"You women folks make me sick! You should be glad we got our health, mamma, and good men for our girls."
"I guess you're right, papa. He's a grand young man!"
"A good boy--_ach_, how tired I am!"
"Stretch out your feet, papa. It's warm by the fire."
The light flickered over their faces and sent long shadows wavering and dancing back of them.
Mr. Katzenstein settled deeper in his chair; his head, bald on top and with a fringe of bristles over the ears, was hunched down between his shoulders.
"You've been a good mother, Salcha."
"Not such a mother as you've been a father--me and them girls never wanted for one thing, even when you couldn't afford it as now."
"Ah--ho!" sighed Mr. Katzenstein.
"You're tired, papa, and it's late. Here, I'll unlace your shoes for you."
"No; in a minute I go to bed--such a back-ache!"
"She's got a good man; and, like you say, that's the main thing," repeated Mrs. Katzenstein, intent on self-conviction. "It ain't always the money."
"_Ya, ya!_" said Mr. Katzenstein.
"Look at us when we was down on Grand Street! We was happy--You remember that green-plush dress I had, papa?"
"Yes, Salcha."
"Don't go to sleep sitting there, papa; you'll take cold."
Mr. Katzenstein's fingers, that were never straight, closed over the veined back of his wife's hand.
"In a minute I go to bed."
"If she had known what was coming when he asked her last night it might be different; but now it's too late, and everything is for the best."
"Yes, mamma."
"She's happy--and that's the main thing."
"Time flies," he said, with his eyes on the flames. "Only yesterday she was a baby!"
"Ain't it so, papa? We had 'em, and we suffered for 'em, and now we give 'em up; that's what it means to raise a family."
"Salcha," he said, his fingers stroking hers gently, "we're getting old--ain't it, old lady?"
"Yes," she said, rocking rhythmically; "twenty-eight years now! We've had good times, and we've had bad times."
"Good--and--bad--times," he repeated.
They watched the flames.
After a while Mr. Katzenstein's head fell forward on his chest and he dozed lightly.
The clock ticked somberly and with increasing loudness; twice it traveled its circle, and twice it tonged the hour. The gas-logs burned steadily and kept the shadows dancing. Off somewhere a dog bayed; a creak, which is one of the noises that belong solely to after midnight, came from the direction of one of the windows.
Mr. Katzenstein woke with a start and jerked his head up.
"Mamma!" he cried, dazed with sleep. "Mamma! Birdie! Mamma!"
"Yes, papa," she replied, smiling at him and with her hand still beneath his; "I'm here."
BREAKERS AHEAD
In the ink-blue shrieking trail of the twenty-two-hour Imperial flyer, Slateville lay stark alongside the singing tracks as if hurtled there like a spark off a speed-hot emery wheel.
The Imperial flyer swooped through the dun-colored village like the glance of a lovely coquette shoots through her victim's heart and leaves it bare.
At eight-one the far-off Imperial voice hallooed through the darkness like a conquering hero whose vanguard is a waving sword which flashes in the sunlight before he and his steed come up out of the horizon.
At eight-four a steam yodel shook the panes and lamp-chimneys of Slateville, a semaphore studded with a ruby stiffened out against the sky, and a white eye--the size of a bicycle-wheel--flashed down the tracks.
Then the howl of a fiend, and a mile-long checkerboard of lighted car-windows, and cinders rattling against them like hail.