fifty cents of it?"

He sat well up, the light reflecting in points off his polished glasses.

"Mother, you're joking!"

Her hands were out across the table now, almost reaching his, her face
close and screwed under the lights.

"When--when you lost out that time five years ago on 'Pan-America' and I
seen how Linger made a fortune out of it, I says to myself, 'It can never
happen again.' You remember the next January when you got your raise to
fifty and I wouldn't move out of this flat, and instead gave up having
Annie in, that was what I had in my head, Harry. It wasn't only for sending
Edwin to high school; it was for--my other boy, too, Harry, so it couldn't
happen again."

"Millie, you mean--"

"You ain't got much idea, Harry, of what I been doing. You don't know it,
honey, but, honest, I ain't bought a stitch of new clothes for five years.
You know I ain't, somehow--made friends for myself since we moved here."

"It's the hard shell town of the world!"

"You ain't had time, Harry, to ask yourself what becomes of the house
allowance, with me stinting so. Why, I--I won't spend car fare, Harry,
since 'Pan-America,' if I can help it. This meal I served up here t-night,
with all the high cost of living, didn't cost us two thirds what it
might if--if I didn't have it all figured up. Where do you think your