"Eight-ninety-eight an ounce." Her nose crawling up to what he thought
the cunning perfection of a sniff.

"Used to it from home--not? She is not. Believe me, I knew Max Gronauer
when he first started in the produce business in Jersey City and the
only perfume he had was at seventeen cents a pound and not always fresh
killed at that. _Cold storage de printemps_!"

"Max Gronauer died just two months after my husband," said Mrs. Samstag,
tucking away into her beaded handbag her filet-lace handkerchief, itself
guilty of a not inexpensive attar.

"Thu-thu!" clucked Mr. Latz for want of a fitting retort.

"Heigh-ho! I always say we have so little in common, me and Mrs.
Gronauer, she revokes so in bridge, and I think it's terrible for a
grandmother to blondine so red, but we've both been widows for almost
eight years. Eight years," repeated Mrs. Samstag on a small, scented
sigh.

He was inordinately sensitive to these allusions, reddening and wanting
to seem appropriate.

"Poor little woman, you've had your share of trouble."

"Share," she repeated, swallowing a gulp and pressing the line of her
eyebrows as if her thoughts were sobbing. "I--It's as I tell Alma,
Mr. Latz, sometimes I think I've had three times my share. My one
consolation is that I try to make the best of it. That's my motto in
life, 'Keep a bold front.'"