Mr. Binswanger peered suddenly over the rim of his paper. "A no-count
yet is what we need in the family. Get right away such ideas out your
head. All my life I 'ain't worked so hard to spend my money on the old
country. In America I made it and in America I spend it. Now just stop
it, right away, too."

"Go to it, pa!"

Suddenly Miss Binswanger let fall her head into her cupped hands. Tears
trickled through. "I--I just wish that I--I hadn't been born! Why--did
you move up-town, then, where everybody does things, if--if--"

Her father's reply came in a sudden avalanche. "For why? Because then,
just like now, you nagged me. You can take it from me, just so happy as
now was me and mamma down by Rivington Street. I'm a plain man and with
no time for nonsense. I tell you the shirtwaist business 'ain't been so
good that--"

"You--you can't fool me with that poor talk, papa. Everybody knows you
get a bigger business each year. You can't fool me that way."

Tears burst and flowed over her words, and her head burrowed deeper.
Across her prostrate form Simon Binswanger nodded to his wife in rising
perplexity.

"Fine come-off, eh, Carrie?"

"Miriam, ach, Miriam, come here to mamma."

"Aw, take her, pa, if she's so crazy to go. It'll be slack time between