The Kaplans lived in two rooms on Sussex street. Joe banged the door open noisily. Here was a place where he could make himself felt. Though it was past midnight his father and mother were still sewing pants on the two sewing machines, side by side against the wall between the cook-stove and the front windows. Their bowed backs were to Joe as he entered. On a chair between the two narrow windows sat a girl of eleven asleep, her head fallen back against the wall, her white, unchildlike face turned up to the gaslight; mouth open. The pair of pants she had been sewing on, had slipped to the floor. On a broken, carpet-covered sofa against the left-hand wall, lay two little boys sleeping in their clothes; the outer one clinging to his brother to keep from rolling off. The dining table with the remains of the last meal upon it, was shoved into the back corner of the room. Pants in various stages of completion were piled everywhere. “Well, this is a hell of a dump to come back to!” said Joe in a rasping voice. At the sound of his voice, the two little boys rolled off the sofa, and creeping on hands and knees to the only unoccupied corner, curled up in a fresh embrace, and instantly fell asleep again. It pleased Joe to see how quickly they moved. His mother rose heavily from her machine, and threw a ragged piece of quilt over the boys. She shook the girl by the shoulder, and led her staggering into the back room, where the child collapsed on a mattress spread on the floor. Joe sat down on the vacated sofa, and commenced to take off his shoes. His eyes roved around the place full of contempt. There was both a window and a door into the back room, which had no other openings. It was not much larger than a closet; the bed and the narrow mattress thrown down beside it, filled the floor space. From lines stretched across between wall and wall hung whatever of the family wardrobe was not in use. The walls were painted blue. “God! what a home for a fellow!” said Joe. Nobody paid any attention. His mother plodded back to her machine without looking at him. His father never had stopped working the treadles. Joe looked from one to another in a rage. Nice pair of broken-down mutts they were! Was this the best they could do for him? Did they think a fellow was going to stand for it? His mother was a strong, healthy woman, but dead from the neck up; dazed-like; dumb. She took everything that came. It was almost impossible to get her going. His father—Joe grinned; you could always get _him_ by the short hairs. Joe gloated over the humbled back. His father was askeared of him, all right! Yah! the skinny Jew with his ashy face and sore eyes! His grey hair was coming out in spots like a mangy dog’s. The tufts that remained curled in ringlets with the bald spots showing through. His beard too. Spit-curls! “How the hell do you expect me to sleep in this racket?” snarled Joe. “This lot is promised in the morning,” said his mother in a dead voice.