“What’s that to me? I gotta have my sleep.” “Take my place on the bed,” she said. “What! sleep wit’ _him_,” said Joe indicating his father. “Not on your tin-type. I’m more particular, _I_ am.” The woman shrugged, and went on with her sewing. “On the level,” said Joe, undressing, “is he my fat’er?” “You shut your mouth,” she said, without looking around. “Honest, I can’t believe that bag o’ bones ever made me,” drawled Joe. “I ain’t like him. It beats me, Mom, how you could a’ done it!” The two machines whirred on, with only the necessary pauses to turn the goods. Joe raised his voice a little to make sure of being heard above the sound. “But its a cinch some Jew made me. I got Jew blood all right, and I’m glad of it. The Jews are a smart people. . . . All except him. He’s a botched Jew; a scarecrow; he’s a Jew that didn’t come off. He must a been made of the stale bits like that twice-baked cake yeh git such a big hunk of for a penny, but at that it would make you puke to eat it. . . .” Joe’s father suddenly rose, and turning round, supported himself against the back of his chair with a wasted, shaking arm. Joe, with a grin, watched how the sparse curls of his beard seemed to stiffen and quiver. “You bad boy . . . you bad boy!” he said in a husky broken voice. The old geezer’s lungs were rotten. “You are my son, God help me! When you were placed in my hands I gave thanks to God for my first-born. Little did I think it was a curse He was laying upon me!” The old man straightened up, and shook his scraggy arms above his head. Good as a t’eayter, thought Joe. “Oh God! what have I done to deserve such a son!” he croaked. “I have worked hard all my days, and have wronged no man!” He waved his sticks of arms about. “Look! Look! How we live; how we work! We are sick and starving. And he comes in from the streets, the loafer! greasy with good food, and twits me to my beard! . . . God has abandoned me! God has abandoned me! . . .” Straining back his head like a man struggling for air, the old man staggered into the back room. They heard him fall, a dead weight on the bed. Joe laughed loudly. “Well, if I’m a hell of a son, you’re a hell of a father,” he called after him. “What did you ever do for me?” He pulled an old coverlet from under the sofa, and wrapped himself up in it, laughing. “Gee! it’s rich when the old man begins to call on God!” he said. “That’s the Jew of it! And him kicked out of the synagogue, like you was kicked out of the church! This is a swell religious family, this is!” His mother did not answer him. She kept her broad back turned to him. Joe saw her glance over at the other machine to measure how much work the man had left undone. Then her head went a little lower, as she made the treadles of her machine move faster. Joe, feeling better now, flung an arm over his eyes to shield them from the gaslight; and settled himself to sleep. III