"Then what's the matter with you! She's _got_ to be a Gentile!" Ikey recognized the unanswerableness of the argument. "Vell," he declared stoutly, "I lof her anyhow!" A fourth boy leaned from a drawing-room window. "Telephone!" he called down. "Ach! Dat telephone!" Ikey propped himself against the sun-dial. "Since yesterday afternoon alretty, she rings und nefer stops! 'Vere iss Miss Hattie?'--dat Wallace, he iss awful lofsick! 'I don't know.' 'Vere iss Miss Susan?' 'I don't know.' 'Vere iss my daughter?'--de olt lady! 'I don't know.'--All night by dat telephone, I sit und lie!" "Ha! Ha!" Peter, the pale, seized the excuse to drop back upon the cool grass. "How can you _sit_ and _lie_?" "Smarty, you're too fresh!" charged Ikey. "How can you sit und be lazy? Look vat stands on dis sun-dial!--_Tempus Fugits_. Dat means, 'De morning iss going.' So you pick up fast all de grass bits by de benches.--Und if somebody asks, 'Vere iss Mr. Farvel,' I says, 'I don't know,' und dat iss de truth. Because he iss gone oudt all night, und dat iss not nice for ministers." He shook his head at the lawn mower. "Say, a woman wants to talk with Mrs. Milo," reminded the boy who was hanging out of the window. "She can vant so much as she likes," returned Ikey, mowing calmly. "Oo! You oughta heard her!--Shall I say she's gone?" "Say she's gone, t'ank gootness," instructed Ikey. And as the boy precipitated himself backward out of sight, "Ach, dat's vat's wrong mit dis world!--de mutter business. Mrs. Milo, Mrs. Bunkum, und your mutter, und your mutter----" "Aw, my mother's as good as your mother!" boasted Henry, chivalrously. "Dat can't be. Because you nefer _hat_ a mutter--you vas left in dat basket." He pointed. "Vasn't you? Und _my_ mutter"--proudly--"she iss dead." Peter lifted longing eyes. "Gee, I wish _I_ had a mother." "A-a-a-ah!" Ikey waggled a wise head. "You kids, you vould like goot mutters--und you git left in baskets. Und Momsey says dat lots of times mutters dat _iss_ goot mutters, dey don't haf no children." Then to Henry, who, like Peter, had seized upon an excuse for pausing in his work, "Here! Git busy mit de shears! Ofer by de vall iss plenty schnippin'." Henry tried flattery. "I like to hear y' talk," he confessed. "Ve-e-e-ell,--" Ikey was touched by this appreciation of his philosophizing. "And I'm kinda tired." Now Ikey's virtuous wrath burst forth. He fixed the tall boy with a scornful eye. "Oh, you kicker!" he cried. "You talk tired--und you do like you please! Und you say Momsey so much as you vant to! Momsey! Momsey! Momsey! Momsey!" Each time the lawn mower squeaked and rattled its emphasis. "Und de olt lady, she iss gone!"