When Mr. Ginsburg groped into his mother's room she lay in the casual attitude of sleep, but the yellow patch of light from the shaft fell across her open eyes and gray wisps of hair that lay on her pillow like a sickly aura. "Good night, Abie. You're a good boy, Abie." "Good night, mamma. A sheet ain't enough--you got to have the blue-and-white quilt on you, too." "Don't, Abie--do you want to suffocate me? I can't stand so much. Take off the quilt." "Your rheumatism, you know, mamma--you'll see how much cooler it will get in the night." "_Ach_, Abie, leave that window all the way up. So hot, and that boy closes me up like--" "When the lace curtain blows in it means you're in a draught, mamma--half-way open you can have it, but not all. Without me to fuss you'd have a fine rheumatism--like it ain't dangerous for you to sleep where there's enough draught to blow the curtain in." "Abie, if you don't feel good, in two minutes I can get up and heat the broth if--" "I'm grand, mamma. Here, I move this chair so the light from Magintys' don't shine in your eyes." "What she does in her kitchen so late I don't know. Good night, Abie. In the dark you look like poor papa. How he used to fuss round the room at night fixing me just like you--poor papa, Abie--not? Poor papa?" "Good night, mamma." Mr. Ginsburg leaned over and kissed his mother lightly on the forehead. "Double cream did you say I should write the milkman?" "Yes--and, Abie, don't forget to cover the bird." "Yes. Here, I leave the door half-way open, mamma. Good night." "Abie! Abie!" "Yes?" "Oh, it ain't nothing at all, Abie--never mind." "I'm right here, mamma. Anything you want me to do?" "Nothing. Good night, Abie." "Good night, mamma." * * * * * At eight-fifteen Monday morning Miss Ruby Cohn blew into the Ginsburg & Son's shoe store like a breath of thirty-nine-cents-an-ounce perfume shot from a strong-spray atomizer. The street hung with the strong breath of Mayflower a full second after her small, tall-heeled feet had crossed its soft asphalt. At the first whiff Mr. Ginsburg drew the upper half of his body out from a case of misses' ten-button welt soles he was unpacking and smiled as if Aurora and spring, and all the heyday misses that Guido Reni and Botticelli loved to paint, had suddenly danced into his shop. "Well, well, Miss Ruby, are you back?" Miss Cohn titillated toward the rear of the store, the tail of a cockatoo titillated at a sharp angle from her hat, a patent-leather handbag titillated from a long cord at her wrist, and a smile iridescent as sunlight on spray played about her lips. She placed her hand blinker-fashion against her mouth as if she would curb the smile. "Don't tell anybody, Mr. Ginsburg, and I'll whisper you something. Listen! I ain't back; I'm shooting porcelain ducks off the shelf in a china shop."