"Yes, Abe. If we take a bigger apartment she can have an outside room, and I can take all the housekeeping off her hands. Such nut-salad as I can make you never tasted--like they serve it in the finest restaurant! I got the recipe from my landlady. If we take a bigger apartment--" "What mamma wants we do--how's that? She's so used to having her own way I always say, What's the difference? When poor papa lived she--" "Abe, there's your mamma calling you down the back stairs now--you should go up to your supper. I must go, too; my landlady gets mad when I'm late--it's half past six already. Oh, I feel scared! What'll she say when she hears?" "Scared for what, my little girl?... Yes, mamma; I'm coming!... There ain't a week passes that mamma don't say if I find the right girl I should get married. Even the other night, before I knew it myself, she said it to me. 'Abie,' she always says, 'don't let me stand in your way!'... Yes, mamma; I'll be right up!... You and her can get along grand when you two know each other--grand!" "Your mamma's calling like she was mad, Abie." "To-night, Ruby, you come up to us for supper--we bring her a surprise-party." "Oh, you ain't going to tell her to-night--right away--are you?" "For what I have secrets from my own mother? She should know the good news. Get your hat, Ruby. Come on, Ruby-la! Come on!" "Oh, Abie, you ain't going to forget to lock the front store door, are you?" "_Ach!_--that should happen to me yet. The things a man don't do when he's engaged! If mamma should know I forget to lock the store she'd think I've gone crazy with being in love--you little Ruby-la!" Mr. Ginsburg hastened to the front of the store on feet that bounded off the floor like rubber balls, and switched on the electric show-window display. "Abe, you got the double switch on! What you think this is--convention or Christmas week?" "To-night we celebrate with double window lights. What's the difference if it costs a little more or a little less? The night he gets engaged a fellow should afford what he wants." "Abe!" "There now--with two locks on the door we should worry about burglars! I'm the burglar that's stealing the ruby, ain't I?... One, two, three--up we go, to mamma and supper. Watch out for the step there! I want her to see my Ruby--finer than you can buy in the finest jewelry store!" cried Mr. Ginsburg, clinging proudly to his metaphor. Any of three emotions were crowded into his voice--excitement, trepidation, the love that is beyond understanding--or the trilogy of them all. "Come along, Ruby-la!" Through the rear of the store and up a winding back stairway they marched like glorified children; and at the first landing he must pause and kiss away the words of fear and nervousness from her lips and look into her diffident eyes with the same rapture that was Jupiter's when he gazed on Antiope. "Such a little scarey she is--like mamma was going to bite!"