Life had whacked hard at Mr. Katzenstein, writ across his face in a thousand welts and wrinkles, bent his knees and fingers, and calloused his hands. "Good evening, Mr. Gump--good evening! I say to mamma the young folks got no time for us in here. I'm right?" "The more the merrier!" said Mr. Gump, reseating himself. "Mr. Katzenstein says he used to know your father, Mr. Gump." "Rudolph Gump! I should say so--yes. Believe me, I wish I had half a dollar for every shirtwaist I bought off him in my life! Your father and me played side by each down on Cedar Street before you was born. I knew him longer as you--he was a good silk man, was Rudolph Gump. Have a cigar, young man?" "Thanks--I don't smoke." "Ain't it wonderful, though, that in a city like this my husband should know you before you was born?" Mrs. Katzenstein clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and patted her hands together. Birdie regarded the company with polite interest. "Wonders never cease!" she said. "Birdie, go get your papa his chair out from the dining-room--since he's got lumbago these straight-backs ain't comfortable for him." "Let me go for you, Miss Birdie." "Oh no, Marcus--I know just where it is." She smiled at him with her eyes--bright eyes that were full of warmth and reflected firelight. Mr. Katzenstein groped in his side-pocket for a match, ran his tongue horizontally along a cigar, and puffed it slowly into life. "How's business?" he said, between puffs, with the lighted match still applied to the end of his cigar. "We can't complain, Mr. Katzenstein. If this strike don't reach to the piece-workers we can't complain." "I hear your firm opens a new factory." "Yes; we're going to put in a line of March Hare neckwear and manufacture it in Newark." "My wife tells me you manage the new factory--eh?" "Oh, I can't say that, Mr. Katzenstein; in fact--" "_Ach_, papa, I didn't say for sure; the ladies this afternoon--" "Here's you chair, papa." Mr. Grump sprang to her aid. "Thanks, Marcus," she said. "What do you think of my girl there, Gump? She's a fine one--not?" "Aw, now, papa, you quit! What'll Marcus think--such goings-on!" "How her papa spoils her, Mr. Gump, you won't believe! Not one thing that girl wants she don't get! Last week she meets her papa down-town after the matinee and comes home with a new muff. Yesterday, before he goes down-town, she gets from him a check for some business like a silver-mesh bag, like the girls are wearing. Just seems like she has to have everything she sees!" "All I got to say, Gump, you should some day have just such a daughter!" "Papa!" "Papa!" "You couldn't wish me better," said Mr. Gump. Conversation drifted, and after a time Birdie regarded her mother with level eyes; then her lids drooped and slowly raised--as significantly as the red and green eyes that wink and signal in the black path of the midnight flier.