Mrs. Cregan shook her head. "Come back, then, an' have a bite with me." "Niver! I'll niver go back." Mrs. Byrne hitched up her shawl. "Come along then to the da-ary restr'unt. There's no one home to miss me. Ill take a bit o' holiday, this mornin', meself. I've been wantin' to taste one o' those batter cakes they make in the restr'unt windahs, this long enough." "Yuh've ate yer breakfast." "I have not" Mrs. Byrne replied. "I was off to the grocer to buy some sugar when yuh stopped me." It was a lie. She had, in fact; started out, secretly, on a guilty errand which she should not acknowledge. "It's a lonely meal I'd 've been havin'," she said, "with Byrne down at the boiler house an' the boy off on his run." Mrs. Cregan did not reply, and they came to Sixth Avenue without more words. They paused before a dairy restaurant that advertised its "Surpassing Coffee" in white-enamel letters on its shop-front windows. Mrs. Cregan's hunger drew her in, but slowly; and Mrs. Byrne followed, coughing to conceal her embarrassment. [Illustration: "'YOUR HOUSE, IS IT? I'LL SHOW YEH WHOSE HOUSE IT IS!'"] II It was the first time that Mrs. Byrne had ever sat down in any public restaurant, except the eating-halls at Coney Island (where she went with "basket parties") or the ice-cream "parlors" at Fort George. And she glanced about her at tiled walls and mosaic floors with a furtiveness that was none the less critical for being so sly. "It's eatin' in a bathroom we are," she whispered. "An' will yuh look at the cup yonder. The sides of it are that thick there's scarce room fer the coffee in it! Well, well! It do beat the Dutch! They're drawin' the drink out of a boiler big enough fer wash day." The approach of a waitress silenced her. When she saw that Mrs. Cregan was not going to speak, she looked up at the girl with a bargain-counter keenness. "Have y' any pancakes fit t' eat? How much are they? Ten cents! Fer how many? Fer three pancakes? Fer three! D'yuh hear that?" she appealed to Mrs. Cregan. "Come home with me, that's a good woman. It's a sin to pay it. Three cents fer a pancake! Aw, come along out o' this. Ten cents! We c'u'd get two loaves o' bread fer the money an' live on it fer a week!" But Mrs. Cregan was beyond the reach of practicalities, and she ordered her buckwheat cakes and coffee with an air that was mournfully distrait. Mrs. Byrne made a vain attempt to get her own cakes from the waitress for five cents, and then resigned herself to the senseless extravagance. "Yuh'll not make yer own livin' an' eat the likes o' this," she grumbled asthmatically. "Yuh'd better be savin' yer money."