She was sure of one thing--that the family was hovering perilously near the brink. A single feather added to its burdens and it would topple over. Mendel might take it lightly, but she knew better. She had seen families in that neighborhood crumble to ruin over night. She had known many who--like Mendel--started as harmless dreamers, hopeful idlers, and ended--God forbid--as gamblers, drunkards, and worse. “How was it with Reznick? Every day he had a scheme to make millions while his wife got sick working in the shop. She died working, and the children went to a orphan asylum and he still wanted to make millions. So he made a corner on the coffee-market and he lost everything what everybody else had, and the only way they could stop him from signing checks with Rockefeller’s name was to send him to Bellevue. “Or Dittenfass? Wasn’t he the picture of Mendel? Didn’t he hate work like poison, and didn’t he pay for it? He thought he was smarter from the rest. Didn’t his wife used to told him, ‘Dittenfass, look out!’? But he laughed only. He looked out for himself only. And one day she threw in his eyes vitriol! That’s what she threw in his eyes, and then he couldn’t look any more! “You can’t be too smart. Didn’t Karneol try? And it’s two years she’s waitin’ already with swollen eyes he should come back. But he’s got to serve three more. “The best smartness is to do a day’s work. If you wait it shall happen miracles--it happens! But the wrong way!” Zelde knew. She wished she didn’t know. “Maybe you can invent something to make you work,” she offered as a possible solution. “Somebody else with your brains could make a fortune. Why don’t you make at least a living?” “Brains make ideas; fools can make money. That’s why your relatives are rich. What is business. Blind man’s bluff. They shut your eyes and open your pockets!” “Again you mix me up,” she said warily, sensing this new attempt to befuddle the issue. “What’s the result from all this? You joke and we starve. It’s lucky Sarah works. If not, we would all be thrown out in the street, already.” At this moment Sarah entered. She was pale and tired from the climb of stairs. She dropped her hat languidly on the couch and sank into a chair. Zelde was too surprised to speak. It was only one-thirty. She never expected Sarah before six. An ominous thought flitted through her mind. She looked anxiously at her daughter. Sarah’s gaze shifted to the floor. An oppressive silence gathered over them. Then Sarah tried to mumble something. But Zelde understood without hearing. Her heart had told her. “It’s slack! Everybody laid off. Sarah, too!” What she had dreaded most had happened. The family of Marantz was now over the brink. Zelde stood crushed by the thought of the morrow. Sarah sat staring vacantly, her chin against her clenched hand. Mendel stopped smoking to appear less conspicuous. Four female eyes detected him, however, and scorched him with their gaze.