“When did you told me--when? You’re talkin’ and talkin’ and it don’t come out nothing! What happened here? What did they want here? Why is your husband here? Why are you here? Why were they here? What’s the matter here, altogether, anyway?” “It’s a whole lot the matter--with you!” Rifke exclaimed impatiently. “Come over here and look and maybe it’ll open your eyes!” She led the dazed Zelde into the kitchen. “You see it?” Rifke asked triumphantly, pointing out a mass of wrinkled canvas in the middle of the room. “What shall I see?” Zelde answered skeptically. “Rags, I see!” “But under the rags!” Rifke insisted. She lifted the canvas. Zelde stood completely bewildered. Her eyes opened wide, then her face reddened. A feeling of indignation welled up in her. “You can’t make a fool from me!” she began at last with rising momentum. “What do you show me--what? An ash-can on wheels! What’s that got to do with you and my husband? Don’t think I don’t know! You show me this, I should forget _that_!” Rifke began to perspire. She mopped her face with her apron as she struggled to keep calm. “You don’t know what I’m talkin’ about and I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. It’s mixed up, everything! Where do you see a ash-can? This ain’t a ash-can! It looks, maybe, like it. But it ain’t. All my friends should have such ash-cans! It’s a wonder in the world!” Zelde’s head was reeling. “So what is it, I’m asking you?” she gasped helplessly. “It’s a whole business!” Rifke replied. “We seen it, my husband Shmeril and me and the people which was here. Your husband showed us. He winds up the can like a phonograph and it begins to play. The dishes go in dirty and they come out clean like after a bath. You see it? On these straps the dishes take a ride. They go in from the back and come out on the front. When it’s finished the dishes, your husband opens the box--I thought a man will jump out from it--but it’s only wheels and straps and wires and pipes inside! Did you ever? “Then he pulls off the feet and the box sits down on the floor, and he takes out the straps from the back door and puts in such a board with bumps and brushes, and he turns the handle and the box rides around like a automobile and washes up the floor till it shines! I tell you the people was standing and looking--I thought their eyes would fall out! “Then your husband stands up the box and puts back the feet and takes out the bumpy board and sticks in a whole machinery with pipes and wheels and winds up the machine and pumps in fresh water and throws in all the old clothes, and you hear inside such a noises, and then the clothes come out like frankfurters, clean and washed and ready to hang! Such a business! You don’t have to work no more! It works itself! I wouldn’t mind to have such a box by me!”