She trailed off into the kitchen again and I could hear her snapping at someone and that other woman’s voice growling back. I supposed it was Tecla Rabine, though it didn’t sound like her, my memory of her at the inquest being of a fat, good-natured thing that wouldn’t have growled at anybody. And then the door was opened with one swift kick and Tecla came in, carrying a plate of bread in one hand and a platter with ham on it in the other. She didn’t look grouchy at all, but gave me that broad, silly sort of smile I remembered and put the things down on the table! "Well, Tecla," I asked for something to say, "how are _you_ getting on?" "Ach!" she answered disgusted, and pounded over the creaky floor to a cupboard out of which she took some dishes. "Me? I get out. What for do I stay? No luck here, no money. Who comes—nobody. Everything goes on the blink." She put the things on the table and then stood looking at me, squinting up her little eyes and with her big body, in a dirty white blouse and a skirt that didn’t meet it at the waist, slouched up against the table. "I heard business was bad," I said, and thought that in spite of her being such a coarse, fat animal, she was rosy and healthy looking, which was more than you could say for the other two. "What do I get?" she said, spreading out her great red hands, "not a thing. Maybe five, ten cents. Every long time maybe a quarter. Since that lady gets killed all goes bad. The dagoes say ’evil eye.’ They walk round the house that way," she made a half-circle in the air with her arm, "looking at it afraid. Me, too, I don’t like it." "It sure is awful dismal," I agreed. "No good," she said. "Last year this time all the room full—to-night—_one_ man"—she held up a finger in the air—"one only man, and he have lost what makes us to laugh. When I see him, I say, 'Hein, Tito, good luck now you come. Make the bear to dance.’ And he says this way"—she hunched up her shoulders and pushed out her hands the way the Guineas do—"’Oh, Gawda, there is no more bear; he makes dead long time.’" "Bear?" I said, and then I remembered. "You mean the one that went round with the acrobats. It’s dead, is it?" Tecla nodded. "Gone dead in the country. And he says he starve now with no bear to get pennies. The boss says we all starve, and gave him a drink and cheese and bread. Ach!"—she shook her head, as if the loss of the bear was the last straw—"I no can stand it—nothing doing, no money, no more laughs—I quit." I didn’t blame her. If you gave me two hundred a month I wouldn’t have stayed there. Just then Babbitts came in and we began our supper; cold ham and stale bread and coffee that I know was the morning’s heated over. Tecla went into the kitchen and I said to him, low and guarded: "What’s Hines been saying to you?" He answered in the same key: "Oh, putting up a hard luck story. Cresset needn’t bother. He wants to pull up stakes and go West." "Will they let him?"