He was reclining on the stiff carpet-covered lounge in the front room, while she was seated in the rocker, in front of him. It flashed across her mind that such unusual tractability in him might augur some concession to be exacted from her. She flew into a mild little passion in advance, but made no inquiries, and only said, with good-natured sarcasm:-- "Of course, once it is printed in 'Russian Thought,' it is 'rather an interesting point,' but when it was only Tanya who made it, why then it was mere rubbish." "You know I never said it was rubbish, Tanya," he returned deprecatingly. After a slight pause, he resumed listlessly:-- "Besides, I am sick of these 'interesting points.' They have been the ruin of us, Tanychka; they eat us up alive, these 'interesting points'--the deuce grab them. If I cared less about 'interesting points'"--he articulated the two words with venomous relish--"and a little more about your future and mine, I might not now have to stick in a button factory." She listened to him with an amused air, and when he paused, she said flippantly:-- "We have heard it before." "So much the worse for both of us. If you at least took a more sober view of things! Seriously, Tanya, you ought to make life a burden to me until I begin to do something to get out of this devilish--of this villainous, unpardonable position." "You should have married Cecilia Trotzky, then," she said, laughing. Cecilia Trotzky was the virago among the educated Russo-Jewish immigrants, who form a numerous colony within a colony in the Ghetto of New York. She was described as a woman who had placed her husband in a medical college, then made a point of sending him supperless to bed every time he failed to study his lessons, and later, when he was practicing, fixed the fees with his patients.