"Do you think my _kshpenshesh_ are larger now?" he resumed in Yiddish. "May I lose as much through sickness. On the countrary, I _shpend_ even much less than I used to. We have two nice boarders--I keep them only for company's sake--and I have a _shteada job_--_a puddin' of a job_. I shall have still more money to _shpend outshite_," he added, falteringly. "Outside?"--and she burst into an artificial laugh which sent the blood to Jake's face. "Why, do you think I sha'n't go to Joe's, nor to the theatre, nor anywhere any more? Still oftener than before! _Hoy much vill you bet?_" "_Rats!_ A married man, a papa go to a dancing school! Not unless your wife drags along with you and never lets go of your skirts," she said sneeringly, adding the declaration that Jake's "bluffs" gave her a "regula' pain in de neck." Jake, writhing under her lashes, protested his freedom as emphatically as he could; but it only served to whet Mamie's spite, and against her will she went on twitting him as a henpecked husband and an old-fashioned Jew. Finally she reverted to the subject of his debt, whereupon he took fire, and after an interchange of threats and some quite forcible language they parted company. * * * * * From that evening the spectre of Mamie dressed in her white blouse almost unremittingly preyed on Jake's mind. The mournful sneer which had lit her pale, invalid-looking face on their last interview, when she wore that blouse, relentlessly stared down into his heart; gnawed at it with tantalizing deliberation; "drew out his soul," as he once put it to himself, dropping his arms and head in despair. "Is this what they call love?" he wondered, thinking of the strange, hitherto unexperienced kind of malady, which seemed to be gradually consuming his whole being. He felt as if Mamie had breathed a delicious poison into his veins, which was now taking effect, spreading a devouring fire through his soul, and kindling him with a frantic thirst for more of the same virus. His features became distended, as it were, and acquired a feverish effect; his eyes had a pitiable, beseeching look, like those of a child in the period of teething.