“Oh, ain’t he?” groaned Stella.

“No, he ain’t. This is a respectable place. This ain’t no dope-den.”

“Do you know where he has gone?”

“Nope.”

“I do, Ma. He’s over at Liz Halloran’s. She was tellin’ me ’bout him.”

Eagerly Stella turned toward the younger woman. “Say, take me there. Take me there now. I got to see him.”

But she didn’t see him. Not that day. Liz Halloran, a thin haggard old woman with no front teeth had told Stella, standing in her miserable black hole of a doorway (like the opening into the cavity of a decayed tooth, it was), that he wa’n’t fit to be seen today. “He’s just layin’ there like dead today.”

“How often does he get this way?” Stella inquired.

“Oh, off and on, I don’t know! I don’t keep track. Couldn’t get no hooch. That’s what done it.”

“When do you think I could see him?”

“Oh, he’ll be rousin’ up tomorrow or the day after. He’ll be real bright for a spell, too.”

“I’ll come day after tomorrow,” said Stella.

2

AN HOUR LATER, as Stella sat gazing out of the window of an electric car that was bearing her back to the apartment and Laurel, she kept saying to herself, grimly, doggedly, “I can’t stand it. I wasn’t brought up in a pink-and-white nursery, thank God! I shan’t mind it after a while. I’m tough as tripe. Anyhow, it’s better than jumping off the Harvard Bridge.”

3

TEN DAYS LATER, nonchalantly to Laurel, Stella remarked one morning, “I shan’t be here, most likely, when you get back this afternoon, Laurel.” Laurel was attending business college daily now. “I’ve got an invitation for luncheon and the matinee.”

“An invitation? From whom, Mother?”

Stella smiled. “I haven’t got so many admirers. I guess you can guess.”

The color flooded to Laurel’s cheeks. “Mother, not Mr. Munn! You haven’t accepted an invitation from Mr. Munn!”

“I’d like to know why I haven’t!”

“Knowing how I feel about him—how I dislike him.”

“Gracious, Lollie! Honestly, it’s funny! You act as if you were the mother, and I the child.”

“Mother, you haven’t been seeing that creature again, have you?”

“That creature! How you talk! Why, Laurel, Ed’s a real nice man.”

“I don’t want to discuss him, Mother. I don’t want to hear you stand up for him. I don’t see why you’re bringing him up again. I thought we’d decided we’d drop him long ago.”