Seiden asked. "I don't know what you are talking about at all." 

 Sternsilver disregarded the interruption. 

 "Operator oder foreman, Mr. Seiden, what is the difference when it comes to a poor girl like Miss Bessie Saphir, which, even supposing she is a relation from your wife, she ain't so young no longer? Furthermore, with some faces which a girl got it she could have a heart from gold, y'understand, and what is it? Am I right or wrong, Mr. Seiden?" 

 Mr. Seiden made no reply. He was blinking at vacancy while his mind reverted to an afternoon call paid uptown by Mrs. Miriam Saphir. As a corollary, Mrs. Seiden had kept him awake half the night, and the burden of her jeremiad was: "What did you ever done for my relations? Tell me that." 

 "Say, lookyhere, Sternsilver," he said at length, "what are you trying to drive into?" 

 "I am driving into this, Mr. Seiden," Philip replied: "Miss Bessie Saphir must got to get married some time. Ain't it?" 

 Seiden nodded. 

 "Schon gut!" Sternsilver continued. "There's no time like the present." 

 A forced smile started to appear on Seiden's face, when the door leading to the public hall opened and a bonneted and shawled figure appeared. It was none other than Mrs. Miriam Saphir. 

 "Ai, tzuris!" she cried; and sinking into the nearest chair she began forthwith to rock to and fro and to beat her forehead with her clenched fist. 

 "Nu!" Seiden exploded. "What's the trouble now?" 

 Mrs. Saphir ceased rocking. On leaving home she had provided herself with a pathetic story which would not only excuse her presence in Seiden's factory but was also calculated to wring at least seventy-five cents from Seiden himself. Unfortunately she had forgotten to go over the minor details of the narrative on her way downtown, and now even the main points escaped her by reason of a heated altercation with the conductor of a Third Avenue car. The matter in dispute was her tender, in lieu of fare, of a Brooklyn transfer ticket which she had found between the pages of a week-old newspaper. For the first ten blocks of her ride she had feigned ignorance of the English language, and five blocks more were consumed in the interpretation, by a well-meaning passenger, of the conductor's urgent demands. Another five blocks passed in Mrs. Saphir's protestations 

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