"It ain't right to make you stop school," said Mr. Snawdor. "It ain't bein' fair to you."
"I'd do it all right," said Nance, fired by his magnanimity, "only they're on to me now I've reported myself. Ain't you makin' any money at the shop?"
"I might if I was willin' to buy junk. But you know where them boys gets their stuff."
"The gang bust into a empty house last night an' cut out all the lead pipes. I seen 'em comin' home with it."
"There ain't no chance fer a honest man," he said miserably. "I'm sick o' livin', that's whut I am. I am ready to quit."
When Mrs. Snawdor arrived, she swept all domestic problems impatiently aside.
"Fer goodness' sake don't come tellin' me no more hard-luck tales. Ain't I got troubles enough of my own? Nance, soon 's you git through, go git me a bucket of beer, an' if you see any of the Gormans, say I'll stop in this evenin' on my way to work."
"I ain't goin' fer the beer no more," announced Nance.
"An' will ye tell me why?" asked Mrs. Snawdor.
"'Cause I ain't," said Nance, knowing the futility of argument.
Mrs. Snawdor lifted her hand to strike, but changed her mind. She was beginning to have a certain puzzled respect for her stepdaughter's decision of character.
After the children had been put to bed and Nance had cried over the smallest nightgown, no longer needed, she slipped down to the second floor and, pausing before the door behind which the sewing-machines were always whirring, gave a peculiar whistle. It was a whistle possible only to a person who boasted the absence of a front tooth, and it brought Ike Lavinski promptly to the door.
Ikey was a friend whom she regarded with mingled contempt and admiration--contempt because he was weak and undersized, admiration because he was the only person of her acquaintance who had ever had his name in the newspaper. On two occasions he had been among the honor students at the high school, and his family and neighbors regarded him as an intellectual prodigy.
"Say, Ikey," said Nance, "if you was me, an' had to make some money, an' didn't want to chuck school, what would you do?"
Ikey considered the matter. Money and education were the most important things in the world to him, and were not to be discussed lightly.