" "Two
blocks east." "Don't mention it." "No more rice pudding left, ma'am."
When Isaac Neugass said, "Well, whad can I do for you?" something within
her thawed so that she could have cried.
"I'm looking for this furnished room," she said, and held out the slip
toward him.
"You wand my wife," he said, waving her the direction. "Go right
outside to the next stoop and ring the bell over Neugass."
"Oh, thank you!" she said, suiting her action to his word.
"It's a nize room. I could wish it to an early bird to catch it."
"That's what I want, a nice, quiet room."
"Then you got it," he cried. "It's a room for a needle," his thumb and
forefinger indicating an infinitesibly fine point.
"A needle?"
"So it could hear itself fall."
In his own way Mr. Neugass was a jokester, insisting upon the laugh,
sitting back upon his figurative haunches, waiting.
"Then it is just what I want," said Lilly, giving him his smile, "only I
hope it isn't too--"
He took to waggling his head, his little kindly eyes illuminated with a
sunburst of wrinkles and his voice a festooned chant of rising and
falling inflections.
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