"If we cannot have originals or etchings, we won't have any. I hate
middle-classness."
"But, Zoe, dear--a few good prints. 'The Age of Innocence'--"
She kissed her mother on the mouth with all the outrageous patronage of
youth.
"You're a darling, Lilly, but they just aren't doing it that way any
more, dear."
So there were no pictures.
At the time of this move, Harry had been holding the position of clerk
at the cigar, magazine, and book concession of one of the newest and
noisiest of Broadway's terrific commercial hotels.
The hours were difficult, from noon to midnight, but within the
seventeen months he had advanced from fifteen to twenty-five dollars a
week. A new, a surprising spruceness had laid hold of him. He took to
exceedingly tall small collars and vivid neckwear, his suit very narrow
and making him look less than ever his years.
Mrs. Schum, too, had taken on some of that well-being, and, though she
complained constantly of a sciatic twist in her side, something had
lifted from off her. Her patter about the house, in the slippers with
the rubber insets, was lighter; she discarded the old jet-edged dolman
with the humps on the shoulders and the slits for the arms, for a decent
full-length black coat with a stitched braid border and self-covered
buttons, gift of her grandson.
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