“Mitzi-witzi! Yes, oo was,--oo went out to see a feller,--ess oo did....”
The two women sat down to the breakfast table together. Jeannette spread her _World_ out before her; Beatrice propped the _Times_ against a water pitcher. They picked at their fruit, raised egg spoons to their lips delicately, broke off bits of toast and inserted them in their mouths, sipped their coffee with little fingers extended. Silence reigned except for the small noises of cup and spoon, and the crackle of newspapers.
“I _do_ think France ought to be more lenient with Germany,” Beatrice remarked at length, adjusting her eye-glasses.
“I’d make her pay to the last mark she’s got,” asserted Jeannette. She folded back her newspaper carefully to another page.
“They had quite an accident in the subway,” Beatrice observed.
“So I see.... Does seem to me the papers are awfully hard on the Interborough. I should think they ought to be permitted to charge an eight-cent fare; everything else is going up in price.”
“Do you suppose that Hennessy woman will get off?” asked Beatrice after an interval.
“Senator Knowles died, they think, from drinking whiskey that had wood alcohol in it.”
“Served him right. I wish they all would.”
At twenty minutes past eight, Jeannette put on her hat carefully before the mirror, drew about her shoulders her tipped fox scarf, jerked her hands vigorously into stout tan gloves, and proceeded down the two flights of stairs to the street. As she descended she noted with customary pleasure the effect of the cream-painted woodwork in the halls, the width of the stairs, and the flood of light from the skylight above the stair-well which effectively illuminated the interior of the house. She and Beatrice had indeed been fortunate in finding a home in such a pleasant, well-arranged building. It was the same apartment Miss Holland and Mrs. O’Brien had occupied for so many years, until the latter married again, and the former went to live with her nephew, Jerry,--who was a Commander now, had a wife and babies, and was stationed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The trend of Jeannette’s thoughts reminded her she had not been to see Miss Holland for nearly two months; she resolved upon a visit in the immediate future.