"
John nodded his head proudly.
"I know it's big," he said, "but it isn't big enough to hold all the
people who are sleeping to-night on the roofs and in the parks."
"I was thinking of your brother--and Grace," said Millie. "They've been
married only two weeks now, and they're in a stuffy hall bedroom and
eating with all the other boarders. Think what our flat would mean to
them; to be by themselves, with eight rooms and their own kitchen and
bath, and our new refrigerator and the gramophone! It would be heaven!
It would be a real honeymoon!"
Abandoning the drug clerk, John lifted Millie in his arms and kissed
her, for, next to his wife, nearest his heart was the younger brother.
* * * * *
The younger brother and Grace were sitting on the stoop of the
boarding-house. On the upper steps, in their shirt-sleeves, were the
other boarders; so the bride and bridegroom spoke in whispers. The air
of the cross street was stale and stagnant; from it rose exhalations of
rotting fruit, the gases of an open subway, the smoke of passing
taxicabs.
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