"For God's sake, Yetta, get me out of this--this awful scrape. My
mother, my sisters--the disgrace!" She laughed bitterly.
"You poor chicken among hawks! But I'll help you--follow me." He reached
the cellar stairs, and she showed him a way by which he could walk
safely into the alley, thence to the street back of their building. He
shook her hand with the intensity of a man in the clutches of the ague.
"But you--why don't you go with me?" he asked, his teeth chattering.
The brittle sound of glass breaking was heard. She answered, as she took
his feverish hand:--
"Because, you brave revolutionist, I must stick to my colours.
Farewell!" And remounting the stairs, she saw the bluecoats awaiting
her.
"I hope the police will catch him anyhow," she said. It was her one
relapse into femininity, and as she quietly surrendered she did not
regret it.
III
Old Koschinsky's store on the avenue was the joy of the neighbourhood.
For hours, their smeary faces flattened against the glass, the children
watched the tireless antics of the revolving squirrels; the pouter
pigeons expand their breasts into feathered balloons; the goldfish, as
they stolidly swam, their little mouths open, their eyes following the
queer human animals imprisoned on the other side of the plate-glass
window.
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