They agreed that a
boy was a "big loafer" and a great source of trouble, and that a
little girl was more obedient and clinging. It appeared that one of
these two mothers had a boy and two girls and that, contrary to
her own wish, he was her great pet, although he was not the
"baby."
"I am just crazy for him," she said, plaintively
She boasted of his baseball record, whereupon she used the slang
of the game with so much authority that it became entertaining,
but by a curious association of ideas she turned the conversation
to the subject of a family who owed the hotel-keeper their last
summer's board and who had been accepted this time in the hope
that they would pay their old debt as well as their new bills
Two men to the right of me were complaining of the unions and
the walking delegates, of traveling salesmen, of buyers. Then they
took up the subject of charity, whereupon one of them enlarged on
"scientific philanthropy," apparently for the sheer lust of hearing
himself use the term
I recalled that one of the things I was booked to do in Tannersville
was to attend a charity meeting of East Side business men, of
which Kaplan was one of the organizers.
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