"You--you're talkin' to your pa!" "You give him twenty-four thousan' dollars?
_Give_ it to him?
Wha'd you do it for?
Wha'd you-- ?" Allie's voice failed her completely, she groped at her throat, uttering unintelligible, animal-like sounds.
"Why, Allie, you're _mad!_ And after all he done for me an' you," Mrs.
Briskow cried, accusingly.

"You oughter be ashamed." "Sure! Didn't he make us twenty-four thousan' dollars, where we wouldn't of got nothin'?
An' us rich as we are, an' him broke?
I'm supprised at you." A harsh exclamation burst from the girl--to the astonished parents it sounded like an oath, but it could not have been--then she swung herself heavily about and rushed blindly into the next room, slamming the stout metal door behind her with a crash that threatened to unhinge it.
"Well, I be--darned!" Gus Briskow turned a slack, empty face upon the partner of his joys.

"I--I never s'posed that girl would turn out--_greedy_." The mother's countenance slowly wrinkled into lines of grief and worry, she wrung her hands and rocked from side to side.

"I dunno what's come over the child," she moaned, tearfully.

"She behaves so queer over them silk stockin's an' corsets an' lingeries an' things that she skeers me.
Sometimes I'm afeerd she's goin' crazy--or something.".