could not.

"I wonder," he added with alarm in his voice, "I wonder if you're
catching consumption, the disease your mother died of ... you must be
careful of yourself."

I told him I would be careful....

"I think I'll send you back home to visit the folks this fall."

* * * * *

There was a restaurant just around the corner from where we lived in our
second story flat--a restaurant which bore the legend stuck up in the
window, "Home Cooking." The sign itself was of a dull, dirty,
fly-specked white which ought to have been a sufficient warning to the
nice palate.

The place was run by a family of three ... there was Mister Brown, the
man, a huge-built, blotch-faced, retired stone-mason, his meagre little
wife, Mrs. Brown, and their grass-widow daughter, Flora.... Flora did
but little work, except to lean familiarly and with an air of unspoken
intimacy, over the tables of the men, as she slouched up with their food
... and she liked to sit outside in the back yard when there was
sunshine ... in the hammock for more comfort ... shelling peas or
languidly peeling potatoes.

Flora's vibrant, little, wasplike mother whose nose was so sharp and red
that it made me think of Paul's ferret--she bustled and buzzed about,
doing most of the work.