"You ought to see my Florrie read books!" exclaimed the mother.

Flora did read a lot ... but chiefly the erotic near-society novels that
Belford used to print....

"Yes, she's a smart girl, she is."

And the father....

"I won't work till the unions get better conditions for a man. I won't
be no slave to no man."

* * * * *

One sultry afternoon I went into the restaurant and found Flora away.
Poignantly disappointed, I asked where she was.

"--Gone on a trip!" her mother explained, without explaining.

From time to time Flora went on "trips."

* * * * *

And one morning, several mornings, Flora was not there to serve at the
breakfast table ... and I was hurt when I learned that she had gone back
to Newark to live, and had left no word for me. Her father told me she
"had gone back to George," meaning her never-seen husband from whom she
evidently enjoyed intervals of separation and grass-widowhood.