and somewhat hostile emphasis. “I don’t ag-gree with you at all! I think there’s no comparison! I like Mr. Betts so much better than I like Wilson!”
“Well, I like Wilson better,” said Mrs. Buckles grimly, and for a moment the two old women glared at each other with bitter hostile eyes.
“—Well,” Doctor Withers broke the silence quickly in a diplomatic effort to avert an impending clash, “—what are your plans for the winter, Mrs. Buckles? What have you decided to do? Are you going to Florida again this winter?”
“I don’t know what I’ll do,” old Mrs. Buckles answered in a tone of sullen dejection. “I haven’t decided yet…. I had planned to go down to Daytona Beach with Mrs. Wheelwright—that’s my friend at the Hotel Gridly—she had a daughter living in Daytona and we had planned to spend the winter there in order to be near them. But now that’s all fallen through,” she said dejectedly. “Here, at the last moment, when all my plans were made, she decided not to go—says she likes it at the Gridly and it will be cheaper to stay on there than to make a trip to Florida and back…. That’s the trouble with people nowadays,” she said bitterly, “you can’t depend on them. They never mean anything they say!” And she lapsed again into a sullen and dejected silence.
“Why aren’t you going to St. Petersburg?” said Mrs. Martin curiously after a brief pause. “I thought that’s where you always spent the winter.”
“It was,” said Mrs. Buckles, “until last winter. But I’ll never go back there again. It’s not the same place any more. I’ve been going to the same hotel down there for more than twenty years—it used to be a lovely place; when I went back there last winter I found the whole place changed. They had ruined it,” she bitterly concluded.
“How was that?” said Doctor Withers curiously. “What had they done to it?”
Mrs. Buckles looked around cautiously and craftily to make sure that in this sinister melting-pot of a million listening ears, she would not be overheard, and then, bending forward painfully, with one old arthritic hand held up beside her mouth, she muttered confidingly to her listeners:
“—I’ll tell you what it is. It’s the Jews! They get in everywhere,” she whispered ominously. “They ruin everything! When I got down there last winter the whole place was overrun with Jews! They had ruined the place!” she hissed. “The place was ruined!”
At this moment another old woman joined the group. She advanced slowly, leaning
