I wrote to the department store G.: “For the last few days my heavenly little thirteen-year-old friend with the ash-blond hair, the light gray eyes and the black lashes has been spreading out for my perusal eight to ten homely little swatches of silk on a patch of grass all gray from the dust of automobiles, saying: ‘Which is the prettiest?! The gray one with the lilac-colored threads, don’t you think—.’ I asked her what all these little swatches were about, whereupon she replied: ‘They’re hard to get. This girlfriend of mine, she’s got a sister who works for a tailoring outfit in Vienna. And my friend left me ten of her best samples, ’cause we’re real pals, see. But we tell the other girls they’re only rags to wipe the ink off pens. ’Cause if them other girls knew that they were good for nothing and we just like ’em, that’s all, they’d be so sad that they didn’t have any—.’ ” In response to the above, the department store G. sent me a big box full of the loveliest silk remnants, little silk swatches, particularly pretty Japanese and Indian patterns, for my thirteen-year-old friend. That evening, ten schoolgirls gathered in a circle on the lawn, in the center of which, enthroned, as it were, on the box, my fanatically adored little friend, a shoemaker’s daughter, held court. She picked up every little swatch of silk and passed it around the circle to each of the stunned girls struck dumb with amazement. The oldest girl said: “Can you really buy enough material of each little rag to make yourself a whole dress?”—“What for, you silly goose, aren’t the rags much nicer just as they are?” replied my heavenly little thirteen-year-old. The automobile dust of the rich enveloped lawn and lane in a thick white fog, while the clouds were pierced by blood-red zigzags from the setting sun. Whereupon my friend shut the box and said: “End of silk swatch show for today, ladies and gentlemen—,” hoisted the box onto her dear little ash blond head and said to me: “Tonight I’ll sleep tight and dream sweet sweet dreams, but not of you, no Sir, I’m going to dream about your wonderfully lovely little swatches of silk—!”