Kitabı oku: «The Competitive Nephew», sayfa 12

"But – " Miss Duckman protested.

"Now, me dear lady," the conductor interrupted, "don't ye go worritin' yerself. I've got me orders if anybody gets hit be the train to take him to the nearest company's doctor in the direction I'm goin'. See? And if you was Mister and Missus Vanderbilt, they couldn't treat you no better up to the Emergency Hospital."

"But – " Miss Duckman began. Again she attempted to explain that Rudnik was not her husband, and again the conductor forestalled her.

"And if he's able to go home to-night," he said finally, "ye'll be given free transportation, in a parlour car d'ye mind, like ye'd be on your honeymoon."

He patted her gently on the shoulder as he turned to a waiting brakeman.

"Let her go, Bill," he cried, and with a jubilant toot from the engine Miss Duckman's elopement was fairly under way.

When Harris Rudnik opened his eyes in the little white-curtained room of the Emergency Hospital, Miss Duckman sat beside his bed. She smiled encouragingly at him, but for more than five minutes he made no effort to speak.

"Well," he said at length, "what are you kicking about? It's an elegant place, this here Home."

Miss Duckman laid her fingers on her lips.

"You shouldn't speak nothing," she whispered, "on account you are sick, aber not serious sick."

"I know I am sick," Rudnik replied. "I was just figuring it all out. I am getting knocked down by a train and – "

"No bones is broken," Miss Duckman hastened to assure him. "You would be out in a few days."

"I am satisfied," he said faintly. "You got a fine place here, Missis."

Miss Duckman laid her hand on Rudnik's pillow.

"I ain't a Missis," she murmured. "My name is Miss Blooma Duckman."

"Blooma," Rudnik muttered. "I once used to got a sister by the name Blooma, and it ain't a bad name, neither." He was not entirely softened by his mishap, however. "But, anyhow, that ain't here or there," he said. "Women is just the same – always kicking. What is the matter with this Home, Miss Duckman? It's an elegant place already."

"This ain't the Home," Miss Duckman explained. "This is a hospital, which when you was hit by the engine they put you on the train and took you up here."

"Aber what are you doing here?" he asked after a pause.

"I come along," Miss Duckman said; "and now you shouldn't talk no more."

"What d'ye mean, you come along?" he cried. "Didn't you go back to the Home?"

Miss Duckman shook her head, and Rudnik turned on his pillow and looked inquiringly at her.

"How long am I up here, anyhow?" he demanded.

"Four days," Miss Duckman said, and Rudnik closed his eyes again. For ten minutes longer he lay still and then his lips moved.

"What did you say?" Miss Duckman asked.

"I says Blooma is a pretty good name already," he murmured, smiling faintly, and the next moment he sank into a light sleep.

When he awoke Miss Duckman still sat by the side of his bed, her fingers busy over the hem of a sheet, and he glanced nervously at the window through which the late afternoon sun came streaming.

"Ain't it pretty late you should be away from the Home?" he inquired. "It must be pretty near six, ain't it?"

"I know it," Miss Duckman said; "and the doctor says at six you should take this here powder."

"Aber shouldn't you got to be getting ready to go back to the Home?" he asked.

Miss Duckman shook her head.

"I ain't going back no more," she answered. "I got enough of them people."

Rudnik looked helplessly at her.

"But what would you do?" he said. "You ain't got no other place to go to, otherwise you wouldn't got to live in a Home."

"Sure, I know," she replied as she prepared to give him his powder; "but Gott sei dank I still got my health, and I am telling the lady superintendent here how they work me at the Home, and she says I could stop here till I am finding something to do. I could cook already and I could sew already, and if the worser comes to the worst I could find a job in an underwear factory. They don't pay much, but a woman like me she don't eat much. All I want is I could get a place to sleep, and I bet yer I could make out fine. So you should please take the powder."

Rudnik swallowed his powder.

"You says you could cook," he remarked after he had again settled himself on his pillow. "Tzimmus, for instance, und Fleisch Kugel?"

"Tzimmus und Fleisch Kugel is nothing," she declared. "I don't want to say nothing about myself, understand me, because lots of women to hear 'em talk you would think wonder what cooks they are, and they couldn't even boil a potater even; aber if you could eat my gefüllte Rinderbrust, Mister – "

"Rudnik," he said as he licked his moist lips, "Harris Rudnik."

"Mister Rudnik," she proceeded, "oder my Tebeches, you would got to admit I ain't so helpless as I look."

"You don't look so helpless," Rudnik commented; "I bet yer you could do washing even."

"Could I?" Miss Duckman exclaimed. "Why, sometimes at the Home I am washing from morning till night, aber I ain't kicking none. It really agrees with me, Mr. Rudnik."

Rudnik nodded. Again he closed his eyes, and had it not been that he swallowed convulsively at intervals he would have appeared to be sleeping. Suddenly he raised himself on his pillow.

"Do you make maybe a good cup coffee also?" he inquired.

"A good cup coffee I make in two ways," Miss Duckman answered. "The first is – "

Rudnik waved his hand feebly.

"I'll take your word for it," he said, and again lapsed into quietude.

"D'ye know," he murmured at length, "I ain't drunk a good cup coffee in years already?"

Miss Duckman made no answer. Indeed she dropped her sewing and passed noiselessly out of the room, and when she returned ten minutes later she bore on a linen-covered tray a cup of steaming, fragrant coffee.

"How was that?" Miss Duckman asked after he had emptied the cup.

Rudnik wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"All I could say is," he replied, "if your Tzimmus ain't no worser as your coffee, Miss Duckman, nobody could kick that you ain't a good cook."

Miss Duckman's faded cheeks grew pink and she smiled happily.

"I guess you are trying to make me a compliment," she said.

"In my whole life I never made for a woman a compliment," Rudnik declared. "I never even so much as met one I could make a compliment to yet except you, and mit you it ain't no compliment, after all. It's the truth."

He lay back on his pillow and gazed at the ceiling for fully a quarter of an hour, while Miss Duckman sewed away industriously.

"After all," he said at last, "why not? Older men as me done it."

"Did you say something?" Miss Duckman asked.

Rudnik cleared his throat noisily.

"I says," he replied, "you should please be so good and don't bother yourself about that – now – underwear factory job till I am getting out of here."

"A Home is a Home," B. Lesengeld said as he and Belz sat in the office nearly a week later; "but if Schindelberger wouldn't show up here with Rudnik to-day yet, Belz, we would foreclose sure."

"Would we?" Belz retorted. "Well, I got something to say about that, too, Lesengeld, and I'm going to give the Bella Hirshkind people a couple days longer. To-day is Blooma Duckman's day out again, and me and Mrs. Belz we sit home last night and we couldn't do a thing on account Mrs. Belz is dreading it so. Think what it would be if that woman is thrown back on our hands."

"If she is so terrible as all that why do you let her come at all?" Lesengeld asked, and Belz heaved a great sigh.

"I'll tell you, Lesengeld," he said, "she's really got a very good heart, y'understand; aber is it Mrs. Belz's fault she ain't such a A Number One cook? Every time that Blooma Duckman comes round she rubs it in yet, and she snoops under beds to see is it clean oder not, and she gets the girl so worked up, understand me, that we are hiring a new one every week. At the same time the woman means well, Lesengeld, but you know how that is: some people means so well you couldn't stand 'em at all."

Lesengeld nodded.

"Sure, I know," he said. "I seen it last week a case where a feller all the time means well and is trying to do good. He is taking pity on a tramp, understand me, and the tramp ganvers his silver spoons and everything, and I says to Mrs. Lesengeld: 'Mommer,' I says, 'it only goes to show,' I says, 'if you feel you are beginning to take pity on a feller,' I says, 'you shouldn't got no mercy on him at all,' I says. 'Otherwise he will go to work and do you every time,' I says. So that's why I am telling you, Belz, I guess the best thing we could do is we should right away foreclose Rudnik's house on him. Then if Schindelberger is such a charitable sucker as all that, let him buy in the house for the Bella Hirshkind Home and be done with it. All we want is our money back and we would be satisfied. What is the use we consider Rudnik's feelings. Ain't it?"

"Do you think I am holding off on Rudnik's account?" Belz exclaimed indignantly. "I never even got an idee to take pity on the feller at all. An old snoozer like him which he's got only one house to his name, understand me, he don't deserve no better. So go ahead and ring up Schindelberger and tell him that's what we would do."

Lesengeld turned to the desk, but even as he took the telephone receiver from the hook Schindelberger himself came in.

"Endlich!" Belz exclaimed. "We was expecting you a whole week yet. Are you ready to fix up about Rudnik's mortgage?"

Schindelberger sat down and carefully placed his hat on Belz's desk.

"The mortgage I didn't come to see you about exactly," he said. "I got something else to tell you."

"Something else I ain't interested in at all," Belz rejoined. "We was just going to telephone and ask you why don't Rudnik fix it up about the mortgage?"

"I am coming to that presently," Schindelberger said. "What I want to say now is, Mr. Belz, that I am very sorry I got to come here and tell you an information about your wife's cousin, Miss Blooma Duckman."

"Blooma Duckman!" Belz exclaimed. "What's the trouble; is she sick?"

Schindelberger shook his head.

"Worser as that," he explained. "She disappeared from the Bella Hirshkind Home a week ago already and nobody sees nothing from her since."

For a brief interval Belz stared at his visitor and then he turned to Lesengeld.

"Ain't that a fine note?" he said.

"All we are discovering is a couple packages she got with her, which the superintendent sends her over to West Farms she should buy some groceries, and on her way back she drops the packages and disappears."

"Might she fell down a rock maybe?" Lesengeld suggested. "The other day I am seeing a fillum where a feller falls down a rock already and they search for him a hundred people yet. They get near him as I am to you, Schindelberger, and still they couldn't find him anyhow on account the feller is too weak to say something."

"How could she fall down a rock?" Schindelberger interrupted. "It's all swamps up there. But, anyhow, Belz, we are wasting time here talking about it. The best thing is you should ring up the police."

"What d'ye mean, wasting time?" Belz cried. "You're a fine one to talk about wasting time. Here the woman disappears a week ago already and you are only just telling me now."

Schindelberger blushed.

"Well, you see," he said, "we all the time got hopes she would come back." In point of fact he had purposely delayed breaking the news to Belz in order that the settlement of Rudnik's mortgage extension should not be prejudiced. "But now," he added ingenuously, "it don't make no difference, because Rudnik telephones me yesterday morning that the whole thing is off on account he is married."

"Married!" Lesengeld cried. "Do you mean to told me that old Schlemiel gets married yet?"

"So sure as you are sitting there. And he says he would come round here this morning and see you."

"He should save himself the trouble," Belz declared angrily. "Now particularly that Blooma Duckman ain't up there at all, I wouldn't extend that mortgage, not if he gives a deed to that Home to take effect right to-day yet. I shouldn't begun with you in the first place, Schindelberger."

Schindelberger seized his hat.

"I acted for the best," he said. "I am sorry you should get delayed on your mortgage, gentlemen, aber you shouldn't hold it up against me. I done it for the sake of the Bella Hirshkind Home, which if people gets sore at me on account I always act charitable, that's their lookout, not mine."

He started for the door as he finished speaking, but as he placed his hand on the knob some one turned it from the other side and the next moment he stood face to face with Rudnik.

"So!" Schindelberger exclaimed. "You are really coming up here, are you? It ain't a bluff, like you are taking my card to go up to the Home and you never went near the place at all."

Rudnik shut the door behind him.

"What d'ye mean, I didn't go near the place at all?" he said angrily. "Do you think I am such a liar like you are, Schindelberger? Not only did I go near the place, but I got so near it that a hundred feet more and the engine would knocked me into the front door of the Home already."

It was then that Lesengeld and Belz observed the stout cane on which Rudnik supported himself.

"I come pretty close to being killed already on account I am going up to the Home," he continued; "and if nobody is asking me to sit down I would sit down anyway, because if a feller gets run over by a train he naturally don't feel so strong, even if he would escape with bruises only."

"Did you got run over with a train?" Schindelberger asked.

"I certainly did," Rudnik said. "I got run over with a train and married in six days, and if you go to work and foreclose my house on me to-day yet, it will sure make a busy week for me." He looked pathetically at Belz. "Unless," he added, "you are going to give me a show and extend the mortgage."

Belz met this appeal with stolid indifference.

"Of course, Rudnik," he said, "I'm sorry you got run over with a train; but if we would extend your mortgage on account you got run over with a train and our other mortgagees hears of it, understand me, the way money is so tight nowadays, every time a mortgage comes due them suckers would ring in trollyer-car accidents on us and fall down coal-holes so as we would give 'em an extension already."

"And wouldn't it make no difference that I just got married?" Rudnik asked.

"If an old feller like you gets married, Rudnik," Belz replied, "he must got to take the consequences."

"An idee!" Lesengeld exclaimed. "Do you think that we are making wedding presents to our mortgagees yet, Rudnik?"

"It serves you right, Rudnik," Schindelberger said. "If you would consent to the Home getting your property I wouldn't said nothing about Miss Duckman's disappearing and Belz would of extended the mortgage on you."

"I was willing to do it," Rudnik said, "aber my wife wouldn't let me. She says rather than see the house go that way she would let you gentlemen foreclose it on us, even if she would got to starve."

"I don't know who your wife is," Schindelberger rejoined angrily, "but she talks like a big fool."

"No, she don't," Rudnik retorted; "she talks like a sensible woman, because, in the first place, she wouldn't got to starve. I got enough strength left that I could always make for her and me anyhow a living, and, in the second place, the Home really ain't a home. It's a business."

"A business!" Schindelberger cried. "What d'ye mean, a business?"

"I mean a business," Rudnik replied, "an underwear business. Them poor women up there makes underwear from morning till night already, and Schindelberger here got a brother-in-law which he buys it from the Home for pretty near half as much as it would cost him to make it."

"Rosher!" Max Schindelberger shrieked. "Who tells you such stories?"

"My wife tells me," Rudnik replied.

"And how does your wife know it?" Belz demanded.

"Because," Rudnik answered, "she once used to live in the Home."

"Then that only goes to show what a liar you are," Schindelberger said. "Your wife couldn't of been in the Home on account it only gets started last year, and everybody which went in there ain't never come out yet."

"Everybody but one," Rudnik said as he seized his cane, and raising himself from the chair he hobbled to the door.

"Blooma leben," he cried, throwing the door wide open; and in response Mrs. Rudnik, née Blooma Duckman, entered.

"Nu, Belz," she said, "ain't you going to congradulate me?"

Belz sat back in his chair and stared at his wife's cousin in unaffected astonishment, while Schindelberger noiselessly opened the door and slid out of the room unnoticed.

"And so you run away from the Home and married this Schnorrer?" Belz said at length.

"Schnorrer he ain't," she retorted, "unless you would go to work and foreclose the house."

"It would serve you right if I did," Belz rejoined.

"Then you ain't going to?" Mrs. Rudnik asked.

"What d'ye mean, he ain't going to?" Lesengeld interrupted. "Ain't I got nothing to say here? Must I got to sacrifice myself for Belz's wife's relations?"

"Koosh, Lesengeld!" Belz exploded. "You take too much on yourself. Do you think for one moment I am going to foreclose that mortgage and have them two old people schnorring their living expenses out of me for the rest of my days, just to oblige you? The mortgage runs at 6 per cent., and it's going to continue to do so. Six per cent. ain't to be sneezed at, neither."

"And ain't he going to pay us no bonus nor nothing?" Lesengeld asked in anguished tones.

"Bonus!" Belz cried; "what are you talking about, bonus? Do you mean to told me you would ask an old man which he nearly gets killed by a train already a bonus yet? Honestly, Lesengeld, I'm surprised at you. The way you talk sometimes it ain't no wonder people calls us second-mortgage sharks."

"But, lookyhere, Belz – " Lesengeld began.

"'S enough, Lesengeld," Belz interrupted. "You're lucky I don't ask you you should make 'em a wedding present yet."

"I suppose, Belz, you're going to make 'em a wedding present, too, ain't it?" Lesengeld jeered.

"That's just what I'm going to do," Belz said as he turned to the safe. He fumbled round the middle compartment and finally produced two yellow slips of paper. "I'm going to give 'em these here composition notes of Schindelberger's, and with what Blooma knows about the way that Rosher is running the Bella Hirshkind Home she shouldn't got no difficulty making him pay up."

He handed the notes to Rudnik.

"And now," he said, "sit right down and tell us how it comes that you and Blooma gets married."

For more than a quarter of an hour Rudnik described the details of his meeting with Miss Blooma Duckman, together with his hopes and aspirations for the future, and when he concluded Belz turned to his partner.

"Ain't it funny how things happens?" he said. "Honestly, Lesengeld, ain't that more interesting than most things you could see it on a moving pictures?"

Lesengeld nodded sulkily.

"It sure ought to be," he said, "because to go on a moving pictures you pay only ten cents, aber this here story costs me my half of a three-hundred-and-fifty dollar bonus. However, I suppose I shouldn't begrudge it 'em. I seen the other evening a fillum by the name The Return of Enoch Aarons, where an old feller stands outside on the street and looks through a winder, and he sees a happy married couple mit children sitting in front of a fire. So I says to my wife: 'Mommer,' I says, 'if that old snoozer would only get married,' I says, 'he wouldn't got to stand outside winders looking at other people having a good time,' I says. 'He would be enjoying with his own wife and children,' I says, and I thinks right away of Rudnik here." He placed his hand on Rudnik's shoulder as he spoke. "But now Rudnik is married," he concluded, "and even if he wouldn't got children he's got a good wife anyhow, which it stands in the Siddur already – a good wife is more valuable as rubies."

Rudnik seized the hand of his blushing bride. "And," he added, "rubies is pretty high nowadays."

CHAPTER EIGHT
COERCING MR. TRINKMANN

"I don't know, Mr. Trinkmann, what comes over you, you are always picking on me," Louis Berkfield said. "Me, I am doing my best here."

"You are doing your best here, Louis!" Harris Trinkmann exclaimed. "Do you call them ashtrays doing your best? They got on them Schmutz from the time I bought 'em off of Dreiner which he busted up way before the Spanish War already. The knives and forks, too, Louis. Do you think it's a pleasure to a customer when he is eating Kalbfleisch that he finds on his fork a piece of Bismarck herring from last night already? You are ruining my trade, Louis."

"What do you mean, ruining your trade, Mr. Trinkmann?" Louis rejoined. "I ain't no pantryman. If the customers complains that the fork got on it a piece Bismarck herring, that is from the pantryman a Schuld. What have I got to do with herring on the forks?"

"You got everything to do with it," Trinkmann declared. "A pantryman is a feller which no one could depend upon, otherwise he wouldn't be a pantryman, Louis; but a waiter, that's something else again. If a waiter wouldn't see that the forks ain't schmutzig, who would see it? The trouble is here nobody takes any interest at all. Me, I got to do everything myself."

Mr. Trinkmann returned to the cashier's desk over which Mrs. Trinkmann habitually presided, and taking a cigarette pen-fashion twixt thumb and forefinger, he lit it slowly and threw away the match with a gesture that implied more strongly than words, "I am sick and tired of the whole business."

The fact was that Mr. Trinkmann had undergone that morning as much as one man could endure without the relief that profanity affords. To be precise, only three hours before, Mrs. Trinkmann had presented him with twins, both girls.

"The thing has got to stop sometime, Louis," he said, as he came from behind the desk. He referred, however, to the ashtrays and the forks. "Either you would got to turn around a new leaf, or you could act like a slob somewheres else, understand me, because I wouldn't stand for it here."

"What are you talking nonsense – act like a slob, Mr. Trinkmann?" Louis cried. "I am working here for you now six years next Tishabav, and everybody which comes here in the place I always give 'em good satisfaction."

"You got too swell a head, Louis," Mr. Trinkmann continued, gaining heat. "You would think you was a partner here the way you act. You talk to me like I would be the waiter and you would be the boss. What do you think I am, anyway?"

"But, Mr. Trinkmann – " Louis began.

"Things goes from bad to worst," Trinkmann went on, his voice rising to a bellow. "You treat me like I would be a dawg."

"Aber, Mr. Trinkmann," Louis whimpered, "I – "

"Koosh!" Trinkmann shouted. "I got enough of your Chutzpah. I am through with you. Comes three o'clock this afternoon, you would quit. D'ye hear me?"

Louis nodded. He would have made some articulate protest, but his Adam's apple had suddenly grown to the dimensions of a dirigible balloon; and though there surged through his brain every manner of retort, ironical and defiant, he could think of nothing better to do than to polish the ashtrays. Polishing powder and rags alone could not have produced the dazzling brilliancy that ensued. It was a sense of injustice that lent force to every rub, and when he began to clean the forks Louis imparted to his labour all the energy of a discharged waiter wringing his employer's neck.

Before he had half concluded his task the other waiters arrived, for Louis was but one of a staff of three, with the distinction that though his two associates were only dinner waiters, Louis served breakfast, dinner, and supper. Marcus, the elder of the two, bore a brown-paper package with an air of great solemnity, while Albert, his companion, perspired freely in spite of a chill March air blowing outside.

"Mr. Trinkmann," Marcus began, "Louis telephones me this morning which you got a couple new arrivals in your family and – "

"Louis!" Trinkmann roared, and Louis in response approached the desk with the polishing cloth in his hand. "Do you mean to told me you are using the telephone without asking me?"

"I thought, Mr. Trinkmann," Louis hastened to explain, "that so long you got in your family – "

"What is it your business what I got in my family?" Trinkmann asked.

Louis' eyes kindled and he gave free play to his indignation.

"For you I don't care at all, Mr. Trinkmann," he said, "but for Mrs. Trinkmann which she is always acted to us like a lady, understand me, I am telephoning Marcus he should bring with him a few flowers, Mr. Trinkmann, which if you wouldn't take 'em to her, we could easy send 'em up by a messenger boy, and here is a nickel for using the telephone."

He plunged his hand into his trousers-pocket and dashed a coin on to the desk. Then, reaching behind him with both hands, he untied his apron. "Furthermore," he said, "I wouldn't wait till three o'clock, Mr. Trinkmann. Give me my money and I would go now."

"Pick up that apron, Louis," Trinkmann commanded, "because, so sure as I am standing here, if you wouldn't wait on the customers till three o'clock I wouldn't pay you not one cent."

"So far as that goes, Mr. Trinkmann," Louis commenced, "I ain't – "

"And if you get fresh to me oder to the customers, Louis," Trinkmann concluded, "you wouldn't get your money, neither."

"Did the customers ever done me anything, Mr. Trinkmann?" Louis retorted. "Why should I get fresh to the customers which every one of them is my friends, Mr. Trinkmann? And as for getting fresh to you, Mr. Trinkmann, if I would want to I would. Otherwise not."

With this defiance Louis picked up his polishing cloth and his apron and proceeded to the kitchen, to which Marcus and Albert had already retreated. His courage remained with him until he had refastened his apron, and then he discerned Marcus and Albert to be regarding him with so mournful a gaze that the balloon again expanded in his throat, and forthwith – to pursue the simile further – it burst. He opened the door leading from the kitchen to the paved space littered with packing boxes, which had once been the backyard, and despite the cold March weather he stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

Ten minutes later the first luncheon customer arrived and Louis hastened to wait upon him. It was Max Maikafer, salesman for Freesam, Mayer & Co., and he greeted Louis with the familiarity of six years' daily acquaintance.

"Nu, Louis," he said, "what's the matter you are catching such a cold in your head?"

Louis only sniffled faintly in reply.

"A feller bums round till all hours of the night, understand me," Max continued, "and sooner or later, Louis, a lowlife – a Shikkerer– gives him a Schlag on the top from the head, verstehest du, and he would got worser as a cold, Louis."

Louis received this admonition with a nod, since he was incapable of coherent speech.

"So, therefore, Louis," Max concluded, as he looked in a puzzled fashion at Louis' puffed eyelids, "you should bring me some Kreploch soup and a little gefüllte Rinderbrust, not too much gravy."

He watched Louis retire to the kitchen and then he motioned to Albert, who was industriously polishing the glasses at a nearby table.

"What's the matter with Louis, Albert?" he asked.

"Fired," Albert said out of the corner of his mouth, with one eye on the cashier's desk, where Mr. Trinkmann was fast approaching the borderline of insanity over a maze of figures representing the previous day's receipts.

"What for?" Max asked.

"I should know what for!" Albert exclaimed. "The boss is mad on account he got twins, so he picks on Louis that the ashtrays ain't clean and the forks, neither. So Louis he don't say nothing, and Trinkmann gets mad and fires him."

He glanced furtively at the cashier's desk just as Trinkmann suddenly tore up his paperful of figures, and in one frightened bound Albert was once more at his glass polishing.

"Well, Trinkmann," Max cried, as he made ready to absorb the soup by tucking one corner of his napkin into the top of his collar, "I must got to congradulate you."

Trinkmann was on his way to the kitchen for the purpose of abusing the pantryman as a measure of relief to his figure-harried brain. He paused at Max's table and distorted his face in what he conceived to be an amiable grin.

"No one compels you to congradulate me, Mr. Maikafer," he said, "and, anyhow, Mr. Maikafer, with business the way it is, understand me, twins ain't such Simcha, neither."

"Sure, I know," Max rejoined; "but so far as I could see, Trinkmann, you ain't got no kick coming. You do a good business here. You got three good waiters and the customers don't complain none."

"Don't they?" Trinkmann grunted.

"Not at the waiters, Trinkmann," Max said significantly. "And the food is all right, too, Trinkmann. The only thing is, Trinkmann, when a feller got a nice gemütlicher place like you got it here, y'understand, he should do his bestest that he keeps it that way."

Trinkmann's smile became a trifle less forced at Max's use of the adjective gemütlicher, for which the English language has no just equivalent, since it at once combines the meanings of cozy, comfortable, good-natured, and homelike.

"Certainly, I am always trying to keep my place gemütlich, Mr. Maikafer," Trinkmann declared, "but when you got waiters, Mr. Maikafer, which they – "

"Waiters ain't got nothing to do with it, Trinkmann," Max interrupted. "On Sutter Avenue, Brownsville, in boom times already was a feller – still a good friend of mine – by the name Ringentaub, which runs a restaurant, Trinkmann, and everybody goes there on account he keeps a place which you could really say was gemütlich. The chairs was old-fashioned, mit cane seats into 'em, which they sagged in the right place, so that if you was sitting down, y'understand, you knew you was sitting down, not like some chairs which I seen it in restaurants, Trinkmann, which if you was sitting down, you might just as well be standing up for all the comfort you get out of it."