Kitabı oku: «The Competitive Nephew», sayfa 5
CHAPTER FOUR
SERPENTS' TEETH
"All right, Max," cried Samuel Gembitz, senior member of S. Gembitz & Sons; "if you think you know more about it as I do, Max, go ahead and make up that style in all them fancy shades. But listen to what I'm telling you, Max: black, navy blue, brown, and smoke is plenty enough; and all them copenhoogens, wisterias, and tchampanyers we would get stuck with, just as sure as little apples."
"That's what you think, pop," Max Gembitz replied.
"Well, I got a right to think, ain't I?" Samuel Gembitz retorted.
"Sure," Max said, "and so have I."
"After me," Samuel corrected. "I think first and then you think, Max; and I think we wouldn't plunge so heavy on them 1040's. Make up a few of 'em in blacks, navies, browns, and smokes, Max, and afterward we would see about making up the others."
He rose from his old-fashioned Windsor chair in the firm's private office and put on his hat – a silk hat of a style long obsolete.
"I am going to my lunch, Max," he said firmly, "and when I come back I will be here. Another thing, Max: you got an idee them 1040's is a brand-new style which is so original, understand me, we are bound to make a big hit with it at seven-fifty apiece – ain't it?"
Max nodded.
"Well, good styles travels fast, Max," the old man said; "and you could take it from me, Max, in two weeks' time Henry Schrimm and all them other fellers would be falling over themselves to sell the self-same garment at seven dollars."
He seized a gold-mounted, ebony cane, the gift of Harmony Lodge, 100, I.O.M.A., and started for the stairway, but as he reached the door he turned suddenly.
"Max," he shouted, "tell them boys to straighten up the sample racks. The place looks like a pigsty already."
As the door closed behind his father Max aimed a kick at the old-fashioned walnut desk and the old-fashioned Windsor chair; and then, lighting a cigarette, he walked hurriedly to the cutting room.
"Lester," he said to his younger brother, who was poring over a book of sample swatches, "what do you think now?"
"Huh?" Lester grunted.
"The old man says we shouldn't make up them 1040's in nothing but black, navy, brown, and smoke!"
Lester closed the book of sample swatches and sat down suddenly.
"Wouldn't that make you sick?" he said in tones of profound disgust. "I tell you what it is, Max, if it wouldn't be that the old man can't run the business forever, I'd quit right now. We've got a killing in sight and he Jonahs the whole thing."
"I told you what it would be," Max said. "I seen Falkstatter in Sarahcuse last week; and so sure as I'm standing here, Lester, I could sold that feller a two-thousand dollar order if it wouldn't be for the old man's back-number ideas. Didn't have a single pastel shade in my trunks!"
"Where is he now?" Lester asked.
"Gone to lunch," Max replied.
Lester took up the sample swatches again and his eyes rested lovingly on a delicate shade of pink.
"I hope he chokes," he said; but even though at that very moment Samuel Gembitz sat in Hammersmith's restaurant, his cheeks distended to the bursting point with gefüllte Rinderbrust, Lester's prayer went unanswered. Indeed, Samuel Gembitz had the bolting capacity of a boa-constrictor, and, with the aid of a gulp of coffee, he could have swallowed a grapefruit whole.
"Ain't you scared that you would sometimes hurt your di-gestion, Mr. Gembitz?" asked Henry Schrimm, who sat at the next table.
Now this was a sore point with Sam Gembitz, for during the past year he had succumbed to more than a dozen bilious attacks as a result of his voracious appetite; and three of them were directly traceable to gefüllte Rinderbrust.
"I ain't so delicate like some people, Henry," he said rather sharply. "I don't got to consider every bit of meat which I am putting in my mouth. And even if I would, Henry, what is doctors for? If a feller would got to deny himself plain food, Henry, he might as well jump off a dock and fertig."
Henry Schrimm was an active member of as many fraternal orders as there are evenings in the week, and he possessed a ready sympathy that made him invaluable as a chairman of a sick-visiting or funeral committee; for at seven P.M. Henry could bring himself to the verge of tears over the bedside of a lodge brother, without unduly affecting his ability to relish a game of auction pinochle at half-past eight, sharp.
"Jumping off a dock is all right, too, Mr. Gembitz," he commented, "but you got your family to consider."
"You shouldn't worry about my family, Henry," Gembitz retorted. "I am carrying good insurance; and, furthermore, I got my business in such shape that it would go on just the same supposing I should die to-morrow."
"Gott soll hüten, Mr. Gembitz," Henry added piously as the old man disposed of a dishful of gravy through the capillary attraction of a hunk of spongy rye bread.
"Yes, Henry," Gembitz continued, after he had licked his fingers and submitted his bicuspids to a process of vacuum cleaning, "I got my business down to such a fine point which you could really say was systematic."
"That's a good thing, Mr. Gembitz," Henry said, "because, presuming for the sake of argument, I am only saying you would be called away, Mr. Gembitz, them boys of yours would run it into the ground in no time."
"What d'ye mean, run it into the ground?" Gembitz demanded indignantly. "If you would got the gumption which my boys got it, Schrimm, you wouldn't be doing a business which the most you are making is a couple thousand a year."
"Sure, I know," Henry replied. "If I would got Lester's gumption I would be sitting around the Harlem Winter Garden till all hours of the morning; and if I would got Sidney's gumption I would be playing Kelly pool from two to four every afternoon. And as for Max, Mr. Gembitz, if I would got his gumption I would make a present of it to my worst enemy. A boy which he is going on forty and couldn't do nothing without asking his popper's permission first, Mr. Gembitz, he could better do general house-work for a living as sell goods."
Gembitz rose from his table and struggled into his overcoat speechless with indignation. It was not until he had buttoned the very last button that he was able to enunciate.
"Listen here to me, Schrimm!" he said. "If Lester goes once in a while on a restaurant in the evening, that's his business; and, anyhow, so far what I could see, Schrimm, it don't interfere none with his designing garments which you are stealing on us just as soon as we get 'em on the market. Furthermore, Schrimm, if Sidney plays Kelly pool every afternoon, you could bet your life he also sells him a big bill of goods, also. You got to entertain a customer oncet in a while if you want to sell him goods, Schrimm; and, anyhow, Schrimm, if it would be you would be trying to sell goods to this here Kelly, you wouldn't got sense enough to play pool with him. You would waste your time trying to learn him auction pinochle."
"But, Mr. Gembitz," Schrimm began, "when a feller plays Kelly pool – "
"And as for Max," Gembitz interrupted, "if you would be so good a boy as Max is, Schrimm, might your father would be alive to-day yet."
"What d'ye mean?" Schrimm cried. "My father died when I was two years old already."
"Sure, I know," Gembitz concluded; "and one thing I am only sorry, Schrimm: your father was a decent, respectable man, Schrimm, but he ought to got to die three years sooner. That's all."
No sooner had Mr. Gembitz left Hammersmith's restaurant than the gefüllte Rinderbrust commenced to assert itself; and by the time he arrived at his place of business he was experiencing all the preliminary symptoms of a severe bilious attack. Nevertheless, he pulled himself together and as he sat down at his desk he called loudly for Sidney.
"He ain't in," Max said.
"Oh, he ain't, ain't he?" Mr. Gembitz retorted. "Well, where is he?"
"He went out with a feller from the New Idea Store, Bridgetown," Max answered, drawing on his imagination in the defence of his brother.
"New Idea Store!" Gembitz repeated. "What's the feller's name?"
Max shrugged.
"I forgot his name," he answered.
"Well, I ain't forgot his name," Gembitz continued. "His name is Kelly; and every afternoon Schrimm tells me Sidney is playing this here Kelly pool."
For a brief interval Max stared at his father; then he broke into an unrestrained laugh.
"Nu!" Gembitz cried. "What's the joke?"
"Why," Max explained, "you're all twisted. Kelly ain't a feller at all. Kelly pool's a game, like you would say straight pinochle and auction pinochle – there's straight pool and Kelly pool."
Gembitz drummed on his desk with his fingers.
"Do you mean to told me there ain't no such person, which he is buying goods for a concern, called Kelly?" he demanded.
Max nodded.
"Then that loafer just fools away his time every afternoon," Gembitz said in choking tones; "and, after all I done for him, he – "
"What's the matter, popper?" Max cried, for Gembitz's lips had suddenly grown purple, and, even as Max reached forward to aid him, he lurched from his chair on to the floor.
Half an hour later Samuel Gembitz was undergoing the entirely novel experience of riding uptown in a taxicab, accompanied by a young physician who had been procured from the medical department of an insurance company across the street.
"Say, lookyhere," Sam protested as they assisted him into the cab, "this ain't necessary at all!"
"No, I know it isn't," the doctor agreed, in his best imitation of an old practitioner's jocular manner. He was, in fact, a very young practitioner and was genuinely alarmed at Samuel's condition, which he attributed to arteriosclerosis and not to gefüllte Rinderbrust. "But, just the same," he concluded, "it is just as well to keep as quiet as possible for the present."
Sam nodded and lay back wearily in the leather seat of the taxicab while it threaded its way through the traffic of lower Fifth Avenue. Only once did he appear to take an interest in his surroundings, and that was when the taxicab halted at the end of a long line of traffic opposite the débris of a new building.
"What's going on here?" he asked faintly.
"It's pretty nearly finished," the doctor replied. "Weldon, Jones & Company, of Minneapolis, are going to open a New York store."
Sam nodded again and once more closed his eyes. He grew more uncomfortable as the end of the journey approached, for he dreaded the reception that awaited him. Max had telephoned the news of his father's illness to his sister, Miss Babette Gembitz, Sam's only daughter, who upon her mother's death had assumed not only the duties but the manner and bearing of that tyrannical person; and Sam knew she would make a searching investigation of the cause of his ailment.
"Doctor, what do you think is the matter with me?" he asked, by way of a feeler.
"At your age, it's impossible to say," the doctor replied; "but nothing very serious."
"No?" Sam said. "Well, you don't think it's indigestion, do you?"
"Decidedly not," the doctor said.
"Well, then, you shouldn't forget and tell my daughter that," Sam declared as the cab stopped opposite his house, "otherwise she will swear I am eating something which disagrees with me."
He clambered feebly to the sidewalk, where stood Miss Babette Gembitz with Dr. Sigmund Eichendorfer.
"Wie gehts, Mr. Gembitz?" Doctor Eichendorfer cried cheerfully as he took Sam's arm.
"Unpässlich, Doctor," Sam replied. "I guess I'm a pretty sick man."
He glanced at his daughter for some trace of tears, but she met his gaze unmoved.
"You've been making a hog of yourself again, popper!" she said severely.
"Oser!" Sam protested. "Crackers and milk I am eating for my lunch. The doctor could tell you the same."
Ten minutes afterward Sam was tucked up in his bed, while in an adjoining room the young physician communicated his diagnosis to Doctor Eichendorfer.
"Arteriosclerosis, I should say," he murmured, and Doctor Eichendorfer sniffed audibly.
"You mean Bright's Disease – ain't it?" he said. "That feller's arteries is as sound as plumbing."
Doctor Eichendorfer had received his medical training in Vienna and he considered it to be a solemn duty never to agree with the diagnosis of a native M.D.
"I thought of Bright's Disease," the young physician replied, speaking a little less than the naked truth; for in diagnosing Sam's ailment he had thought of nearly every disease he could remember.
"Well, you could take it from me, Doctor," Eichendorfer concluded, "when one of these old-timers goes under there's a history of a rich, unbalanced diet behind it; and Bright's Disease it is. Also, you shouldn't forget to send in your bill – not a cent less than ten dollars."
He shook his confrère warmly by the hand; and three hours later the melancholy circumstance of Sam's Bright's Disease was known to every member of the cloak and suit trade, with one exception – to wit, as the lawyers say, Sam himself. He knew that he had had gefüllte Rinderbrust, but by seven o'clock this knowledge became only a torment as the savoury odour of the family dinner ascended to his bedroom.
"Babette," he called faintly, as becomes a convalescent, "ain't I going to have no dinner at all to-night?"
For answer Babette brought in a covered tray, on which were arranged two pieces of dry toast and a glass of buttermilk.
"What's this?" Sam cried.
"That's your dinner," Babette replied, "and you should thank Gawd you are able to eat it."
"You don't got to told me who I should thank for such slops which you are bringing me," he said, with every trace of convalescence gone from his tones. "Take that damn thing away and give me something to eat. Ain't that gedämpftes Kalbfleisch I smell?"
Babette made no reply, but gazed sadly at her father as she placed the tray on a chair beside his bed.
"You don't know yourself how sick you are," she said. "Doctor Eichendorfer says you should be very quiet."
This admonition produced no effect on Sam, who immediately started on an abusive criticism of physicians in general and Dr. Sigmund Eichendorfer in particular.
"What does that dummer Esel know?" he demanded. "I bet yer that the least he tells you is I got Bright's Disease!"
Babette shook her head slowly.
"So you know it yourself all the time," she commented bitterly; "and yet you want to eat gedämpftes Kalbfleisch, when you know as well as I do it would pretty near kill you."
"Kill me!" Sam shouted. "What d'ye mean, kill me? I eat some Rinderbrust for my lunch yet; and that's all what ails me. I ain't got no more Bright's Disease as you got it."
"If you think that lying is going to help you, you're mistaken," Babette replied calmly. "To a man in your condition gedämpftes Kalbfleisch is poison."
"I ain't lying to you," Sam insisted. "I am eating too much lunch, I am telling you."
"And you're not going to eat too much dinner!" Babette said as she tiptoed from the room.
Thus Sam drank a glass of buttermilk and ate some dry toast for his supper; and, in consequence, he slept so soundly that he did not waken until Dr. Sigmund Eichendorfer entered his room at eight o'clock the following morning. Under the bullying frown of his daughter Sam submitted to a physical examination that lasted for more than an hour; and when Doctor Eichendorfer departed he left behind him four varieties of tablets and a general interdiction against eating solid food, getting up, going downtown, or any of the other dozen things that Sam insisted upon doing.
It was only under the combined persuasion of Max, Babette, and Lester that he consented to stay in bed that forenoon; and when lunchtime arrived he was so weakened by a twenty-four-hour fast and Doctor Eichendorfer's tablets, that he was glad to remain undisturbed for the remainder of the day.
At length, after one bedridden week, accompanied by a liquid diet and more tablets, Sam was allowed to sit up in a chair and to partake of a slice of chicken.
"Well, popper, how do you feel to-day?" asked Max, who had just arrived from the office.
"I feel pretty sick, Max," Sam replied; "but I guess I could get downtown to-morrow, all right."
Babette sat nearby and nodded her head slowly.
"Guess some more, popper," she said. "Before you would go downtown yet, you are going to Lakewood."
"Lakewood!" Sam exclaimed. "What d'ye mean, Lakewood? If you want to go to Lakewood, go ahead. I am going downtown to-morrow. What, d'ye think a business could run itself?"
"So far as business is concerned," Max said, "you shouldn't trouble yourself at all. We are hustling like crazy downtown and we already sold over three thousand dollars' worth of them 1040's."
Sam sat up suddenly.
"I see my finish," he said, "with you boys selling goods left and right to a lot of fakers like the New Idea Store."
"New Idea Store nothing!" Max retorted. "We are selling over two thousand dollars to Falkstatter, Fein & Company – and I guess they're fakers – what!"
Sam leaned back in his chair.
"Falkstatter, Fein & Company is all right," he admitted.
"And, furthermore," Max continued, "we sold 'em fancy colours like wistaria, copenhagen, and champagne; and them navy blues and browns they wouldn't touch."
"No?" Sam said weakly.
"So you see, popper, if you would been downtown we wouldn't got that order at all," Max continued. "So what's the use worrying yourself?"
"He's right, popper," Babette added. "You're getting too old to be going downtown every day. The boys could look after the business. It's time you took a rest."
At this juncture Doctor Eichendorfer entered.
"Hello!" he said. "What are you doing sitting up here? You must get right back to bed."
"What are you talking nonsense?" Sam cried. "I am feeling pretty good already."
"You look it," Eichendorfer said. "If you could see the way you are run down this last week yet you wouldn't talk so fresh."
He seized Sam by the arm as he spoke and lifted him out of the chair.
"You ain't so heavy like you used to be, Mr. Gembitz," he went on as he helped Sam to his bed. "Another week and you could sit up, but not before."
Sam groaned as they tucked the covers around him.
"Now you see how weak you are," Eichendorfer cried triumphantly. "Don't get up again unless I would tell you first."
After leaving some more tablets, Doctor Eichendorfer took his leave; and half an hour later Sam knew by the tantalizing odours that pervaded his bedroom that the family dined on stewed chicken with Kartoffel Klösse. For the remainder of the evening Sam lay with his eyes closed; and whenever Babette approached his bedside with a tumbler of water and the box of tablets he snored ostentatiously. Thus he managed to evade the appetite-dispelling medicine until nearly midnight, when Babette coughed loudly.
"Popper," she said, "I'm going to bed and I want you to take your tablets."
"Leave 'em on the chair here," he replied, "and I'll take 'em in a few minutes."
He watched her place the tablets on the chair; and as soon as her back was turned he seized them eagerly and thrust them into the pocket of his night-shirt.
"Where's the water?" he mumbled; and when Babette handed him the tumbler he gulped down the water with noise sufficient to account for a boxful of tablets.
"Now, leave me alone," he said; and Babette kissed him coldly on the left ear.
"I hope you'll feel better in the morning," she said dutifully.
"Don't worry," Sam said. "I'm going to."
He listened carefully until he heard the door close and then he threw back the coverlet. Very gingerly he slid to the carpet and planted himself squarely on his feet. A sharp attack of "pins and needles" prevented any further movement for some minutes; but at length it subsided and he began to search for his slippers. His bathrobe hung on the back of the door, and, after he had struggled into it, he opened the door stealthily and, clinging to the balustrade, crept downstairs to the basement.
He negotiated the opening of the ice-box door with the skill of an experienced burglar; and immediately thereafter he sat down at the kitchen table in front of a dishful of stewed chicken, four cold boiled potatoes, the heel of a rye loaf, and a bottle of beer. Twenty minutes later he laid away the empty dish on top of the kitchen sink, with the empty beer bottle beneath it; then, after supplying himself with a box of matches, he crept upstairs to his room.
When Babette opened the door the following morning she raised her chin and sniffed suspiciously.
"Ain't it funny?" she murmured, "I could almost swear I smell stale cigar smoke here."
Sam turned his face to the wall.
"You're crazy!" he said.
During the ensuing week Sam Gembitz became an adept in the art of legerdemain; and the skill with which he palmed tablets under the very nose of his daughter was only equalled by the ingenuity he displayed in finally disposing of them. At least three dozen disappeared through a crack in the wainscoting behind Sam's bed, while as many more were poked through a hole in the mattress; and thus Sam became gradually stronger, until Doctor Eichendorfer himself could not ignore the improvement in his patient's condition.
"All right; you can sit up," he said to Sam; "but, remember, the least indiscretion and back to bed you go."
Sam nodded, for Babette was in the room at the time; and, albeit Sam had gained new courage through his nightly raids on the ice-box, he lacked the boldness that three square meals a day engender.
"I would take good care of myself, Doctor," he said, "and the day after to-morrow might I could go downtown, maybe?"
"The day after to-morrow!" Doctor Eichendorfer exclaimed. "Why, you wouldn't be downtown for a month yet."
"The idea!" Babette cried indignantly. "As if the boys couldn't look after the place without you! What d'ye want to go downtown for at all?"
"What d'ye mean, what do I want to go downtown for at all?" Sam demanded sharply, and Miss Babette Gembitz blushed; whereupon Sam rose from his chair and stood unsteadily on his feet.
"You are up to some monkey business here – all of you!" he declared. "What is it about?"
Babette exchanged glances with Doctor Eichendorfer, who shrugged his shoulders in reply.
"Well, if you want to know what it is, popper," she said, "I'll tell you. You're a very sick man and the chances are you'll never go downtown again." Doctor Eichendorfer nodded his approval and Sam sat down again.
"So we may as well tell you right out plain," Babette continued; "the boys have given out to the trade that you've retired on account of sickness – and here it is in the paper and all."
She handed Sam a copy of the Daily Cloak and Suit Record and indicated with her finger an item headed "Personals." It read as follows:
New York. – Samuel Gembitz, of S. Gembitz & Sons, whose serious illness was reported recently, has retired from the firm, and the business will be carried on by Max Gembitz, Lester Gembitz, and Sidney Gembitz, under the firm style of Gembitz Brothers.
As Sam gazed at the item the effect of one week's surreptitious feeding was set at naught, and once more Babette and Doctor Eichendorfer assisted him to his bed. That night he had neither the strength nor the inclination to make his accustomed raid on the ice-box, nor could he resist the administration of Doctor Eichendorfer's tablets; so that the following day found him weaker than ever. It was not until another week had elapsed that his appetite began to assert itself; but when it did he convalesced rapidly. Indeed, at the end of the month, Doctor Eichendorfer permitted him to take short walks with Babette. Gradually the length of these promenades increased until Babette found her entire forenoons monopolized by her father.
"Ain't it awful!" she said to Sam one Sunday morning as they paced slowly along Lenox Avenue. "I am so tied down."
"You ain't tied down," Sam replied ungraciously. "For my part, I would as lief hang around this here place by myself."
"It's all very well for you to talk," Babette rejoined; "but you know very well that in your condition you could drop in the street at any time yet."
"Schmooes!" Sam cried. "I am walking by myself for sixty-five years yet and I guess I could continue to do it."
"But Doctor Eichendorfer says – " Babette began.
"What do I care what Doctor Eichendorfer says!" Sam interrupted. "And, furthermore, supposing I would drop in the street – which anybody could slip oncet in a while on a banana peel, understand me – ain't I got cards in my pocket?"
Babette remained silent for a moment, whereat Sam plucked up new courage.
"Why should you bother yourself to schlepp me along like this?" he said. "There's lots of people I could go out with. Ain't it? Take old man Herz oder Mrs. Krakauer – they would be glad to go out walking with me; and oncet in a while I could go and call on Mrs. Schrimm maybe."
"Mrs. Schrimm!" Babette exclaimed. "I'm surprised to hear you talk that way. Mrs. Schrimm for years goes around telling everybody that mommer selig leads you a dawg's life."
"Everybody's got a right to their opinion, Babette," Sam said; "but, anyhow, that ain't here nor there. If you wouldn't want me to go around and see Mrs. Schrimm I wouldn't."
Babette snorted.
"In the first place," she said, "you couldn't go unless I go with you; and, in the second place, you couldn't get me to go there for a hundred dollars."
Beyond suggesting that a hundred dollars was a lot of money, Sam made no further attempt to secure his liberty that morning; but on the following day he discreetly called his daughter's attention to a full-page advertisement in the morning paper.
"Ain't you was telling me the other evening you need to got some table napkins, Babette?" he asked.
Babette nodded.
"Well, here it is in the paper that new concern, Weldon, Jones & Company, is selling to-day napkins at three dollars a dozen – the best damask napkins," he concluded.
Babette seized the paper and five minutes later she was poking hatpins into her scalp with an energy that made Sam's eyes water.
"Where are you going, Babette?" he said.
"I'm going downtown to that sale of linens," she said, "and I'll be back to take you out at one o'clock."
"Don't hurry on my account," Sam said. "I've got enough here in the paper to keep me busy until to-night yet."
Five minutes later the basement door banged and Sam jumped to his feet. With the agility of a man half his age he ran upstairs to the parlour floor and put on his hat and coat; and by the time Babette had turned the corner of Lenox Avenue Sam walked out of the areaway of his old-fashioned, three-story-and-basement, high-stoop residence on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street en route for Mrs. Schrimm's equally old-fashioned residence on One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Street. There he descended the area steps; and finding the door ajar he walked into the basement dining-room.
"Wie gehts, Mrs. Schrimm!" he cried cheerfully.
"Oo-ee! What a Schreck you are giving me!" Mrs. Schrimm exclaimed. "This is Sam Gembitz, ain't it?"
"Sure it is," Sam replied. "Ain't you afraid somebody is going to come in and steal something on you?"
"That's that girl again!" Mrs. Schrimm said as she bustled out to the areaway and slammed the door. "That's one of them Ungarischer girls, Mr. Gembitz, which all they could do is to eat up your whole ice-box empty and go out dancing on Bauern balls till all hours of the morning. Housework is something they don't know nothing about at all. Well, Mr. Gembitz, I am hearing such tales about you – you are dying, and so on."
"Warum Mister Gembitz?" Sam said. "Ain't you always called me Sam, Henrietta?"
Mrs. Schrimm blushed. In the lifetime of the late Mrs. Gembitz she had been a constant visitor at the Gembitz house, but under Babette's chilling influence the friendship had withered until it was only a memory.
"Why not?" she said. "I certainly know you long enough, Sam."
"Going on thirty-five years, Henrietta," Sam said, "when you and me and Regina come over here together. Things is very different nowadays, Henrietta. Me, I am an old man already."
"What do you mean old?" Mrs. Schrimm cried. "When my Grossvater selig was sixty-eight he gets married for the third time yet."
"Them old-timers was a different proposition entirely, Henrietta," Sam said. "If I would be talking about getting married, Henrietta, the least that happens to me is my children would put me in a lunatic asylum yet."
"Yow!" Mrs. Schrimm murmured skeptically.
"Wouldn't they?" Sam continued. "Well, you could just bet your life they would. Why, I am sick only a couple weeks or so, Henrietta, and what do them boys do? They practically throw me out of my business yet and tell me I am retired."
"And you let 'em?" Mrs. Schrimm asked.
"What could I do?" Sam said. "I'm a sick man, Henrietta. Doctor Eichendorfer says I wouldn't live a year yet."
"Doctor Eichendorfer says that!" Mrs. Schrimm rejoined. "And do you told me that you are taking Doctor Eichendorfer's word for it?"
"Doctor Eichendorfer is a Rosher, I admit," Sam answered; "but he's a pretty good doctor, Henrietta."
"For the gesund, yes," Mrs. Schrimm admitted. "But if my cat would be sick, Sam, and Doctor Eichendorfer charges two cents a call yet, I wouldn't have him in my house at all. I got too much respect for my cat, Sam. With that feller, as soon as he comes into the bedroom he says the patient is dying; because if the poor feller does die, understand me, then Eichendorfer is a good prophet, and if he gets better then Eichendorfer is a good doctor. He always fixes it so he gets the credit both ways. But you got to acknowledge one thing about that feller, Sam – he knows how to charge, Sam; and he's a good collector. Everybody says so."
Sam nodded sadly.
"I give you right about that," he said.
"And, furthermore," Mrs. Schrimm began, "he – "
Mrs. Schrimm proceeded no further, however, for the sound of a saucepan boiling over brought her suddenly to her feet and she dashed into the kitchen.
Two minutes later a delicate, familiar odour assailed Sam's nostrils, and when Mrs. Schrimm returned she found him unconsciously licking his lips.
"Yes, Sam," she declared, "them Ungarischer girls is worser as nobody in the kitchen. Pretty near ruins my whole lunch, and I got Mrs. Krakauer coming, too. You know what a talker that woman is; and if I would give her something which it is a little burned, y'understand, the whole of New York hears about it."