“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 gefuellte
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 gemuetlicher
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 gemuetlicher,
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 gemuetlich, 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 gemuetlich. 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.”
“The chairs here is comfortable,” Trinkmann
remarked.
“Sure, I know,” Max continued.
“Then in this here restaurant was tables which
they only got ’em in the old country big,
heavy tables, understand me, which you pretty near
kill yourself trying to move ’em at all.
A feller sits at such a table, Trinkmann, and right
away he thinks he must drink a cup coffee; and not
alone that, Trinkmann, but he must got to order coffee
for the crowd. He couldn’t even help himself,
Trinkmann, because such a table makes you feel good
to look at it. That’s what it is to keep
a gemuetlicher place, Trinkmann.”
Trinkmann nodded and sat down at Max’s table.
“Furthermore, Trinkmann,”
Max continued, “everything in the place was
the same. The ashtrays was from brass like them
there ashtrays you used to got here, Trinkmann.”
Max looked meaningly at the burnished
brass utensil that stood in the middle of the table.
“That’s the same ashtrays
which we always got here,” Trinkmann retorted.
“Are they?” Max said.
“Well, somebody must of done something to ’em
on account they don’t look so gemuetlich
no longer. That’s the same mistake Ringentaub
made it, Trinkmann. He ain’t satisfied he
is got such a big trade there, Trinkmann, but he must
go to work and get a partner, a feller by the name
Salonkin, which he pays Ringentaub two thousand dollars
for a half interest in the business. Salonkin
is one of them fellers, understand me, which is all
for improvements, Trinkmann. Gemuetlichkeit
is something which he don’t know nothing about
at all, y’understand, and the first thing you
know, Trinkmann, Salonkin says the chairs is back
numbers. He fires ’em right out of there,
understand me, and buys some new chairs, which actually
for a thin man to sit on ’em for five minutes
even would be something which you could really call
dangerous. Also the tables Salonkin says is junk,
so he sells ’em for fifty cents apiece and puts
in them marble-top tables like a lot of tombstones
in a cemetery.”
“Marble-top tables is anyhow clean,” Trinkmann
declared.
“Clean they may be,” Max
admitted, “but gemuetlich they ain’t.
And, anyhow, Trinkmann, do you know what started the
whole trouble there?”
Trinkmann shook his head.
“Well, it was the forks,”
Max said solemnly. “The forks which Ringentaub
got it before he goes as partners together with Salonkin
always looks like they would be a little dirty, understand
me. So what does the customer do, Trinkmann?
They take first thing after they sit down the fork
in hand, understand me, and dip it in the glass of
water which the waiter brings ’em. Then
when the time comes which they want to drink the water,
Trinkmann, they remember they cleaned the fork in
it and they order instead a glass of beer. Afterward
when Salonkin takes ahold there, y’understand,
he raises hell with the waiters they should keep clean
the forks, which they done it, Trinkmann, because the
feller Salonkin was a regular Rosher, understand
me, and the waiters is scared to death of him.
What is the result, Trinkmann? The sales of beer
right away drops to nothing, understand me, and everybody
drinks the glass water instead.”
At this juncture Trinkmann looked
up and observed Albert at work on the tumblers.
“Albert!” he cried.
“Leave the glasses alone, d’ye hear me?”
Albert put down the glass he was wiping
and commenced to rub the knives and forks, whereat
Trinkmann jumped to his feet.
“The forks, neither,”
he yelled. “Instead you should be standing
there wasting your time, fill up with water the glasses
and tell Louis never mind, he shouldn’t polish
any more them ashtrays.”
When Max Maikafer concluded his lunch
he proceeded at once to the cashier’s desk,
over which Trinkmann himself presided.
“Cheer up, Trinkmann,”
he said, as he paid his check. “You got
a face so solemn like a rich uncle just died and left
you to remember him by a crayon portrait.”
“Well, I’ll tell you,
Mr. Maikafer,” Trinkmann said, “I got all
I could stand to-day. Not alone my wife goes
to work and has twins on me, Mr. Maikafer, but I also
got to fire a feller which is working for me here
six years.”
“What d’ye mean?”
Max cried in well-feigned astonishment. “You
are going to fire Albert?”
“Not Albert,” Trinkmann said; “Louis.”
“Why, what did Louis done?” Max asked.
“He done enough, Mr. Maikafer,”
Trinkmann replied. “Here lately he gets
to acting so fresh you would think he owns the place.”
“Well, why not?” Max commented.
“After all, Trinkmann, you got to give Louis
credit; he works hard here and he keeps for you many
a customer. Because I want to tell you something,
Trinkmann, which I am only saying it for your own
good, understand me there’s lots of
times you are acting so grouchy to the customers that
if it wouldn’t be Louis smoothes ’em down
they wouldn’t come near your place at all.”
“What the devil are you talking
about?” Trinkmann shouted. “If you
wasn’t such a big fool you would know I am always
polite to my customers. Furthermore, I never
lost a customer since I am in business, and if you
don’t like the way I run my restaurant you don’t
got to come here. That’s all.”
Maikafer nodded as he pocketed his change.
“All right, Trinkmann,”
he said. “But you know what happens when
a concern lets a salesman go. He easy finds a
partner and starts to do business with his old firm’s
customers on his own account.”
Trinkmann laughed aloud.
“That Schnorrer ain’t
got money enough to stock a pushcart, let alone a
restaurant,” he jeered.
“That’s all right,”
Maikafer retorted. “I know a feller which
runs for years a place in East New York Brownsville Trinkmann,
and when he hears Louis ain’t working, not only
he would be glad to give him a job as waiter, but
he would stake him to an interest in the restaurant
yet.”
Trinkmann flapped his right hand at
Maikafer in a gesture of derision.
“Schmooes!” he cried.
“No Schmooes at all,”
Max said, as he passed out of the door. “He’s
the feller I am talking to you about by the name Ringentaub,
and across the street is plenty vacant stores.”
Ten minutes after Max had departed
Simon Feinsilver entered.
“Say, Trinkmann,” he asked,
as he paused at the cashier’s desk on his way
to one of Louis’ tables, “did you seen
it Max Maikafer this morning?”
Had Trinkmann scrutinized Simon’s
face with any degree of care he might have observed
a mischievous gleam in Simon’s eyes; but at the
mere mention of Maikafer’s name Trinkmann exploded.
“What d’ye mean, did I seen it Maikafer?”
he demanded.
“Why I just asked you,”
Simon said calmly, “on account he was to meet
me at my office and he ain’t showed up at all.”
“Well, I ain’t surprised
to hear that, Mr. Feinsilver,” Trinkmann rejoined
less viciously. “Because even if Maikafer
is such a good friend of yours, the feller is so busy
with other people’s business, what he ain’t
got no business to butt in at all, that his own business
he lets go to the devil. Am I right or wrong?”
Simon nodded and sat down at one of Louis’ tables.
“Albert,” Trinkmann cried, “wait
on Mr. Feinsilver.”
“That’s all right,” Feinsilver declared;
“I got plenty time.”
“Albert,” Trinkmann repeated, “take
Mr. Feinsilver’s order.”
Albert left his station on the opposite
side of the room and approached Feinsilver with a
conciliatory smile.
“What would you like to-day, Mr. Feinsilver?”
he said.
“I would like Louis,”
Feinsilver replied; “so go ahead, Albert, and
tell Louis when he gets through serving those two fellers
over there to wait on me.”
“What’s the matter you
ain’t giving your order to Albert, Mr. Feinsilver?”
Trinkmann asked.
“Albert is all right,”
Feinsilver replied, “but Louis knows just how
I want things, Trinkmann. You ain’t got
no objections to me waiting for Louis?”
“Why should I got objections,
Mr. Feinsilver?” Trinkmann protested.
“I don’t know why you
should got objections, Trinkmann,” Feinsilver
said, “and if you did got ’em I would wait
for Louis anyway.”
He closed the discussion by spearing
half a dill pickle with a fork and inserting it endwise
in his mouth. Hardly had the metal tines touched
his lips, however, than he hastily disgorged the pickle
and uttered a resounding “T’phoo-ee!”
“What are you trying to do here
to me, Trinkmann?” he demanded. “Poison
me?”
He dipped his napkin into the glass
of water that stood on the table and performed an
elaborate prophylaxis about his mouth and teeth.
“What d’ye mean, poison you?” Trinkmann
cried.
“Why, there is something here on the fork,”
Simon declared.
“Let me see,” Trinkmann
said, advancing to the table; “might it be some
Bismarck herring, maybe.”
“Bismarck herring ain’t
poison,” Feinsilver said, examining the fork
closely. “Bismarck herring never harmed
nobody, Trinkmann; but this here fork has got poison
onto it.”
He turned it over in his hand and
sniffed at it suspiciously.
“Why, bless my soul,”
he roared. “Somebody has been cleaning it
with polishing powder.”
“Well, suppose they did?” Trinkmann said
calmly.
“Suppose they did!” Simon
exclaimed. “Why, don’t you know you
should never clean with polishing powder something
which it could touch a person’s lips? A
friend of mine, by the name Lambdan, once puts his
cigar onto an ashtray which they are cleaning it with
this powder, and the widder sues in the courts the
feller that runs the restaurant for ten thousand dollars
yet. From just putting the cigar in his mouth
he gets some of the powder on his tongue, Trinkmann,
and in two hours, understand me, he turned black all
over. It ruined the restaurant man a
decent, respectable feller by the name Lubliner.
His mother was Max Maikafer’s cousin.”
Trinkmann grew pale and started for the kitchen.
“Albert,” he said huskily,
“take from the tables the ashtrays and the forks
and tell that pantryman he should wash ’em off
right away in boiling water.”
He followed Albert, and after he had
seen that his instructions were obeyed he returned
to the desk. In the meantime Simon had engaged
Louis in earnest conversation.
“Louis,” Simon said, “I
am just seeing Max Maikafer, and he says you shouldn’t
worry, because you wouldn’t lose your job at
all.”
“No?” Louis replied.
“What for I wouldn’t? I am going to
get fired this afternoon sure, three o’clock.”
“Never mind,” Simon declared,
“you shouldn’t let him make you no bluffs,
Louis. Not only he wouldn’t fire you, Louis,
but I bet yer he gives you a raise even.”
Louis nodded despairingly.
“A couple of kidders like you
and Mr. Maikafer ain’t got no regards for nobody,”
he said. “Maybe it is a joke for you and
Mr. Maikafer that I get fired, Mr. Feinsilver, but
for me not, I could assure you.”
“I ain’t kidding you,
Louis,” Simon declared. “Keep a good
face on you, Louis, and don’t let on I said
something to you. But you could take it from
me, Louis, comes three o’clock this afternoon
you should go to the boss and say you are ready to
quit. Then the boss says no, you should stay.”
“Yow! He would say that!” Louis said
bitterly.
“Surest thing you know, Louis,”
Simon rejoined solemnly. “Me and Max will
fix it sure. And after the boss says you should
stay you tell him no, you guess you wouldn’t.
Tell him you know lots of people would hire you right
away at two dollars a week more, and I bet yer he would
be crazy to make you stay; and if he wouldn’t
pay you the two dollars a week more I would, so sure
I am he would give it to you.”
It was then that Trinkmann returned
to the cashier’s desk, and Louis moved slowly
away just as the telephone bell rang sharply.
Trinkmann jerked the receiver from the hook and delivered
himself of an explosive “Hallo.”
“Hallo,” said a bass voice; “is
this Mr. Trinkmann?”
“Yep,” Trinkmann replied.
“I would like to speak a few
words something to a waiter which is working for you,
by the name Louis Berkfield,” the voice continued.
Instantly Trinkmann’s mind reverted to Maikafer’s
parting words.
“Who is it wants to talk with him?” he
asked.
“It don’t make no difference,”
said the voice, “because he wouldn’t recognize
my name at all.”
“No?” Trinkmann retorted.
“Well, maybe he would and maybe he wouldn’t,
Mr. Ringentaub; but people which they got the gall
to ring up my waiters and steal ’em away from
me in business hours yet, Mr. Ringentaub, all I could
say is that it ain’t surprising they busted up
in Brownsville. Furthermore, Mr. Ringentaub, if
you think you could hire one of them stores acrosst
the street and open up a gemuetlicher place
with Louis for a waiter, y’understand, go ahead
and try, but you couldn’t do it over my
’phone.”
He hung up the receiver so forcibly
that the impact threw down eight boxes of the finest
cigars.
“Louis,” he shouted, and
in response Louis approached from the back of the
restaurant.
“I am here, Mr. Trinkmann,”
Louis said, with a slight tremor in his tones.
“Say, lookyhere, Louis,”
Trinkmann continued, “to-morrow morning first
thing you should ring up Greenberg & Company and tell
’em to call and fetch away them eight boxes
cigars. What, do them people think I would be
a sucker all my life? They stock me up mit
cigars till I couldn’t move around at all.”
“But, Mr. Trinkmann,”
Louis protested, “this afternoon three o’clock
you are telling me ”
“Koosh!” Trinkmann
roared, and Louis fell back three paces; “don’t
you answer me back. Ain’t you got no respect
at all?”
Louis made no reply, but slunk away
to the rear of the restaurant.
“Schlemiel!” Simon
hissed, as Louis passed him. “Why don’t
you stand up to him?”
Louis shrugged hopelessly and continued
on to the kitchen, while Simon concluded his meal
and paid his check.
“You didn’t told me if
you seen Max Maikafer to-day?” he said, as he
pocketed a handful of tooth-picks.
“I didn’t got to told
you whether I did oder I didn’t,”
Trinkmann replied, “but one thing I will
tell you, Mr. Feinsilver I am running here
a restaurant, not a lumber yard.”
At ten minutes to three Trinkmann
stood behind the cashier’s desk, so thoroughly
enmeshed in the intricacies of his wife’s bookkeeping
that not even a knowledge of conic sections would
have disentangled him. For the twentieth time
he added a column of figures and, having arrived at
the twentieth different result, he heaved a deep sigh
and looked out of the window for inspiration.
What little composure remained to him, however, fled
at the sight of Max Maikafer, who stood talking to
a stout person arrayed in a fur overcoat. As
they conversed, Max’s gaze constantly reverted
to the restaurant door, as though he awaited the appearance
of somebody from that quarter, while the man in the
fur overcoat made gestures toward a vacant store across
the street. He was a stout man of genial, hearty
manner, and it seemed to Trinkmann that he could discern
on the fur overcoat an imaginary inscription reading:
“Macht’s euch gemuetlich hier.”
Trinkmann came from behind the desk
and proceeded to the rear of the restaurant, where
Louis was cleaning up in company with Marcus and Albert.
“Louis,” he said, “I
want you you should go into the kitchen and tell that
pantryman he should wash again the forks in hot water,
and stay there till he is through. D’ye
hear me?”
Louis nodded and Trinkmann walked
hurriedly to the store door. He threw it wide
open, after the fashion of the lover in a Palais Royal
farce who expects to find a prying maidservant at
the keyhole.
Maikafer stood directly outside, but,
far from being embarrassed by Trinkmann’s sudden
exit, he remained completely undisturbed and greeted
the restaurateur with calm urbanity.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Trinkmann,”
he said, “ain’t it a fine weather?”
Trinkmann choked in mingled rage and
indignation, and before he could sufficiently compose
himself to sort out an enunciable phrase from all
the profanity that surged to his lips Maikafer had
brought forward the man in the fur overcoat.
“This is my friend, Mr. Ringentaub,”
he said, “also in the restaurant business.”
“I’m pleased to meet your
acquaintance,” Mr. Ringentaub said. “Before
I got through talking with you on the ’phone
this morning some one cut us off.”
At this juncture Trinkmann’s
pent-up emotion found expression.
“Away from here,” he bellowed,
after he had uttered a highly coloured preamble, “away
from here, the both of youse, before I call a policeman
and make you arrested!”
“Excuse me, Mr. Trinkmann,”
Maikafer interrupted, “do you got a lease on
the sidewalk, too?”
“Never mind what I got a lease
on,” Trinkmann said. “You are coming
around here trying to steal away my waiters and ”
“One moment, Mr. Trinkmann,”
Max said. “We are not trying to steal away
your waiters at all. Mr. Ringentaub here is a
gentleman, even if some people which is in the restaurant
business don’t act that way, Mr. Trinkmann;
but as you told me yourself, Mr. Trinkmann, you are
firing Louis and he’s going to quit you at three
o’clock; and as it is now five minutes to three ”
“Who is going to quit me at
three o’clock?” Trinkmann demanded.
“Louis is,” Maikafer said.
“That’s where you make
a big mistake,” Trinkmann cried. “Louis
ain’t going to quit me at all. Here, I’ll
show you.”
He led the way into the restaurant.
“Come inside, Mr. Ringentaub,”
he said excitedly. “No one is going to
harm you. Come right inside, and I’ll show
you suckers you are mistaken.”
He closed the door after them and
almost ran to the kitchen.
“Louis,” he said, “come
here; I want to talk a few words something to you.”
He grabbed Louis by the arm and led
him to the cashier’s desk, where Maikafer and
his companion were standing.
“Louis,” he said, “tell
these gentlemen didn’t I told you you should
ring up sure to-morrow morning Greenberg & Company
about the cigars?”
Louis nodded and Trinkmann glared
triumphantly at his visitors.
“Then if I told him to ring
up Greenberg & Company about the cigars to-morrow
morning, understand me,” he cried, “how
could it be possible that he quits me this afternoon?”
“But, Mr. Trinkmann,”
Louis protested, “you did told me I should quit
this afternoon.”
“Dummer Esel!”
Trinkmann exclaimed. “Couldn’t I open
my mouth in my own restaurant at all?”
“Well, if that’s the case,”
Ringentaub said, “then Louis could come to work
by me. Ain’t that right, Louis?”
Louis looked at Max Maikafer, whose
right eyelid fluttered encouragingly.
“And I would pay him twenty-eight
dollars a month,” Ringentaub continued, “and
guarantee to keep him a year. Is that satisfactory,
Louis?”
Louis’ tongue clove to the roof
of his mouth, but he managed to enunciate a monosyllable
of assent.
“That’s all right, Mr.
Ringentaub,” Trinkmann declared; “I would
pay him thirty dollars a month and keep him for a
year and longer if he wants to stay.”
Louis’ gaze wandered from Max
Maikafer to Trinkmann, and his lower lip jutted out
and trembled with gratitude.
“I mean it, Louis,” Trinkmann
declared. “I mean it from the bottom of
my heart.”
“Then in that case, Louis,”
Ringentaub retorted, “I would give you thirty-two
fifty a month.”
Louis shook his head.
“I am working here by Mr. Trinkmann
six years come this Tishabav,” he replied,
“and even if he would only say twenty-eight dollars
I would of stayed anyway.”
Max Maikafer turned disgustedly to
Ringentaub. “Did you ever hear the like
for a fool?” he said.
“Never mind, Maikafer,”
Trinkmann interrupted, “even if he would be
satisfied with twenty-eight I wouldn’t go back
on my word. I will pay him thirty dollars a month,
and, furthermore, Maikafer, you will see if he stays
by me a year and does his work good, maybe who
knows I would even pay him more yet.”
He held out his hand to Louis, who grabbed it effusively.
“When a feller’s wife
goes to work and has twins on him, Louis,” he
continued, “he ain’t responsible for what
he says exactly. Especially if they’re
both girls.”
Three weeks later Mrs. Trinkmann sat
behind the cashier’s desk, awaiting the luncheon
customers, and her eye wandered to the vacant store
across the street at the very moment when a wagon backed
up against the curb and the driver and his helper
unloaded two large signs.
“Trinkmann,” Mrs. Trinkmann
called, “some one rents the store acrosst the
street.”
Trinkmann hastened to the door and
glanced nervously toward the two signs. Beads
of perspiration sprang out on his forehead as he discerned
the lettering on one of the signboards, which read
as follows:
FELIX RINGENTAUB
He uttered a faint groan and was about
to communicate to Mrs. Trinkmann the melancholy tidings
that a rival establishment had come into being, when
the driver and his helper turned over the second sign.
It contained the words:
TAILORS’ AND DRESSMAKERS’
TRIMMINGS
Hardly had Trinkmann recovered from
his astonishment when Felix Ringentaub himself came
hurriedly down the street, accompanied by Max Maikafer.
A moment later they entered the restaurant.
“Why, how do you do, Mrs. Trinkmann?”
Max cried, “How’s the twins?”
“Getting on fine,” Mrs. Trinkmann said.
“Shake hands with my friend,
Mr. Ringentaub,” Max continued, as he looked
meaningly at Trinkmann. “Mr. Ringentaub,
up to a couple of weeks since, used to was in the
restaurant business in Brownsville. He goes now
into the tailors’ and dressmakers’ trimmings
business instead.”
Trinkmann maintained a discreet silence
and led them to one of Louis’ tables. There
he sat down with them, for he was determined to get
at the heart of the mystery.
“Mr. Maikafer ”
he began, but Max held up his hand protestingly.
“Ask me no questions, Trinkmann,”
he said, “and I wouldn’t tell you no lies.
But one thing I will say, Trinkmann, and that is that
Louis didn’t know nothing about it. We
conned you into keeping him and raising his wages.
That’s all. Am I right or wrong, Ringentaub?”
Ringentaub made no reply. He
was holding a fork in his hand and examining it critically.
“Of course, Trinkmann,”
he said, “I don’t want to say nothing the
first time I am coming into your place, but this here
fork’s got onto it something which it looks
like a piece Bismarck herring.”
“Don’t take it so particular,
Ringentaub,” Maikafer said, blushing guiltily.
“Wash it off in the glass water.”
“A glass water you drink, Maikafer,”
Ringentaub rejoined, “and forks should be washed
in the kitchen. And, furthermore, Trinkmann,”
Ringentaub said, “it don’t do no harm if
the waiters once in a while cleans with polishing
powder the forks.”
“I thought, Maikafer,”
Trinkmann said in funereal tones, “you are telling
me that polishing powder is rank poison.”
“I didn’t told
you that,” Maikafer replied. “It was
Feinsilver says that.”
“Rank poison!” Ringentaub
exclaimed. “Why, you could eat a ton of
it.”
“Sure, I know,” Maikafer concluded; “but
who wants to?”
He turned to Louis, who had approached
unobserved. “Bring me some Kreploch
soup and a plate gefuellte Rinderbrust,”
he said, “not too much gravy.”
“Give me the same,” Ringentaub
added, as he gazed about him with the air of an academician
at a private view. “You got a nice gemuetlicher
place here, Mr. Trinkmann,” he concluded, “only
one thing you should put in.”
“What’s that?” Trinkmann asked.
Maikafer kicked him on the shins, but Ringentaub failed
to notice it.
“Marble-top tables,” he said.