The Competitive Nephew. Glass Montague
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foreman to utter a suitable rejoinder, but none came, for in Fatkin's disclosure of a two-hundred dollar deposit in the savings bank and his sister's relationship to Sam Kupferberg, the well-known legal practitioner of Madison Street, Philip Sternsilver conceived a brilliant idea.
"I ain't saying we would sue you exactly, understand me," he replied. "All I am saying, Hillel, is you should try and be a little more careful with your work, y'understand."
Here Sternsilver looked over from Hillel's bovine features to the dull countenance of Miss Bessie Saphir.
"A feller which he has got money in the bank and comes from decent, respectable people like you, Hillel," he concluded, "if they work hard there is nothing which they couldn't do, y'understand. All they got to look out for is they shouldn't Jonah themselves with their bosses, y'understand."
"Bosses!" Hillel repeated. "What d'ye mean, bosses? Might you got an idee you are my boss maybe, Sternsilver?"
"Me, I ain't saying nothing about it at all," Sternsilver declared. "I am only saying something which it is for your own good; and if you don't believe me, Hillel, come out with me lunch time and have a cup coffee. I got a few words, something important, to tell you."
For the remainder of the forenoon Sternsilver busied himself about the instruction of Miss Bessie Saphir. Indeed, so assiduously did he apply himself to his task that at half-past eleven Mr. Seiden was moved to indignant comment. He beckoned Sternsilver to accompany him to the office and when he reached the door he broke into an angry tirade:
"Nu, Sternsilver," he began, "ain't you got to do nothing else but learn that girl the whole morning? What do I pay a foreman wages he should fool away his time like that?"
"What d'ye mean, fool away my time, Mr. Seiden?" Sternsilver protested. "Ain't you told me I should learn her something, on account she is a relation from your wife already?"
"Sure, I told you you should learn her something," Seiden admitted; "but I ain't told you you should learn her everything in one morning already. She ain't such a close relation as all that, y'understand. The trouble with you is, Sternsilver, you don't use your head at all. A foreman must got to think oncet in a while, Sternsilver. Don't leave all the thinking to the boss, Sternsilver. I got other things to bother my head over, Sternsilver, without I should go crazy laying out the work in the shop for the foreman."
Thus admonished, Sternsilver returned to the workroom more strongly convinced than ever that, unless he could carry out the idea suggested by his conversation with Fatkin, there would be a summary ending to his job as foreman. As soon, therefore, as the lunch-hour arrived he hustled Fatkin to a Bath-brick dairy restaurant and then and there unfolded his scheme.
"Say, listen here, Fatkin," he commenced. "Why don't a young feller like you get married?"
Fatkin remained silent. He was soaking zwieback in coffee and applying it to his face in such a manner that the greater part of it filled his mouth and rendered conversation impossible.
"There's many a nice girl, which she could cook herself and wash herself A Number One, y'understand, would be only too glad to get a decent, respectable feller like you," Sternsilver went on.
Hillel Fatkin acknowledged the compliment by a tremendous fit of coughing, for in his embarrassment he had managed to inhale a crum of the zwieback. His effort to remove it nearly strangled him, but at length the dislodged particle found a target in the right eye of an errand boy sitting opposite. For some moments Sternsilver was unable to proceed, by reason of the errand boy's tribute to Hillel's table manners. Indeed, so masterly was this example of profane invective that the manager of the lunchroom, without inquiring into the merits of the controversy, personally led Hillel's victim to the door and kicked him firmly into the gutter. After this, Philip Sternsilver proceeded with the unfolding of his plan.
"Yes, Hillel," he said, "I mean it. For a young feller like you even a girl which she got rich relations like Seiden ain't too good."
"Seiden?" Hillel interrupted, with a supercilious shrug. "What is Seiden? I know his people from old times in Grodno yet. So poor they were, y'understand, his Grossmutter would be glad supposing my Grossmutter, olav hasholam, would send her round a couple pieces clothing to wash. The whole family was beggars – one worser as the other."
"Sure, I know," Philip said; "but look where he is to-day, Hillel. You got to give him credit, Hillel. He certainly worked himself up wonderful, and why? Because the feller saves his money, understand me, and then he turns around and goes to work to pick out a wife, and married right."
"What are you talking nonsense – got married right?" Hillel said. "Do you mean to told me that Seiden is getting married right? An idee! What for a family was all them Gubins, Sternsilver? The one Uncle Pesach was a low-life bum – a Shikerrer which he wouldn't stop at nothing, from Schnapps to varnish. Furthermore, his father, y'understand, got into trouble once on account he ganvers a couple chickens; and if it wouldn't be for my Grossvater, which he was for years a Rav in Telshi – a very learned man, Sternsilver – no one knows what would have become of them people at all."
For the remainder of the lunch-hour Hillel so volubly demonstrated himself to be the Debrett, Burke, and Almanach de Gotha of Grodno, Telshi, and vicinity that Sternsilver was obliged to return to the factory with his scheme barely outlined.
Nevertheless, on his journey back to Greene Street he managed to interrupt Hillel long enough to ask him if he was willing to get married.
"I don't say I wouldn't," Hillel replied, "supposing I would get a nice girl. Aber one thing I wouldn't do, Sternsilver. I wouldn't take no one which she ain't coming from decent, respectable people, y'understand; and certainly, if a feller got a couple hundred dollars in savings bank, Sternsilver, he's got a right to expect a little consideration. Ain't it?"
This ultimatum brought them to the door of the factory, and when they entered further conversation was summarily prevented by Mr. Seiden himself.
"Sternsilver," Mr. Seiden bellowed at him, "where was you?"
"Couldn't I get oncet in a while a few minutes I should eat my lunch, Mr. Seiden?" Sternsilver replied. "I am entitled to eat, ain't I, Mr. Seiden?"
"'Entitled to eat,' sagt er, when the operators is carrying on so they pretty near tear the place to pieces already!" Seiden exclaimed. "A foreman must got to be in the workroom, lunch-hour oder no lunch-hour, Sternsilver. Me, I do everything here. I get no assistance at all."
He walked off toward the office; and after Sternsilver had started up the motor, which supplied power for the sewing-machines, he followed his employer.
"Mr. Seiden," he began, "I don't know what comes over you lately. Seemingly nothing suits you at all – and me I am all the time doing my very best to help you out."
"Is that so?" Seiden replied ironically. "Since when is the foreman helping out the boss if he would go and spend a couple hours for his lunch, making a hog out of himself, Sternsilver?"
"I ain't making a hog out of myself, Mr. Seiden," Philip continued. "If I am going out of the factory for my lunch, Mr. Seiden, I got my reasons for it."
Seiden glared at his foreman for some minutes; ordinarily Sternsilver's manner was diffident to the point of timidity, and this newborn courage temporarily silenced Mr. Seiden.
"The way you are talking, Sternsilver," he said at last, "to hear you go on any one would think you are the boss and I am the foreman."
"In business, yes," Philip rejoined, "you are the boss, Mr. Seiden; but outside of business a man could be a Mensch as well as a foreman. Ain't it?"
Seiden stared at the unruffled Sternsilver, who allowed no opportunity for a retort by immediately going on with his dissertation.
"Even operators also," he said. "Hillel Fatkin is an operator, y'understand, but he has got anyhow a couple hundred dollars in the savings bank; and when it comes to family, Mr. Seiden, he's from decent, respectable people in the old country. His own grandfather was a rabbi, y'understand."
"What the devil's that got to do with me, Sternsilver?" Seiden asked. "I don't know what you are talking about at all."
Sternsilver