Part 7 (1/2)
”Steward,” Leon shouted as Moe sat down next to him, ”bring me a nice piece of Camembert cheese.”
”One moment, Leon,” Griesman interrupted; ”if you bring that stuff under my nose here I would never buy from you a dollar's worth more goods so long as I live!”
”The feller goes too far, Abe,” he said, after Leon had cancelled the order and departed to drink his coffee in the smoking room. ”The feller goes too far. Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on deck, and the way I felt, Abe, my worst enemy wouldn't got to feel it. Do you believe me, Abe, that feller got the nerve to offer me a cigar yet! It pretty near finished me up. He only done it out of spite, Abe, but I fooled him. I took the cigar and I got it in my pocket right now.”
”Don't show me,” Abe cried hurriedly. ”I'll tell you the truth: there ain't nothing in the smoking habit. I'm going to cut it out. Waiter, bring me only a plate of clear soup and some dry toast. There ain't no need for a feller to smoke, Moe; it's only an extra expense.”
”I think you're right, Abe,” Moe said; ”but I know that this here cigar cost Leon a quarter on board s.h.i.+p here, and I thought I would show him he shouldn't get so gay.”
Despite Abe's resolution, however, a large black cigar protruded from his moustache when he stood on the wharf at Cherbourg, twenty-four hours later, and a small, ill-shaven stevedore, clad in a dark blouse and shabby corduroy trousers, pointed to the cloud of smoke that issued from Abe's lips and chattered a voluble protest.
”What does he say, Moe?” Abe asked.
”I don't know,” Moe replied. ”He's talking French.”
”French!” Abe exclaimed. ”What are you trying to do--kid me? A dirty _schlemiel_ of a greenhorn like him should talk French! What an idee!”
Nevertheless, Abe was made to throw away his cigar, and it was not until the quartette were snugly enclosed in a first-cla.s.s compartment en route to Paris that Abe felt safe to indulge in another cigar. He explored his pockets, but without result.
”Moe,” he said, ”do you got maybe another cigar on you?”
”I'm smoking the one which Leon give it me on the s.h.i.+p the other day,”
Moe replied. ”Leon, be a good feller; give him a cigar.”
”I give you my word, Moe, this is the last one,” Leon replied as he bit the end off a huge invincible.
”You got something there bulging in your vest pocket, Abe. Why don't you smoke it?”
”That ain't a cigar,” Abe answered; ”that's a fountain pen.”
”Smoke it anyhow,” Leon advised; ”because the only cigars you could get on this train is French Government cigars, and I'd sooner tackle a fountain pen as one of them rolls of spinach.”
”That's a country!” Abe commented. ”Couldn't even get a decent cigar here!”
”In Paris you could get plenty good cigars,” Hymie Salzman said, and Hymie was right for, at the Gare St. Lazare, M. Adolphe Kaufmann-Levi, _commissionnaire_, awaited them, his pockets literally spilling red-banded perfectos at every gesture of his lively fingers. M.
Kaufmann-Levi spoke English, French, and German with every muscle of his body from the waist up.
”Welcome to France, Mr. Potash,” he said. ”You had a good voyage, doubtless; because you Americans are born sailors.”
”Maybe we are born sailors,” Abe admitted, ”but I must of grew out of it. I tell you the honest truth, if I could go back by trolley, and it took a year, I would do it.”
”The weather is always more settled in July than in August,” said M.
Kaufmann-Levi, ”and I wouldn't worry about the return trip just now. I have rooms for you gentlemen all on one floor of a hotel near the Opera, and taximeters are in waiting. After you have settled we will take dinner together.”
Thus it happened that, at half past six that evening, M. Kaufmann-Levi conducted his four guests from the Restaurant Marguery to a sidewalk table of the Cafe de la Paix, and for almost an hour they watched the crowd making its way to the Opera.
”You see, Moe,” Abe said, ”everything is tunics this year; tunics _oder_ chiffon overskirts, net collars and yokes.”
Moe nodded absently. His eyes were glued to a lady sitting at the next table.