Part 5 (2/2)
”Good morning,” she said. ”I'm late.”
”That's all right,” Max cried. ”Any one which is always so prompt like you has a right to be late oncet in a while.”
He looked at Aaron shyly and wet his lips with his tongue.
”Well,” he began, ”how's the boy?”
”Fillup is feeling fine, _Gott sei dank_,” Aaron replied. ”But never mind Fillup now. I come here because I got to tell you something, Max.
Where's Sam?”
”Here I am, Aaron,” Sam said, as he came fairly running from the showroom. ”And you don't got to tell us nothing, Aaron, because a feller could buy goods where he wants to. Always up to three months ago you was a good friend to us, Aaron, and even if you wouldn't buy nothing from us at all we are glad to see you around here oncet in a while, anyhow.”
”But, Sam,” Aaron replied, ”give me a chance to say something. Goods I ain't buying it to-day. I got other things to buy.”
He turned to Miss Meyerson with a wide, affectionate grin on his kindly face.
”Yes, Sam,” he continued, ”I got a two-and-a-half carat blue-white solitaire diamond ring to buy.”
”What!” Sam cried, while Max gazed at Miss Meyerson with his eyes bulging.
”That's right,” Aaron went on; ”a feller ain't never too old to make a home, and even if there would be ten years difference in our ages, ten years ain't so much.”
”Especially when it's nearer twenty,” Sam added gallantly.
”Well, we won't quarrel about it,” Aaron said. ”The thing is, Max, that a woman ain't got no business in business unless she's got to, and Miriam ain't got to so long as I could help it. Yes, Sam, three months from to-day you and Max and Mrs. Fatkin and Mrs. Zaretsky would all come to dinner at our house and Miriam would make the finest _gefullte fische_ which it would fairly melt in your mouth.”
”I congradulate you, Miss Meyerson,” Sam said. ”We are losing the best bookkeeper which we ever got.”
”Well, that's all right, Sam,” Aaron cried. ”You know where you could always get another. Fillup ain't going to hold that job with them suckers any longer.”
”And since we aren't going to be married for two months yet,” Miss Meyerson added, ”I'll keep my position here and break Philip into his new job.”
”That suits us fine,” Sam declared. ”And to show you we ain't small we will start him at the same money what we pay Miss Meyerson--fifteen dollars a week.”
Aaron turned toward the two partners and extended both his hands.
”Boys,” he said, ”I don't know what I could say to you.”
”Don't say nothing,” Max interrupted. ”The boy is worth it, otherwise we wouldn't pay it. Business is business.”
”I know it, boys,” he said; ”but a business man could have also a heart, ain't it?”
Max nodded.
”And you boys,” Aaron concluded, ”you got a heart, too, believe me.
What a heart you got it! Like a watermelon!”
He looked at Miss Meyerson for an approving smile and, having received it, he gave final expression to his emotions of friends.h.i.+p and grat.i.tude in the worst coughing-spell of his asthmatic career.
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