Part 13 (1/2)

”Me get married, Mr. Seiden! What are you talking nonsense, Mr. Seiden?

I ain't going to get married at all.”

”Oh, yes, you are, Fatkin,” Seiden replied. ”You are going to get married to Miss Bessie Saphir at New Riga Hall, on Allen Street, to-night, six o'clock sharp; otherwise you wouldn't go to work as foreman at all.”

Hillel rose from his chair and then sat down again.

”Do you mean to told me I must got to marry Miss Bessie Saphir before I can go to work as foreman?” he demanded.

”You got it right, Fatkin,” Seiden said.

”Then I wouldn't do no such thing,” Fatkin retorted and made for the door.

”Hold on!” Seiden shouted, seizing Fatkin by the arm. ”Don't be a fool, Fatkin. What are you throwing away a hundred dollars cash for?”

”Me throw away a hundred dollars cash?” Fatkin blurted out.

”Sure,” Seiden answered. ”If you would marry Miss Bessie Saphir you would not only get by me a job as foreman, but also I am willing to give you a hundred dollars cash.”

Fatkin returned to the office and again sat down opposite his employer.

”Say, lookyhere, Mr. Seiden,” he said, ”I want to tell you something.

You are springing on me suddenly a proposition which it is something you could really say is remarkable. Ain't it?”

Seiden nodded.

”Miss Bessie Saphir, which she is anyhow--her own best friend would got to admit it--homely like anything, Mr. Seiden,” Fatkin continued, ”is going to marry Sternsilver; and just because Sternsilver runs away, I should jump in and marry her like I would be n.o.body!”

Seiden nodded again.

”Another thing, Mr. Seiden,” Hillel went on. ”What is a hundred dollars?

My _Grossvater_, _olav hasholam_--which he was a very learned man, for years a rabbi in Tels.h.i.+----”

”Sure, I know, Fatkin,” Seiden interrupted. ”You told me that before.”

”--for years a rabbi in Tels.h.i.+,” Hillel repeated, not deigning to notice the interruption save by a malevolent glare, ”used to say: 'Soon married, quick divorced.' Why should I bring _tzuris_ on myself by doing this thing, Mr. Seiden?”

Seiden treated the question as rhetorical and made no reply.

”Also I got in bank nearly three hundred dollars, Mr. Seiden,” he concluded; ”and even if I was a feller which wouldn't be from such fine family in the old country, understand me, three hundred dollars is three hundred dollars, Mr. Seiden, and that's all there is to it.”

Seiden pondered deeply for a minute.

”All right, Fatkin,” he said; ”make it a hundred and fifty dollars _und fertig_.”

”Three hundred dollars _oder_ nothing!” Fatkin replied firmly; and after half an hour of more or less acrid discussion Fatkin agreed to accept Miss Bessie Saphir plus three hundred dollars and a job as foreman.

An inexplicable phase of the criminal's character is the instinct which impels him to revisit the scene of his crime; and, whether he was led thither by a desire to gloat or by mere vulgar curiosity, Philip Sternsilver slunk within the shadow of an L-road pillar on Allen Street opposite New Riga Hall promptly at half-past five that evening.

First to arrive was Isaac Seiden himself. He bore a heavily laden suitcase, and his face was distorted in an expression of such intense gloom that Sternsilver almost found it in his heart to be sorry for his late employer.