Part 16 (1/2)

”But, Mr. Gembitz,” Schrimm began, ”when a feller plays Kelly pool----”

”And as for Max,” Gembitz interrupted, ”if you would be so good a boy as Max is, Schrimm, might your father would be alive to-day yet.”

”What d'ye mean?” Schrimm cried. ”My father died when I was two years old already.”

”Sure, I know,” Gembitz concluded; ”and one thing I am only sorry, Schrimm: your father was a decent, respectable man, Schrimm, but he ought to got to die three years sooner. That's all.”

No sooner had Mr. Gembitz left Hammersmith's restaurant than the _gefullte Rinderbrust_ commenced to a.s.sert itself; and by the time he arrived at his place of business he was experiencing all the preliminary symptoms of a severe bilious attack. Nevertheless, he pulled himself together and as he sat down at his desk he called loudly for Sidney.

”He ain't in,” Max said.

”Oh, he ain't, ain't he?” Mr. Gembitz retorted. ”Well, where is he?”

”He went out with a feller from the New Idea Store, Bridgetown,” Max answered, drawing on his imagination in the defence of his brother.

”New Idea Store!” Gembitz repeated. ”What's the feller's name?”

Max shrugged.

”I forgot his name,” he answered.

”Well, I ain't forgot his name,” Gembitz continued. ”His name is Kelly; and every afternoon Schrimm tells me Sidney is playing this here Kelly pool.”

For a brief interval Max stared at his father; then he broke into an unrestrained laugh.

”_Nu!_” Gembitz cried. ”What's the joke?”

”Why,” Max explained, ”you're all twisted. Kelly ain't a feller at all.

Kelly pool's a game, like you would say straight pinochle and auction pinochle--there's straight pool and Kelly pool.”

Gembitz drummed on his desk with his fingers.

”Do you mean to told me there ain't no such person, which he is buying goods for a concern, called Kelly?” he demanded.

Max nodded.

”Then that loafer just fools away his time every afternoon,” Gembitz said in choking tones; ”and, after all I done for him, he----”

”What's the matter, popper?” Max cried, for Gembitz's lips had suddenly grown purple, and, even as Max reached forward to aid him, he lurched from his chair on to the floor.

Half an hour later Samuel Gembitz was undergoing the entirely novel experience of riding uptown in a taxicab, accompanied by a young physician who had been procured from the medical department of an insurance company across the street.

”Say, lookyhere,” Sam protested as they a.s.sisted him into the cab, ”this ain't necessary at all!”

”No, I know it isn't,” the doctor agreed, in his best imitation of an old pract.i.tioner's jocular manner. He was, in fact, a very young pract.i.tioner and was genuinely alarmed at Samuel's condition, which he attributed to arteriosclerosis and not to _gefullte Rinderbrust_. ”But, just the same,” he concluded, ”it is just as well to keep as quiet as possible for the present.”

Sam nodded and lay back wearily in the leather seat of the taxicab while it threaded its way through the traffic of lower Fifth Avenue.

Only once did he appear to take an interest in his surroundings, and that was when the taxicab halted at the end of a long line of traffic opposite the debris of a new building.