Part 18 (2/2)
”Everybody's got a right to their opinion, Babette,” Sam said; ”but, anyhow, that ain't here nor there. If you wouldn't want me to go around and see Mrs. Schrimm I wouldn't.”
Babette snorted.
”In the first place,” she said, ”you couldn't go unless I go with you; and, in the second place, you couldn't get me to go there for a hundred dollars.”
Beyond suggesting that a hundred dollars was a lot of money, Sam made no further attempt to secure his liberty that morning; but on the following day he discreetly called his daughter's attention to a full-page advertis.e.m.e.nt in the morning paper.
”Ain't you was telling me the other evening you need to got some table napkins, Babette?” he asked.
Babette nodded.
”Well, here it is in the paper that new concern, Weldon, Jones & Company, is selling to-day napkins at three dollars a dozen--the best damask napkins,” he concluded.
Babette seized the paper and five minutes later she was poking hatpins into her scalp with an energy that made Sam's eyes water.
”Where are you going, Babette?” he said.
”I'm going downtown to that sale of linens,” she said, ”and I'll be back to take you out at one o'clock.”
”Don't hurry on my account,” Sam said. ”I've got enough here in the paper to keep me busy until to-night yet.”
Five minutes later the bas.e.m.e.nt door banged and Sam jumped to his feet.
With the agility of a man half his age he ran upstairs to the parlour floor and put on his hat and coat; and by the time Babette had turned the corner of Lenox Avenue Sam walked out of the areaway of his old-fas.h.i.+oned, three-story-and-bas.e.m.e.nt, high-stoop residence on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street en route for Mrs. Schrimm's equally old-fas.h.i.+oned residence on One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Street. There he descended the area steps; and finding the door ajar he walked into the bas.e.m.e.nt dining-room.
”_Wie gehts_, Mrs. Schrimm!” he cried cheerfully.
”Oo-ee! What a _Schreck_ you are giving me!” Mrs. Schrimm exclaimed.
”This is Sam Gembitz, ain't it?”
”Sure it is,” Sam replied. ”Ain't you afraid somebody is going to come in and steal something on you?”
”That's that girl again!” Mrs. Schrimm said as she bustled out to the areaway and slammed the door. ”That's one of them _Ungarischer_ girls, Mr. Gembitz, which all they could do is to eat up your whole ice-box empty and go out dancing on _Bauern_ b.a.l.l.s till all hours of the morning. Housework is something they don't know nothing about at all.
Well, Mr. Gembitz, I am hearing such tales about you--you are dying, and so on.”
”_Warum_ Mister Gembitz?” Sam said. ”Ain't you always called me Sam, Henrietta?”
Mrs. Schrimm blushed. In the lifetime of the late Mrs. Gembitz she had been a constant visitor at the Gembitz house, but under Babette's chilling influence the friends.h.i.+p had withered until it was only a memory.
”Why not?” she said. ”I certainly know you long enough, Sam.”
”Going on thirty-five years, Henrietta,” Sam said, ”when you and me and Regina come over here together. Things is very different nowadays, Henrietta. Me, I am an old man already.”
”What do you mean old?” Mrs. Schrimm cried. ”When my _Grossvater selig_ was sixty-eight he gets married for the third time yet.”
”Them old-timers was a different proposition entirely, Henrietta,” Sam said. ”If I would be talking about getting married, Henrietta, the least that happens to me is my children would put me in a lunatic asylum yet.”
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