Part 44 (2/2)

”Did the customers ever done me anything, Mr. Trinkmann?” Louis retorted. ”Why should I get fresh to the customers which every one of them is my friends, Mr. Trinkmann? And as for getting fresh to you, Mr.

Trinkmann, if I would want to I would. Otherwise not.”

With this defiance Louis picked up his polis.h.i.+ng cloth and his ap.r.o.n and proceeded to the kitchen, to which Marcus and Albert had already retreated. His courage remained with him until he had refastened his ap.r.o.n, and then he discerned Marcus and Albert to be regarding him with so mournful a gaze that the balloon again expanded in his throat, and forthwith--to pursue the simile further--it burst. He opened the door leading from the kitchen to the paved s.p.a.ce littered with packing boxes, which had once been the backyard, and despite the cold March weather he stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

Ten minutes later the first luncheon customer arrived and Louis hastened to wait upon him. It was Max Maikafer, salesman for Freesam, Mayer & Co., and he greeted Louis with the familiarity of six years'

daily acquaintance.

”_Nu_, Louis,” he said, ”what's the matter you are catching such a cold in your head?”

Louis only sniffled faintly in reply.

”A feller b.u.ms round till all hours of the night, understand me,” Max continued, ”and sooner or later, Louis, a lowlife--a _s.h.i.+kkerer_--gives him a _Schlag_ on the top from the head, _verstehest du_, and he would got worser as a cold, Louis.”

Louis received this admonition with a nod, since he was incapable of coherent speech.

”So, therefore, Louis,” Max concluded, as he looked in a puzzled fas.h.i.+on at Louis' puffed eyelids, ”you should bring me some _Kreploch_ soup and a little _gefullte Rinderbrust_, not too much gravy.”

He watched Louis retire to the kitchen and then he motioned to Albert, who was industriously polis.h.i.+ng the gla.s.ses at a nearby table.

”What's the matter with Louis, Albert?” he asked.

”Fired,” Albert said out of the corner of his mouth, with one eye on the cas.h.i.+er's desk, where Mr. Trinkmann was fast approaching the borderline of insanity over a maze of figures representing the previous day's receipts.

”What for?” Max asked.

”I should know what for!” Albert exclaimed. ”The boss is mad on account he got twins, so he picks on Louis that the ashtrays ain't clean and the forks, neither. So Louis he don't say nothing, and Trinkmann gets mad and fires him.”

He glanced furtively at the cas.h.i.+er's desk just as Trinkmann suddenly tore up his paperful of figures, and in one frightened bound Albert was once more at his gla.s.s polis.h.i.+ng.

”Well, Trinkmann,” Max cried, as he made ready to absorb the soup by tucking one corner of his napkin into the top of his collar, ”I must got to congradulate you.”

Trinkmann was on his way to the kitchen for the purpose of abusing the pantryman as a measure of relief to his figure-harried brain. He paused at Max's table and distorted his face in what he conceived to be an amiable grin.

”No one compels you to congradulate me, Mr. Maikafer,” he said, ”and, anyhow, Mr. Maikafer, with business the way it is, understand me, twins ain't such _Simcha_, neither.”

”Sure, I know,” Max rejoined; ”but so far as I could see, Trinkmann, you ain't got no kick coming. You do a good business here. You got three good waiters and the customers don't complain none.”

”Don't they?” Trinkmann grunted.

”Not at the waiters, Trinkmann,” Max said significantly. ”And the food is all right, too, Trinkmann. The only thing is, Trinkmann, when a feller got a nice _gemutlicher_ place like you got it here, y'understand, he should do his bestest that he keeps it that way.”

Trinkmann's smile became a trifle less forced at Max's use of the adjective _gemutlicher_, for which the English language has no just equivalent, since it at once combines the meanings of cozy, comfortable, good-natured, and homelike.

”Certainly, I am always trying to keep my place _gemutlich_, Mr.

Maikafer,” Trinkmann declared, ”but when you got waiters, Mr. Maikafer, which they----”

”Waiters ain't got nothing to do with it, Trinkmann,” Max interrupted.

”On Sutter Avenue, Brownsville, in boom times already was a feller--still a good friend of mine--by the name Ringentaub, which runs a restaurant, Trinkmann, and everybody goes there on account he keeps a place which you could really say was _gemutlich_. The chairs was old-fas.h.i.+oned, _mit_ cane seats into 'em, which they sagged in the right place, so that if you was sitting down, y'understand, you _knew_ you was sitting down, not like some chairs which I seen it in restaurants, Trinkmann, which if you was sitting down, you might just as well be standing up for all the comfort you get out of it.”

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