Elkan Lubliner, American. Glass Montague

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СКАЧАТЬ Minsk?" Philip and Marcus cried with one voice, and then Marcus sat down on the bench and rocked to and fro in an ecstasy of mirth.

      "In Minsk!" he gasped hysterically, and slapped his thighs by way of giving expression to his emotions. "Did you ever hear the like?"

      "Polatkin, do me the favour," Philip begged, "and don't make a damn fool of yourself."

      "What did I told you?" Polatkin retorted, but Philip turned to his nephew.

      "What did your father do with the ticket and the money I sent him?" he asked.

      "He sold the ticket and he used all the money for the wedding," the boy replied.

      "The wedding?" Philip exclaimed. "What wedding?"

      "The wedding with the widow," said the boy.

      "The widow?" Philip and Marcus shouted in unison. "What widow?"

      "The landlord's widow," the boy answered shyly.

      And then as there seemed nothing else to do he buried his face in his hands and wept aloud.

      "Nu, Philip," Marcus said, sitting down beside young Borrochson, "could the boy help it if his father is a Ganef?"

      Philip made no reply, and presently Marcus stooped and picked up the bundle.

      "Come," he said gently, "let's go up to the store."

      The journey uptown was not without its unpleasant features, for the size of the bundle not only barred them from both subway and elevated, but provoked a Broadway car conductor to exhibit what Marcus considered to be so biased and illiberal an attitude toward unrestricted immigration that he barely avoided a cerebral hemorrhage in resenting it. They finally prevailed on the driver of a belt-line car to accept them as passengers, and nearly half an hour elapsed before they arrived at Desbrosses Street; but after a dozen conductors in turn had declined to honour their transfer tickets they made the rest of their journey on foot.

      Philip and young Borrochson carried the offending bundle, for Marcus flatly declined to assist them. Indeed with every block his enthusiasm waned, so that when they at length reached Wooster Street his feelings toward his partner's nephew had undergone a complete change.

      "Don't fetch that thing in here," he said as Philip and young Borrochson entered the showroom with the bundle; "leave it in the shop. You got no business to bring the young feller up here in the first place."

      "What do you mean bring him up here?" Philip cried. "If you wouldn't butt in at all I intended to take him to my sister's a cousin on Pitt Street."

      Marcus threw his hat on a sample table and sat down heavily.

      "That's all the gratitude I am getting!" he declared with bitter emphasis. "Right in the busy season I dropped everything to help you out, and you turn on me like this."

      He rose to his feet suddenly, and seizing the bundle with both hands he flung it violently through the doorway.

      "Take him to Pitt Street," he said. "Take him to the devil for all I care. I am through with him."

      But Philip conducted his nephew no farther than round the corner on Canal Street, and when an hour later Yosel Borrochson returned with his uncle his top-boots had been discarded forever, while his wrinkled, semi-military garb had been exchanged for a neat suit of Oxford gray. Moreover, both he and Philip had consumed a hearty meal of coffee and rolls and were accordingly prepared to take a more cheerful outlook upon life, especially Philip.

      "Bleib du hier," he said as he led young Borrochson to a chair in the cutting room. "Ich Komm bald zurück."

      Then mindful of his partner's advice he broke into English. "Shtay here," he repeated in loud, staccato accents. "I would be right back. Verstehst du?"

      "Yess-ss," Yosel replied, uttering his first word of English.

      With a delighted grin Philip walked to the showroom, where Polatkin sat wiping away the crumbs of a belated luncheon of two dozen zwieback and a can of coffee.

      "Nu," he said conciliatingly, "what is it now?"

      "Marcus," Philip began with a nod of his head in the direction of the cutting room, "I want to show you something a picture."

      "A picture!" Polatkin repeated as he rose to his feet. "What do you mean a picture?"

      "Come," Philip said; "I'll show you."

      He led the way to the cutting room, where Yosel sat awaiting his uncle's return.

      "What do you think of him now?" Philip demanded. "Ain't he a good-looking young feller?"

      Marcus shrugged in a non-committal manner.

      "Look what a bright eye he got it," Philip insisted. "You could tell by looking at him only that he comes from a good family."

      "He looks a boy like any other boy," said Marcus.

      "But even if no one would told you, Marcus, you could see from his forehead yet – and the big head he's got it – you could see that somewheres is Rabonim in the family."

      "Yow!" Marcus exclaimed. "You could just so much see from his head that his grandfather is a rabbi as you could see from his hands that his father is a crook." He turned impatiently away. "So instead you should be talking a lot of nonsense, Philip, you should set the boy to work sweeping the floor," he continued. "Also for a beginning we would start him in at three dollars a week, and if the boy gets worth it pretty soon we could give him four."

      In teaching his nephew the English language Philip Scheikowitz adopted no particular system of pedagogy, but he combined the methods of Ollendorf, Chardenal, Ahn and Polatkin so successfully that in a few days Joseph possessed a fairly extensive vocabulary. To be sure, every other word was acquired at the cost of a clump over the side of the head, but beyond a slight ringing of the left ear that persisted for nearly six months the Polatkin method of instruction vindicated itself, and by the end of the year Joseph's speech differed in no way from that of his employers.

      "Ain't it something which you really could say is wonderful the way that boy gets along?" Philip declared to his partner, as the first anniversary of Joseph's landing approached. "Honestly, Marcus, that boy talks English like he would be born here already."

      "Sure, I know," Marcus agreed. "He's got altogether too much to say for himself. Only this morning he tells me he wants a raise to six dollars a week."

      "Could you blame him?" Philip asked mildly. "He's doing good work here, Marcus."

      "Yow! he's doing good work!" Marcus exclaimed. "He's fresh like anything, Scheikowitz. If you give him the least little encouragement, Scheikowitz, he would stand there and talk to you all day yet."

      "Not to me he don't," Philip retorted. "Lots of times I am asking him questions about the folks in the old country and always he tells me: 'With greenhorns like them I don't bother myself at all.' Calls his father a greenhorn yet!"

      Marcus flapped his right hand in a gesture of impatience.

      "He could call his father a whole lot worse," he said. "Why, that Ganef ain't even wrote you at all since the boy comes over here. Not only he's a crook, Scheikowitz, but he's got a heart like a brick."

      Philip СКАЧАТЬ