"
"Ach! That Malke! She goes back right off to De Lancey Street, where she
belongs," said the first stranger, plainly irritated.
"How did you find the stuff, Hyman?"
"Have you et your supper yet?"
"Yes--'tisn't Kosher, is it? How did you find the stuff?"
"No, it ain't Kosher--nothing ain't Kosher!"
"It's a devilish sight worse, though. How did you find the stuff,
Hyman?"
The one called Hyman here seemed to despair of putting off this query.
"No good! No good!--not a decent piece in the lot! I pledge you my word
as a gentleman I wouldn't pay the freight on it to Fourth Avenue!" Billy
remarked that the gentleman said "pletch" for pledge and "afanoo" for
avenue.
The second stranger, hearing this, at once became strangely cheerful and
insisted upon shaking hands with the first one.
"Fine, Hyman, fine! I'm delighted to hear you say so. Your words lift a
load of doubt from my mind. It came to me in there just now that I might
be incurring that supper for nothing but my sins!"
"Have your choke," said Hyman, a little bitterly.
"I have, Hyman, I have had my 'choke'!" said James Walsingham Price,
with a glance of disrelish toward the dining room.
It seemed clear to Billy Durgin, who reported this interview to me in a
manner of able realism, that these men were both crooks of the first
water.
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