The Competitive Nephew Part 19

"Yow!" Mrs. Schrimm murmured skeptically.

"Wouldn't they?" Sam continued. "Well, you could just bet your life they would. Why, I am sick only a couple weeks or so, Henrietta, and what do them boys do? They practically throw me out of my business yet and tell me I am retired."

"And you let 'em?" Mrs. Schrimm asked.

"What could I do?" Sam said. "I'm a sick man, Henrietta. Doctor Eichendorfer says I wouldn't live a year yet."

"Doctor Eichendorfer says that!" Mrs. Schrimm rejoined. "And do you told me that you are taking Doctor Eichendorfer's word for it?"

"Doctor Eichendorfer is a _Rosher_, I admit," Sam answered; "but he's a pretty good doctor, Henrietta."

"For the _gesund_, yes," Mrs. Schrimm admitted. "But if my cat would be sick, Sam, and Doctor Eichendorfer charges two cents a call yet, I wouldn't have him in my house at all. I got too much respect for my cat, Sam. With that feller, as soon as he comes into the bedroom he says the patient is dying; because if the poor feller does die, understand me, then Eichendorfer is a good prophet, and if he gets better then Eichendorfer is a good doctor. He always fixes it so he gets the credit both ways. But you got to acknowledge one thing about that feller, Sam--he knows how to charge, Sam; and he's a good collector. Everybody says so."

Sam nodded sadly.

"I give you right about that," he said.

"And, furthermore," Mrs. Schrimm began, "he----"

Mrs. Schrimm proceeded no further, however, for the sound of a saucepan boiling over brought her suddenly to her feet and she dashed into the kitchen.

Two minutes later a delicate, familiar odour a.s.sailed Sam's nostrils, and when Mrs. Schrimm returned she found him unconsciously licking his lips.

"Yes, Sam," she declared, "them _Ungarischer_ girls is worser as n.o.body in the kitchen. Pretty near ruins my whole lunch, and I got Mrs.

Krakauer coming, too. You know what a talker that woman is; and if I would give her something which it is a little burned, y'understand, the whole of New York hears about it."

"Well, Henrietta," Sam said as he rose and seized his hat, "I must be going."

"Going!" Mrs. Schrimm cried. "Why, you're only just coming. And besides, Sam, you are going to stop to lunch, too."

"Lunch!" Sam exclaimed. "Why, I don't eat lunch no more, Henrietta. All the doctor allows me is crackers and milk."

"Do you mean Doctor Eichendorfer allows you that?" Mrs. Schrimm asked, and Sam nodded.

"Then all I could say is," she continued, "that you are going to stay to lunch, because if Doctor Eichendorfer allows a man only crackers and milk, Sam, that's a sign he could eat _Wienerwurst_, dill pickles, and _Handkase_. _Aber_ if Doctor Eichendorfer says you could eat steaks and chops, stick to boiled eggs and milk--because steaks would kill you sure."

"But Babette would be back at one o'clock and if I didn't get home before then she would take my head off for me."

Mrs. Schrimm nodded sympathetically.

"So you wouldn't stay for lunch?" she said.

"I couldn't," Sam protested.

"Very well, then," Mrs. Schrimm cried as she hurried to the kitchen.

"Sit right down again, Sam; I would be right back."

When Mrs. Schrimm appeared a few minutes later she bore a cloth-covered tray which she placed on the table in front of Sam.

"You got until half-past twelve--ain't it?" she said; "so take your time, Sam. You should chew your food good, especially something which it is already half chopped, like _gefullte Rinderbrust_."

"_Gefullte Rinderbrust!_" Sam cried. "Why"--he poked at it with his knife--"Why, this always makes me sick." He balanced a good mouthful on his fork. "But, anyhow----" he concluded, and the rest of the sentence was an incoherent mumbling as he fell to ravenously. Moreover, he finished the succulent dish, gravy and all, and washed down the whole with a cup of coffee--not Hammersmith's coffee or the dark brown fluid, with a flavour of stale tobacco pipe, that Miss Babette Gembitz had come to persuade herself was coffee, but a fragrant decoction, softened by rich, sweet cream and containing all the delicious fragrance of the best thirty-five-cent coffee, fresh-ground from the grocer's.

"_Ja_, Henrietta," Sam cried as he rose to leave; "I am going to weddings and fas.h.i.+onable hotels, and I am eating with high-grade customers in restaurants which you would naturally take a high-grade customer to, understand me; but--would you believe me, Henrietta!--I am yet got to taste such coffee _oder_ such _gefullte Rinderbrust_ as you are giving me now."

Mrs. Schrimm beamed her acknowledgment of the compliment.

"To-morrow you would get some chicken frica.s.see, Sam," she said, "if you would get here at half-past eleven sharp."

Sam shook her hand fervently.

"Believe me, I would try my best," he said; and fifteen minutes later, when Babette entered the Gembitz residence on One Hundred and Eighteenth Street, she found Sam as she had left him--fairly buried in the financial page of the morning paper.

"Well, Babette," Sam cried, "so you see I went out and I took my walk and I come back and nothing happened to me. Ain't it?"

Babette nodded.

"I'll get you your lunch right away," she said; and without removing her hat and jacket, she brought him a gla.s.s of b.u.t.termilk and six plain crackers. Sam watched her until she had ascended the stairs to the first floor; then he stole on tiptoe to the sink in the butler's pantry and emptied the b.u.t.termilk down the wastepipe. A moment later he opened the door of a bookcase that stood near the mantelpiece and deposited five of the crackers behind six full-morocco volumes ent.i.tled "Prayers for Festivals and Holy Days." He was busily engaged in eating the remaining cracker when Babette returned; and all that afternoon he seemed so contented and even jovial that Babette determined to permit him his solitary walk on the following day.

Thus Sam not only ate the chicken frica.s.see but three days afterward, when he visited Mrs. Schrimm upon the representation to Babette that he would sit all the morning in Mt. Morris Park, he suggested to Henrietta that he show some return for her hospitality by taking her to luncheon at a fas.h.i.+onable hotel downtown.

"My restaurant days is over," Mrs. Schrimm declared.

"To oblige me," Sam pleaded. "I ain't been downtown in--excuse me--such a h.e.l.luva long time I don't know what it's like at all."

"If you are so anxious to get downtown, Sam," Mrs. Schrimm rejoined, "why don't you go down and get lunch with Henry? He'd be glad to have you."

"What, alone?" Sam cried. "Why, if Babette would hear of it----"

"Who's going to tell her?" Mrs. Schrimm asked, and Sam seized his hat with trembling fingers.

"By jimminy, I would do it!" he said, and then he paused irresolutely.

"But how could I get home in time if I did?"

A moment later he snapped his fingers.

"I got an idee!" he exclaimed. "You are such good friends with Mrs.

Krakauer--ain't it?"

Mrs. Schrimm nodded.

"Then you should do me the favour, Henrietta, and go over to Mrs.

Krakauer and tell her she should ring up Babette and tell her I am over at her house and I wouldn't be back till three o'clock."

"Couldn't you go downtown if you want to?" Mrs. Schrimm replied. "Must you got to ask Babette's permission first?"

Sam nodded slowly.