"I believe you, Abe," Morris said soothingly. "Don't hurry back from
your lunch. I got lots of time."

"I would hurry back _oder_ not, as I please, Mawruss," Abe retorted as
he trudged off toward Hammersmith's restaurant. There he ministered to
his outraged feelings with a steaming dish of _gefuellte rinderbrust_,
and it was not till he had sopped up the last drop of gravy with a piece
of rye bread that he became conscious of a stranger sitting opposite to
him.

"Excuse me," said the latter, "you got a little soup on the lapel of
your coat."

"That ain't soup," Abe explained, as he dipped his napkin in his glass
of ice-water and started to remove the stain; "that's a little _gefuellte
rinderbrust_, which they fix it so thin and watery nowadays it might
just as well be soup the way it's always getting over your clothes."

"Things ain't the same like they used to be," the stranger remarked.
"Twenty--twenty-five years ago a feller could get a meal down on Canal
Street for a quarter--understand me--which it was really something you
could say was remarkable. Take any of them places, Gifkin's _oder_
Wasserbauer's. Ain't I right?"

"Did you used to went to Gifkin's?" Abe asked.

"I should say!" his vis-a-vis replied. "When I was a boy of fifteen I am
eating always regularly by Gifkin's."

"Me too. I used to eat a whole lot by Gifkin's," Abe said; "in fact, I
think I must of seen you there."

"I shouldn't wonder," the stranger continued. "At the time, I was
working by old man Baum right across from Gifkin's. He was my uncle
already."

"You are old man Baum's nephew!" Abe exclaimed. "How could that be? Old
man Baum only got one brother, Nathan, which he got mixed up in a
railroad accident near Knoxville. He was always up to some monkey
business, that feller, _olav hasholom_."

"Sure, I know," the stranger continued; "but old man Baum got also one
sister, my mother, Mrs. Gershon. You must remember my father, Sam
Gershon. Works for years by Richter as a cutter. My name is Mr. Max
Gershon."

"Why, sure I do!" Abe said, shaking hands with his new-found
acquaintance. "So you are a son of old man Gershon? Do you live here in
New York, Mr. Gershon?"

"No; I live in Johnsville, Texas," Mr. Gershon replied. "This is my
first visit North in twenty-five years. Yes, Mr.--er----"

"Potash," Abe said.

"Mr. Potash," Gershon continued, "I'm feeling pretty lonesome, I can
tell you. All my folks is dead: my father, my mothe