on his brow
and began to take off his coat as he strode back toward the cutting
room. He frowned still more deeply as Johnny confronted him.

"Again!" he exclaimed, looking about him in angry despair as if he had
some wild idea of calling a porter. "First it's Lofty; then it's some
slick real estate schemer; then it's you! I will not sell the lease!"

"I won't say lease this time," Johnny hastily assured him.

"Then that is good," gruffly assented Ersten with a trace of a
sarcastic snarl.

"Heinrich Schnitt," remarked Johnny.

That name was an open sesame. Louis Ersten stopped immediately with his
coat half-off.

"So-o-o!" he ejaculated, surprised into a German exclamation that he
had long since deliberately laid aside. "What is it about Heinrich?"

"I saw him at Coney Island last night. He doesn't look well."

"He don't work. It makes him sick!" Ersten's voice was as gruff as
ever; but Johnny, watching narrowly, saw that he was concerned,
nevertheless.

"His eyes are bad," went on Johnny, "but I think he would like to come
back to work."

"Did he say it?" asked Ersten with a haste which betrayed the eagerness
he did not want to show.

"Not exactly," admitted Johnny, "but if he knew that he could have a
workroom where there is a better light I know he would like to come.
His eyes are bad, you know."

"I said it makes him sick not to work," insisted Ersten. "If he wants
to come he knows the way."

"His job's waiting for him, isn't it?"

"In this place, yes. In no other place. I don't move my shop to please
my coat cutter--even if he is the best in New York and a boy that come
over from the old country with me in the same ship, and his word as
good as gold money. It's like I told Heinrich when he left: If he comes
back to me he comes back here--in this place. Are his eyes very bad?"

"Not very," judged Johnny. "He must take care of them though."

"Sure he must," agreed Ersten. "We're getting old. Thirty-seven years
we worked together. I stood up for Heinrich at his wedding and he stood
up for me at mine. He's a stubborn assel!"

"That's the trouble," mused Johnny, "He said he wouldn't work in this
shop any more."

"Here must he come--in this place!" reiterated Ersten, instantly stern;
and he walked sturdily away, removing his coat.

Johnny found Heinrich Schnitt weeding onions, picking out each weed
with minute care and petting the tender young bulbs through their
covering of soft earth as he went