e old lady at her ease.

"Make it!" Mrs. Lesengeld answered. "I should say I do. Why you wouldn't
believe the way my son-in-law is crazy about it. We got it every Sunday
regular, and I tell you what I would do, Yetta."

She laid her hand on Yetta's arm and her face broke into a thousand tiny
wrinkles of hospitality.

"You should come Friday to lunch sure," she declared, "and we would got
some brown stewed fish sweet and sour and a good plate of _Bortch_ to
begin with."

Sol Klinger had been leaning back in his chair in an effort to overhear
their conversation, and at this announcement he broke into a broad
guffaw, which ran around the table after he had related the cause of it
to his guests. Indeed, so much did Sol relish the joke that with it he
entertained the occupants of about a dozen seats in the smoking car of
the 8:04 express the next morning, and he was so full of it when he
entered Hammersmith's Restaurant the following noon that he could not
forego the pleasure of visiting Marcus Polatkin's table and relating it
to Polatkin himself.

Polatkin heard him through without a smile and when at its conclusion
Klinger broke into a hysterical appreciation of his own humour, Polatkin
shrugged.

"I suppose, Klinger," he said, "your poor mother, _olav hasholom_,
didn't wear a _sheitel_ neither, ain't it?"

"My mother, _olav hasholom_, would got more sense as to butt in to a
place like that," Klinger retorted.

"Even if you wouldn't of been ashamed to have taken her there, Klinger,"
he added.

Klinger flushed angrily.

"That ain't here or there, Polatkin," he said. "You should ought to put
your partner wise, Polatkin, that he shouldn't go dragging in an old
_Bube_ into a place like the Salisbury and talking such nonsense like
brown stewed fish sweet and sour."

He broke into another laugh at the recollection of it--a laugh that was
louder but hardly as unforced as the first one.

"What's the matter _mit_ brown stewed fish sweet and sour, Klinger?"
Polatkin asked. "I eat already a lot of _a-la's_ and _en cazzerolls_ in
a whole lot of places just so _grossartig_ as the Salisbury, understand
me, and I would _schenck_ you a million of 'em for one plate of brown
stewed fish sweet and sour like your mother made it from _zu Hause_
yet."

"But what for an interest does a merchant like Scharley got to hear such
things," Klinger protested lamely. "Honestly, I was ashamed for your
partner's sake to hear such a talk