Just Around the Corner Part 28

"Yes, mamma."

"Yes, we got a nice little apartment here, Mr. Gump; but for what we pay it might be better. If I didn't dread the _ged.i.n.ks_ of moving we could do better for the money; but we got comfort here, even if it ain't so grand. Sometimes, on account of Birdie, I say we take a bigger place; but who knows how long she is at home--not that we're in a hurry with her, but you know how it is when a girl reaches a certain age."

"Yes, indeed," said Mr. Gump.

"I'm in no hurry," said Birdie.

"I don't say that, neither. When a girl meets the right one it's different. Look at Ray--two hours before she was engaged she didn't know it was going to happen!"

"Come right in, papa. Mr. Gump is here--so tired he is he hates to come in."

There are a few epics waiting to be dug out of remote corners. One day an American drama will be born in a Western shack or under some East Side stairway; one day a prophet will look within the dingy temple of a Mr. Katzenstein at the warm red heart beating beneath a hairy chest, and there find a cla.s.sic rune to the men who moil and toil, and pay millinery bills with a three-figure check; another day an elegiac will be written to the men who slip the shoes off their aching feet in the merciful seclusion of their alternate Wednesday-night subscription boxes and sit through four hours of Wagner--facing an underdressed daughter, two notes due on the morrow, and a remote stageful of vocalizing figures especially designed for his alternate and inquisitional Wednesday nights.

Life had whacked hard at Mr. Katzenstein, writ across his face in a thousand welts and wrinkles, bent his knees and fingers, and calloused his hands.

"Good evening, Mr. Gump--good evening! I say to mamma the young folks got no time for us in here. I'm right?"

"The more the merrier!" said Mr. Gump, reseating himself.

"Mr. Katzenstein says he used to know your father, Mr. Gump."

"Rudolph Gump! I should say so--yes. Believe me, I wish I had half a dollar for every s.h.i.+rtwaist I bought off him in my life! Your father and me played side by each down on Cedar Street before you was born. I knew him longer as you--he was a good silk man, was Rudolph Gump. Have a cigar, young man?"

"Thanks--I don't smoke."

"Ain't it wonderful, though, that in a city like this my husband should know you before you was born?"

Mrs. Katzenstein clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and patted her hands together. Birdie regarded the company with polite interest.

"Wonders never cease!" she said.

"Birdie, go get your papa his chair out from the dining-room--since he's got lumbago these straight-backs ain't comfortable for him."

"Let me go for you, Miss Birdie."

"Oh no, Marcus--I know just where it is." She smiled at him with her eyes--bright eyes that were full of warmth and reflected firelight.

Mr. Katzenstein groped in his side-pocket for a match, ran his tongue horizontally along a cigar, and puffed it slowly into life.

"How's business?" he said, between puffs, with the lighted match still applied to the end of his cigar.

"We can't complain, Mr. Katzenstein. If this strike don't reach to the piece-workers we can't complain."

"I hear your firm opens a new factory."

"Yes; we're going to put in a line of March Hare neckwear and manufacture it in Newark."

"My wife tells me you manage the new factory--eh?"

"Oh, I can't say that, Mr. Katzenstein; in fact--"

"_Ach_, papa, I didn't say for sure; the ladies this afternoon--"

"Here's you chair, papa."

Mr. Grump sprang to her aid.

"Thanks, Marcus," she said.

"What do you think of my girl there, Gump? She's a fine one--not?"

"Aw, now, papa, you quit! What'll Marcus think--such goings-on!"

"How her papa spoils her, Mr. Gump, you won't believe! Not one thing that girl wants she don't get! Last week she meets her papa down-town after the matinee and comes home with a new m.u.f.f. Yesterday, before he goes down-town, she gets from him a check for some business like a silver-mesh bag, like the girls are wearing. Just seems like she has to have everything she sees!"

"All I got to say, Gump, you should some day have just such a daughter!"

"Papa!"

"Papa!"

"You couldn't wish me better," said Mr. Gump.

Conversation drifted, and after a time Birdie regarded her mother with level eyes; then her lids drooped and slowly raised--as significantly as the red and green eyes that wink and signal in the black path of the midnight flier.

"Well, papa, we must excuse ourselves. When young folks get together they have no time for old ones."

"Now, mamma!" protested Birdie. "We're glad if you stay."

"I was young once myself," said Mr. Katzenstein; "and I like 'em yet, Gump! Take it from me, I like 'em yet! Mamma here thinks I not got an eye for the nice girls still; but I say what she don't know don't hurt her--eh?"

"I should worry!" said Mrs. Katzenstein, regarding her husband with gentle eyes. "Put your hand on my shoulder, papa. All day he makes the hardest work for himself, and then at night comes home with a lame back."

"Good night, Gump! Come round and we play pinochle."

"I hope you don't think we're stingy with light, Mr. Gump. If I had my way they'd all be going; but Birdie likes only the gas-grate. My Ray was the same way, never a great one for much light."

"I'm the same, too," replied Mr. Gump.

"Good night!"

"Good night!"

Birdie remained seated in the mellow flicker of the fire-dance; its glow lit her large, well-featured face intermittently and set the stars in her hair scintillating. The quiet of late evening fell over the room.

"What a grand old pair, Birdie!"

"Yes," she said, softly--very softly.