"If she is she can dance with some of the other fellows. I wouldn't be jealous. There are plenty of other ladies. I should not take fifty ladies for this chance of seeing you. Honest."
He took me into a little candy-store, dazzlingly lighted and mirrored and filled with marble-topped tables
We seated ourselves and he gave the order. He did so rather swaggeringly, but his manner to me was one of affectionate and compassionate respectfulness
"Oh, I am so glad to see you," he said. "You remember the ship?"
"As if one could ever forget things of that kind."
"I have often thought of you. 'I wonder what has become of him,' I said to myself." He did not remember my name, or perhaps he had never known it, so I had to introduce myself afresh. The contrast between his flashy clothes and my frowsy, wretched-looking appearance, as I saw ourselves in the mirrors on either side of me, made me sorely ill at ease. The brilliancy of the gaslight chafed my nerves. It was as though it had been turned on for the express purpose of illuminating my disgrace. I was longing to go away, but Gitelson fell to questioning me about my affairs once more, and this time he did so with such unfeigned concern that I told him the whole cheerless story of my sixteen months' life in America
He was touched. In his mild, unemphatic way he expressed heartfelt sympathy
"But why don't you learn some trade?" he inquired. "You don't seem to be fit for business, anyhow" (the last two words in mispronounced English)
"Everybody is telling me that."
"There you are. You just listen to me, Mr. Levinsky. You won't be sorry for it." He proposed machine-operating in a cloak-shop, which paid even better than tailoring and was far easier to learn. Finally he offered to introduce me to an operator who would teach me the trade, and to pay him my tuition fee