"Weren't you once hard up yourself, Mr. Nodelman? You have made a success of it, and now it would only be right that you should help another fellow get up in the world. You won't lose a cent by it, either. I take an oath on it."
"You can't have an oath cashed in a bank, can you?"
"Why did that commission merchant take a chance? If a Gentile is willing to help a Jew, and one whom he had never seen before, you should not hesitate, either."
"Well, there is no use talking about it," was his final decision
The following day I received a letter from him, inviting me to his office
His warehouse occupied a vast loft on a little street off Broadway. Arrived there, I had to pass several men, all in their shirt-sleeves, who were attacking mountains of cloth with long, narrow knives. One of these directed me to a remote window, in front of which I presently found Nodelman lecturing a man who wore a tape-measure around his neck
Nodelman kept me waiting, without offering me a scat, a good half-hour. He was in his shirt-sleeves, like the others, yet he looked far more dignified than I had ever seen him look before. It was as though the environment of his little kingdom had made another man of him
Finally, he left the man with the tape-measure and silently led me into his little private office, a narrow strip of partitioned-off space at the other end of the loft
When we were seated and the partition door was shut he said, with grave mien, "Well," and fell silent again
I gazed at him patiently