"Why, why," I replied. "The sorrel soup is fit for a king."
"You mean for a president," Max corrected me. "We are in
America, not in Europe."
"How do you know the President of the United States would care for a plate of cold sorrel soup?"
"And how do you know a king would?" "If you care for it, I am satisfied," the hostess said to me
"I certainly do. I haven't eaten anything like it since I left home," I replied
"Feed him well, Dvorah. Now is your chance. He will soon be a millionaire, don't you know. Then he won't bother about calling on poor people like us."
"But I have said the sorrel soup is fit for a king, and a king has many millions," I rejoined. "I shall always be glad to come, provided Lucy and Dannie have no objection." "You remember their names, don't you?" Mrs. Margolis said, beamingly. "You certainly have a good memory."
"Who else should have one?" her husband chimed in. "I have told you he was going to study to be a doctor or a lawyer. Lucy, did you hear what uncle said? If you let him in he will come to see us even when he is worth a million. What do you say? Will you let him in?"
Lucy grinned childishly
Max did most of the talking. He entertained me with stories of some curious weddings which he said had recently been celebrated in his dance-halls, and, as usual, it was not easy to draw a line of demarkation between fact and fiction. Of one bridegroom, who had agreed to the marriage under threats of violence from the girl's father, he said: "You should have seen the fellow! He looked like a man going to the electric chair. They were afraid he might bolt, so the bride's father and brother, big, strapping fellows both, stuck to him like two detectives. 'You had better not make monkey business,' they said to him. 'If you don't want a wedding, you'll have a funeral.' That's exactly what they said to him. I was standing close to them and I heard it with my own ears. May I not live till to-morrow if I did not." Mrs. Margolis looked down shamefacedly. She certainly was not unaware of her husband's failing, and she obviously took anything but pride in it. As I glanced at her face at this moment it struck me as a singularly truthful face. "Those eyes of hers do not express anger, but integrity," I said to myself. And the more I looked at her, watched her gestures, and listened to her voice, the stronger grew my impression that she was a serious-minded, ingenuous woman, incapable of playing a part. Her mannerisms were mostly her version of manners, and those that were not were frankly affected, as it were