Miss Lazar was watching me at a respectful distance. Mrs. Kalch was deep in a game of pinochle in a small ground-floor room that gave out on the veranda. The window was open and I could hear Mrs. Kalch's voice. She seemed to have been losing. The little room, by the way, was used both as a synagogue and a gambling-room. In the mornings, before breakfast, it was filled with old men in praying-shawls and phylacteries, while the rest of the day, until late at night, it was in the possession of card-players
I wanted to wire Bender to send a message to Fanny, in my name, stating that I had been unavoidably detained in the city, but I lacked the energy to do so. I had not even the energy to extricate myself from the attentions of the pretty mother of the homely girl
That charity meeting bothered me more than anything else. One was apt to impute my absence to meanness. I pictured Kaplan's disappointment, and I felt like going to Tannersville for his sake, if for no other reason. The next best thing would have been to have Bender wire my contribution to each of the two funds. But I did not stir
The hotel-keeper came out to remind me of my train
"Thank you," I said, with a smile. "But the weather is too confoundedly good. I'm too lazy to leave your place, Rivesman. You must have ordered this weather on purpose to detain me."
I was hoping, of course, that my presence in this hotel would be unknown to the Kaplans, for some time at least. Soon, however, something happened which made it inevitable that they should hear of it that very evening
On Sundays the Jewish summer hotels are usually visited by committees of various philanthropic institutions who go from place to place making speeches and collecting donations. One such committee appeared in the dining-room of the Rigi Kulm at the dinner-hour, which on Sundays was between 1 and 3. It represented a day nursery, an establishment where the children of the East Side poor are taken care of while their mothers are at work, and it consisted of two men, one of whom was an eloquent young rabbi.
As the ecclesiastic took his stand near the piano and began his appeal my heart sank within me. I had once met him at Kaplan's house, where he was a frequent visitor, and had given him a check. It goes without saying that I had to give him a contribution now and to talk to him. At this I learned, to my consternation, that he was going to Tannersville that very afternoon
"Shall I convey your regards?" he asked
"Very kind of you," I answered, and I added in an undertone, out of
Mrs.