“You mush vant you tventy-fife dollars,” he presently nerved himself up to say in English, breaking an awkward pause.
“I should cough!” Mamie rejoined.
“In a coupel a veeksh, Mamie, as sure as my name is Jake.”
“In a couple o’ veeks! No, sirree! I mus’ have my money at oncet. I don’ know vere you vill get it, dough. Vy, a married man!”—with a chuckle. “You got a —— of a lot o’ t’ings to pay for. You took de foinitsha by a custom peddler, ain’ it? But what a —— do I care? I vant my money. I voiked hard enough for it.”
“Don’ shpeak English. She’ll t’ink I don’ knu vot ve shpeakin’,” he besought her, in accents which implied intimacy between the two of them and a common aloofness from Gitl.
“Vot d’I care vot she t’inks? She’s your vife, ain’ it? Vell, she mus’ know ev’ryt’ing. Dot’s right! A husban’ dass’n’t hide not’ink from his vife!”—with another chuckle and another look of deadly sarcasm at Gitl “I can say de same in Jewish——”
“Shurr-r up, Mamie!” he interrupted her, gaspingly.
“Don’tch you like it, lump it! A vife mus’n’t be skinned like a strange lady, see?” she pursued inexorably. “O’ly a strange goil a feller might bluff dot he ain’ married, and skin her out of tventy-five dollars.” In point of fact, he had never directly given himself out for a single man to her. But it did not even occur to him to defend himself on that score.
“Mamie! Ma-a-mie! Shtop! I’ll pay you ev’ry shent. Shpeak Jewesh, pleashe!” he implored, as if for life.
“You’r’ afraid of her? Dot’s right! Dot’s right! Dot’s nice! All religious peoples is afraid of deir vifes. But vy didn’ you say you vas married from de sta’t, an’ dot you vant money to send for dem?” she tortured him, with a lingering arch leer.