Seeing that Mr. Sopkin still made no move, she began to coax and wheedle, woman-fashion. “Oi weh! Mr. Sopkin! Don’t be so mean. Come only. Your customers ain’t going to run away from you. If they do, they only got to come back, because you ain’t a skinner. You weigh the meat honest.”
How could Mr. Sopkin resist such seductive flattery?
“Hanneh Hayyeh!” he laughed. “You’re crazy up in the air, but nobody can say no to anything you take into your head.”
He tossed his knife down on the counter. “Everybody!” he called; “let us do her the pleasure and give a look on what she got to show us.”
“Oi weh! I ain’t got no time,” protested one. “I left my baby alone in the house locked in.”
“And I left a pot of eating on the stove boiling. It must be all burned away by this time.”
“But you all got time to stand around here and chatter like a box of monkeys, for hours,” admonished Mr. Sopkin. “This will only take a minute. You know Hanneh Hayyeh. We can’t tear ourselves away from her till we do what wills itself in her mind.”
Protesting and gesticulating, they all followed Mr. Sopkin as Hanneh Hayyeh led the way. Through the hallway of a dark, ill-smelling tenement, up two flights of crooked, rickety stairs, they filed. When Hanneh Hayyeh opened the door there were exclamations of wonder and joy: “Oi! Oi!” and “Ay! Ay! Takeh! Takeh!”
“Gold is shining from every corner!”
“Like for a holiday!”